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James Hansen on the Warmest Year Brouhaha
Jamie writes "In response to earlier reports, Dr. James Hansen, top climate scientist with NASA, has issued a statement on the recent global warming data correction. He points out 'the effect on global temperature was of order one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and uncorrected curves are indistinguishable.' In a second email he shows maps of U.S. temperatures relative to the world in 1934 and 1998, explains why the error occurred (it was not, as reported, a 'Y2K bug') and, in response to errors by 'Fox, Washington Times, and their like,' attacks the 'deceit' of those who 'are not stupid [but] seek to create a brouhaha and muddy the waters in the climate change story.'"
Brouhaha?
Ha-HA-ha!
-- Boycott Shell
In other news, politicians make a stance to INCREASE global warming to provide economic growth for the automobile industry... others blame terrorists for the data error.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
The bigger issue is the cloak of secrecy around the data and the algorithms used to generate the outputs. I do not understand why all data wouldn't be publicly available. Is there one place to go to see the data used to make the dire predictions I hear all over the place? I generally accept global warming as a fact, but when I see the amount of contortions one person had to go through to figure out there was a problem in the first place, I start to get suspicious.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"In a second email he shows maps of U.S. temperatures relative to the world in 1934 and 1998, explains why the error occurred"
Since pollution is suppose to be one of the climate changing factors. Did we pollute less in 1934 than we did in 1998? And did the nature of the pollution change?
Otherwise, why link to admitted liar David Brock, and his Soros-funded Media Matters?
Whenever somebody tells me that I must take immediate action, I reach for my wallet.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
...my arse! It's been pissing rain here since April - and I'm getting a bit sick of it.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
If the corrected US data doesn't indicate such a large statistical anomaly on a global basis, why are we blaming the US, US government, US Citizens for creating the massive global warming effect being reported? Sounds like we might be less of the cause then?
Fox and Co think that the world consist only of USA, news at 10.
They have looked solely at the USA graphs and completely ignored the world ones which are the ones that look really scary. They have also declared the problem with the USA data analysis to be a flaw in the data for the whole world.
Is anyone surprised? I am not...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Good thing the left wing is on target!!111
Ok, so 1998 was still the warmest - but not by more than a tiny fraction of a degree over 1934, and separated by a decrease to 1800s-era temps.
The bigger story I see in TFA's graphs is: we're looking at an increase of less than 1 degree C per century.
What's the fuss?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
He points out 'the effect on global temperature was of order one-thousandth of a degree
.001 of a degreethis changed 1938 to the warmest year on record over 1998? Wait, is that Fahrenheit or Centigrade?
And
I think someone is trying to downplay the error.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I thought it muddied the waters plenty when he
- published incorrect data leading to incorect conclusions,
- refused to release his algorithm so it had to be reverse-engineered,
- and deliberately exaggerated the global warming threat to push his personal agenda (which he later admitted).
Release the data, all of it, openly. NOAA data is available, for a fee to download I think, and so should all of the other data. I don't mean "should" as in "legislated", I mean "should" as in "should" or, "it would be nice."
If all of the data were released in this fashion, in one central "trusted" place, one could assume that as more and more analysts take a gander - themes will appear and more and more of the graphs could be trusted.
This article does not sound like it was written by a scientist, it sounds like a poor little man who is outraged and upset that anyone would question his admitidly flawed data. I think he needs to take a pill. If Global Warming has increased the earths tempature from .3-.6 C then a .15C IS a big deal.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit!
Why do we still call it global warming? It's global climate change. Some areas will get warmer. Some areas will get cooler. Some areas will be under water.
:-)
The nice thing about it is that the majority of us will live to see the changes. We are in for some interesting times over the next 30-50 years.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Well the scientific method is limited when it comes to something as big as the earth. Too many variables. No control planet(s). Consequences of "what if..." are potentially irreversible. Basically it's guessing and a lot of modeling.
Europe is getting icredibly hot in the last decade or two. Older people dying in scores from heat and the electricity supply networks need an overhaul because of millions of new air conditioning units added every year. Agriculture is taking a big hit. Most europeans would gladly convert to the religion of Manitou if he managed to vanish the yankee and their SUVs and replace them with noble redskins on their mustangs.
It really doesn't matter if I ride public transport and bicycle, use only one TV set, install CFL lightbulbs when a pig fat american fires up a six liter V8 hemi street tank just to go a to the grocery a few hundred yards afar. Some 60% of US air pollution is from traffic.
If America was humble enough to ask for high-speed railways, both France and Japan would build and run transcontinental superexpresses for free, just to get rid of USA's coast-to-coast car and plane traffic, which are major polluters.
What yankees spew chokes all other people on Earth. In Australia you essentially cannot leave the house now for much of the summer due to 43-47 centigrades hot every day, plus the huge UV dosage (the southern pole ozone hole still hasn't healed). People watch each other day and night, like in a police state, because there are so bad water tap restrictions as reservoirs evaporate faster than ever.
Globall, we are close to a tipping point, but you cannot see this from the USA.
The error occurred in the US temperature record. As the US is but a small part of the world, it's surface temperatures make up only about 2% of the global average.
Athropogenic green house gas emissions are not proportional to land area, however, but (primarily) to fossil fuel use. As the US consumes approx 20% of the world's production of these fuels, it is considered disproportionately responsible for the problem.
he shows maps of U.S. temperatures relative to the world in 1934 and 1998
Just a thought, but the first word in "Global Warming" is "Global", would he be so kind as to show us "Global" maps? They do exist, and these temperatures were recorded back much further than 1934.
At least most people have given up on saying it isn't happening at all - a lot of opponents have moved to saying it's a purely solar effect. Watching the oil industry they are fairly split too so they can't be blamed - it's governments stirring up the mess and whether they are right or wrong Lysenkoism is taking over in US science and wreaking havoc. I would hate to be a climate scientist caught in the middle having the choice of either potentially career ending ridicule or government funding.
If you want to do something for free, go out and do it for free! Don't wait for someone to ask!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
James Hansen is the Ward Churchill of NASA scientists. He has lost all credibility.
an ill wind that blows no good
A quick search on Foxnews show they mention that it is about the US only a few times.
Also it does not make 1934,1998 or 2005(what ever of thoses 3 years) the hottest year as the OP says, it makes it the hottest year in recent recorded time, guess we better start a new topic about that.
Ok, I admit, I had to look this one up:
Usufruct is the legal right to derive profit or benefit from the property of others. It comes from the latin roots for "use" and "fruits," in the sense that you are using the fruits of someone else's labor.
Wikipedia
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
a legal Dictionary
In the case of Hansen's second email, he is, I think, using it to describe how captains of industry are benefitting from the global warming nay-sayers' spin on this correction. He also uses it in the sense that successive generations have a right and claim to the enjoy the Earth, so we'd better take care of it, even as we benefit from it.
But "Global Climate Change" doesn't pack such a punch on headlines. Something like "Global Climate Chaos" or "Global Climate Uncertainty" would have a good PR image, as would "Global Climate Flooding" (especially for those people like me in Three Counties who have recently been flooded out).
;)
"Global Climate Change" has about as much punch to most people as "Global Climate Variation" or "Slight Disturbance in Global Weather".
Who needs real science when you've got a punchy name that evokes emotions and provides a lasting impression?
Or global head in the sand time, or global denial or whatever.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
"When we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
I'm sure that the next hundred years will be much less "interesting" than the previous hundred years, which saw the violent deaths of 250,000,000 people.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Ok, which is the warmest year now? 1934 or 1998?
He's a scientist with an ego... which most scientists have and is a danger and possibly a barrier to objectivity. Being corrected and somewhat mocked for his mistake is, I'm sure, embarrassing and a shot to his ego. Of course, if he had simply released his findings instead of using them as a platform to promote his theories of climate change, I'm quite sure the response to the mistake would not have been so negative. The fact that they trumpeted the first findings and quietly released the second makes one wonder about the real reason for releasing them in the first place. Do real scientists keep things to themselves if their experiments don't fit with their original hypothesis? Do they tweak experiments until they come up with the intended outcome? That's not science... that's politics.
because the total heat content of the of the earth, or "globe" if you will, and its atmosphere is expected to rise. likewise, you can talk about the increase in global longevity, even if not every country has a rising life expectancy.
He who controls the Global Warming data, controls the universe!
Why do we still call it global warming? It's global climate change. Some areas will get warmer. Some areas will get cooler. Some areas will be under water.
Why not just call it "The Global OMG The Weather Is Doing The Same Stuff Over the Last Billion Years"
It just went through Moveon.org first
"According to the March 10, 2004, Washington Post, "The Democratic 527 organizations have drawn support from some wealthy liberals determined to defeat Bush. They include financier George Soros who gave $1.46 million to MoveOn.org (in the form of matching funds to recruit additional small donors); Peter B. Lewis, chief executive of the Progressive Corp., who gave $500,000 to MoveOn; and Linda Pritzker, of the Hyatt hotel family, and her Sustainable World Corp., who gave $4 million to the joint fundraising committee."
and from Media Matters page on Wiki
"Media Matters has received financial support from MoveOn.org"
What a surprise, Media Matters lied.
More understandably, they neglected to mention that May 1934 was some of the worst weather to hit the US for a long time, and it wiped out the agriculture of many states, it was called the "Dust Bowl". And it was caused by agriculture concerns that had no concern whatsoever for the environment. So they are pointing back to an earlier environmental disaster.
"But the US is one of the top (or the top) polluter of greenhouse gases. "
China's playing catchup. At least in the US the loss of manufacturing and the increase in service type jobs should do wonders for our pollution score.
It wasn't caused by a Y2K clitch. The year is 2007. Just because we still code years as "07" is no longer a Y2K clitch. Whether the problem was a date of "07" or not, the end conclusion to the problem is that the self-declared 'scientists' are morons.
BTW, tomorrows feature will be that the universe is being warmed by man.
Very few people don't acknowledge that there isn't a Global Climate Change. What they do have issues with is that humans are the sole cause of the issue. There have been periods in the recent past that have gone through the same type of climate changes, and during that period, humans weren't driving cars or buying Barbie dolls produced in China.
Say for the sake of argument that the human stops producing all green house gases today, but the climate continues to change because we know it does and will (see the above). Now what? What do we do? We sure as heck can't change the basic natural process of the globe.
Because the global temperature average is rising. A lot. Due to the changing weather patterns this brings a long, some areas previously heated by warm ocean currents might see an actual decrease in local temperature. Other areas (like the poles), might see a +10 kelvin increase.
c++;
Indeed. I would say that peer-review is essential to good science: in fact, experimental repeatability is a hallmark of the scientific method. Being open and honest about how data are collected, and how they are processed can only work in favor of advancing human knowledge.
One thing which more openness can fix is an over-analysis of and over-reliance on small data sets: that tends to exaggerate the effect of the experimental outliers which are always present, and it's easy to treat a "massaged" data set as authoritative (and forget the margins of error which were introduced).
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
Out of curiosity, how does that compare with "top heat shield engineer with NASA"?
He also cites the Seventh Generation Principle: http://www.precaution.org/lib/prn_bemidji_original .060706.htm. It is interesting to me we should be looking both forward and back in time here. About seven generations ago we see a discussion of what our attitude should be towards our tenancy in this generation while the indigenous people also credit their ancestors for learning a harmonious way of living on Earth. Our obligations run in both directions. To the past, to glean wisdom and build on it, and to the future, to provide an ever better example of how to live in harmony with the ecosystem and each other.s -selling-solar.html
--
Switch to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
I am the high priest Nasa Al-Nasa of the Church Global Warming.
I will suffer no infidels. We will wage Jihad against non-Believers. We are the sole holders of the Truth. Dissenters beware!
Honestly, if that wasn't sarcasm, then you are part of the problem. "Climate change" is the new buzz word. It, in my opinion, exposes, at the very least, the mindset of the people behind this. Those people are "buzzword hacks" and not "responsible scientist"
::insert common thing:: will kill you (or "the children")
::insert same common thing:: will kill you (or "the children")
Science in the media:
next news cycle:
lack of
It is only about the ratings.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
For a science and technology based website, I am amazed at how many poster do not fundamentally understand basic science, how research is conducted, the scientific method or basic tenants of climatolgy.
Scary days are these.
I am hoping that this kind of topic brings the wackos out and the base of the slashdot community has more sense than these posters.
As a Barry Goldwater, hands off government conservative, and a person with a degree in physical geography, It is clear as day to me that climate change is happening and is caused by us. The day it went from postulation to theory (look up what theory means to us scientists) was when solid data about CO2 isotopic ratios came out.
Now my opinion, because I am a free market conservative, is to let the market decide the price for CO2 reduction techniques, planting tress or whatever technology the market wants to sell, and require CO2 produces to buy reduction credits, set by thew market to offset there CO2 emissions. As C02 reduction techniques become more advanced and cheaper then credits become cheaper. This is free market economics 101. Right now carbon producers are getting a hidden subsidy ftom the rest of us. It is akin Mcdonalds just throwing there garbage out on the street and not paying for waste pickup.
we are in for some interesting times over the next 30-50 years
'we' have been in some interesting times for at least 12,500 years, since the peak of the last ice age... When whales swam above my head here in VT in a great inland sea created by glacier melt that covered all of the NE!
It's easy to earn a few bucks on the stock market. Have your pet blogger issue forth some credible-sounding FUD against an obviously truthful prediction, then sell like mad and reap the profits. It will be 24 hours before the world catches up with reality and points out that your blogger is incorrect, but what do you care? Your stock went up four bucks a share, and that's enough to send your kid to college.
technical writing / development
It is just that ppl are pointing out the flaws, bias, and agenda at fox news. It is no different than pointing out the corruption in our gov. or our deficits that we run with China and OPEC. It has nothing to do with hating them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I referenced the gistempt data in 2003 for a statistics report. In addition to the comments expressed, he had also pointed out several things: The gistempt data is only the surface temperatures-there are other sets of data recorded and analyzed for atmosphere (and they are different numbers) Since the NASA recordings began about 1880 there have been changes to the technology in the instruments that record the data. I'm not a scientist but it was clear there is more to this than a set of numbers, although the numbers are interesting to see for yourself.
Why do we still call it global warming? It's global climate change. Some areas will get warmer. Some areas will get cooler. Some areas will be under water.
Since that would all happen anyway, it should really be called "Global Climate Forced Differential" because the trick is to figure out what we might be doing to create a situation of climate change outside the normal change that would be occurring anyway.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Although I love your Church references, the scientists did admit their mistake. They're not blaming the news organizations for reporting their error, they're blaming them for distorting their error. Understand the difference? Some news outlets pretended like this changed the whole "the 9 hottest years on record happened in the last decade" fact, when it did not. Prior to the change 1934 was the second hottest year in the US on record, and after the change it was the hottest year. Prior to the change several of the hottest years in the US on record were during the dust bowl, and after the change this is still true. The changes had no impact on which years were the hottest on a global scale, so the "9 hottest years" fact is still true. Do you understand how the right-wing media that you evidently get your talking points from distorted the truth now?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
people Must Not Doubt. Faith is essential.
I think you meant to say, "Fear is essential". Fear produces more money than Faith.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I curious about a particular aspect of global warming: is the temperature increase constant? In other words, do nighttime temperatures rise the same amount as daytime and do winter temperatures rise as much as summer temperatures?
It's not a trivial matter. If summer temperatures were to stay constant, but winter to rise you get one set of consequences, while summer increasing and winter staying the same results in another set. My understanding of radiated heat is that the lows (winter and nighttime) should increase faster than the highs (even if they all increase).
Anybody able to shed some light?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Give them more ammunition, please. That makes it that much easier to shoot themselves in the foot. Although I know from first hand experience that raw data is not routinely released to the general public, my experience is that it is usually released to those asking for it (I've never had any requests denied). I'm sure that there are some people who will be loathe to release their data to certain other people in any scientific discipline (scientists are people, after all), but withholding information gives them far more valuable information than releasing it all, publicly and freely. At this point, however, I am not aware of any global warming raw data that has not been released.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Aren't you cute. The population has grown and at some point resources simply won't stretch far enough for all of us.
What exactly do you think is going to happen then? We'll all sit down, sing Kumbaya, and work out a peaceable solution, with the rich folk voluntarily slashing their standard of living so we can all subsist?
I think it would be pretty hard to say that unless we make some serious changes in the way we do things, 250m violent deaths will be the "good old days". Assuming we don't completely destroy ourselves while fighting over water, energy, and food.
I hope you're right, but I don't see the basis for your optimism.
It's a growing trend these days that very few facts are being used to drive very bold assumptions for the sake of political agendas. I too agree that there *is* global warming. But the numbers on what actually causes it are avoided like the plague.
Why? Because while global warming itself might be an issue, the effect that human activity has on it is less than 5% of the total CO2 emissions.
And the dreadful horrible CO2 emissions we ought to establish a tax on breathing for is not a big part of that 5%. We should be more worried about methane for example, but there isn't much money to be made on taxing cow farts. Truth is that a fair part of that warming isn't just global, Mars is getting warmer too.
There are two sides to every story and one should do their own research. Pretty easy to get the man-made camp's story, they scream the loudest. In my experience though, the camp with hard scientific facts is the one being shunned and ignored. Do your own research and trust your logic more than the force-fed emotional bull we're forced to endure.
Truth is mostly inconvenient to the man-made global warming camp.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Compare two hypotheses: (1) Global warming is primarily caused by the sun, cosmic rays, or some other external factor. (2) Global warming is primarily caused by humans. (Yes, there are other possible hypotheses.)
If hypothesis 1 is right, you would expect most of the planets to be showing warming over any small period of time. If hypothesis 2 is right, you would expect approximately half of the other planets to be showing warming (and the other half to be showing cooling). Unfortunately, with 7 other planets, it's hard to rely on the law of large numbers to distinguish between these two hypotheses. (If you got 5 heads out of 7 coin flips, would you assume the coin was biased? The only thing you could say for certain was that heads weren't on both sides of the coin.) Of course, we don't even have data from all 7 of the other planets for a small period of time.
Global warming theories aren't based merely on the correlation between increased CO2 and increased temperature. They're based on fundamental science and complicated models. The fundamental science has been known for over 100 years - complicated models weren't necessary for that. The complicated models are necessary to determine the scope of the greenhouse gas phenomenon (feedback cycles, etc., are non-linear and hence can be very difficult to predict with detail). These models have actually done a pretty good job, and they're getting better. Some people are actually saying now, "In 20 years, this warming will be over, and then the scientists will see how wrong they are." Some people were saying that 20 years ago, too.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Do you have a reference for that, because I'm afraid I don't believe it. I think you're thinking of McIntyre's account of how he had difficulty in getting data and/or algorithms from Mann.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Additionally, unlike in the past, the CO2 concentration in the oceans is increasing (causing them to become more acidic and destroying corals), not decreasing as temperature goes up. This is because the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing far faster than the temperature is increasing.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
And by sheer volume, china is just about surpassing both the US and the EU, and definetly will in the near future if it hasn't quite yet. too close to call right now, but it's there obviously, them now being the "world's manufacturer".
And while US and EU factories and generating plants are doing about all they can to clean up, putting themselves at the globalist traders mercy-which mercy doesn't exist-china happily pollutes so much that it is affecting the entire planet.
Want to help global warming? Insist your nation stop trading with china until they hit the same level of "clean" tech. No boatloads of cash going to china, their leaders will be forced to clean up if they want to continue economic growth. If they clean up, that will help level the playing field for trade, it just might make other-then-china factories competitive and maybe help some folks retain a decent job.
Billionaire globalist traders are as much to blame about extra pollution and greenhouse gases as middle class US folks driving SUVs, because they *don't care* where they source their goods and trinkets to sell, they are always going to the cheapest and dirtiest places they can find with the easiest to bribe off local officials and with the laxest to non existence environmental standards..
I say pass laws that if you are selling inside a nation, your goods-how they are made- have to match or exceed the domestic nation's environmental policies.
Now we would have a hard time regulating what they pay their people, it would be nice if they actually paid living wages with non hellhole working conditions, but that is the other nation's lookout, nations that are actually trying to clean things up, again, like the US and EU, shouldn't be put at an economic disadvantage so the top 1% of loyal to nothing but their own wallets global traders can get wealthier while they are spewing crap by the megaton out in their "developing world" areas.
In short, global warming is being caused by globalism, and the throw away cheap crap based on voodoo economics credit expansion *mess* we have now, because the international corporations *don't care*, they only care about money, so until laws are in place to *force* them to care, none of the implementations that we try to pass in the west will really matter a whole lot, as long as the other 3/4ths of the planet is free to pollute at will.
produces most money. Not fear.
PS when we're told "if we try to combat the 'lie' of AGW, we'll all lose our jobs and go back to the stone age" isn't that also engendering fear to achieve an aim? Or is it only fear-mongering when it's trying to get something to happen you don't like?
Just asking, like.
The issue here is not the size of the error. It's the existence of the error and NASA's attitude to it. They refused to provide any base data for checking and Steve's Audit site was DDOSed when this story came out. He had to reverse engineer everything to prove them wrong, and now they're trying to hide it.
To try to get accurate climate data, an independent organisaton of bloggers has set up a surface stations auditing site, at http://www.surfacestations.org/ . Look at it, and see where a lot of the dodgy figures are coming from!
While there is no doubt that the Earth has had a warming trend over the past 100,000 years, it's also true that the Earth goes through the same exact cycle approximately every 100,000 years: it also conveniently explains the ice ages.
_ Age_Temperature.png
.. recycle aluminum, don't litter and pay mind to your personal/family's impact on the environment like a good lad and while you're at it, please don't go scaring the little kids with fairy tales.
Human impact on the world has been both detrimental and conservatory, many species have been saved that would otherwise have naturally died out, regardless of urban expansion. The truth is that humans could no more stop the warming/cooling trends of the Earth anymore than we can cause them. If you have any questions to this, please refer to:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Ice
These "clever" scientists -cough-activists-cough- like Hansen only show you the past century and claim that we're baaaaaad and evil and self-centered while he ignores the geological history of the Earth. They use fear-mongering and bad science (refer abover to flawed/super-secret algorithms) to bolster their POLITICS with exaggerated claims. If you think they'll stop before getting overly emotional about their eco-terrorism, wait until they whip out the pictures of polar bear cubs.
Don't be played for fools. In one hundred years, people will be holding up apocalyptic signs because of the impending ice age. Now go be productive and find the real reason for the trend/cycle: orbital rotation/changes, cyclical changes in the Sun, etc. And while you're at it
because the total heat content of the of the earth, or "globe" if you will, and its atmosphere is expected to rise.
Actually, the documented changes are really just in the atmosphere and oceans, and maybe the top few meters of the crust, which are less than 1% of the planet's mass. That's where all the multicellular life lives, of course, so it's the part that's most interesting to us.
But the Earth's core and mantle probably haven't been affected at all, and won't be during any of our lifetimes. All those big, slow creatures living down there in the depths probably won't ever notice what we're doing to the wispy top layer.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
is staked on perpetrating the "Global Warming" hoax.
We were worried about the melting Greenland glacier, and dissapearing Arctic ice in the 1920's, too.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You're advocating "security through obscurity" for scientific data?
Really?
Because you think the downside of allowing the data to be easily available is worse that making sure it's accurate through peer review?
And that makes sense to you?
What kind of reasoning must one engage in to believe the idea that widespread peer review is not desirable because some nutters will misuse the data? THEY DO THAT ANYWAY.
Meanwhile, situations like this occur because the data is not easily available for review.
I simply don't understand how anything you said makes sense, or is in any way insightful.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
I thought that Global Warming was a pointless argument about statistics, until I had a look at some of the pictures on SurfaceStations.org.
Take a look. It really might be the case that we're measuring the spread of air conditioning! And mod this parent UP!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seems like a sloppy guy. Time to move on to more careful scientists, even if they are coming up with similar results. Thats what happens when you become too political.
Dr. Hansen gets it right on. His 2nd email: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/realdeal.16aug20074. pdf is full of facts but most climate change deniers are highly skilled at ignoring those pesky facts.
I think that how humanity handles this issue will be one of the greatest measures of our species in our entire civilization's existence so far. I just hope we don't embarrass ourselves by bickering about this until it's too late.
the post by Hansen? He's raving!
This is no scientist. He sounds like a fundamentalist moron. Scientists look at the data dispassionately, and change their minds if the data changes. Hansen just accuses anyone who comes up with an opposing view to his of being unamerican, a 'dirty denier' and 'selling out'.
This is not science - this is religeon.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Little girl: "You're all going to die down here!"
Science is about the falsification of theories, since theories can NEVER be proven correct.
Yet let anyone dare to try and falsify any theory about man-made global warming and they're tarred-and-feathered by the global-warming-is-man's-fault crowd.
Hence the overreaction when data supporting man-made climate change is found to be incorrect.
And so much for which side in this debate is really trying to be scientific about it.
Just read the crap posted here in response to any skepticism towards global warming or its consequences. It's really damned easy to sit at your energy-sucking computer sipping your fucking $5 latte that took a few million joules of energy to heat before you drive your oh-so-fucking-energy-efficient-hybrid to your office that consumes multiple megawatts of power a day and rant about how we need to stop using fossil fuels by not exploring for it or drilling for it. It's quite another thing to realize that reducing energy use that way means making it more expensive, which means making food more expensive, which means those poor folks just barely surviving in the poorest parts of Africa or South America get kicked that much closer to starvation.
And that's just one problem with the knee-jerk "stop global warming at all costs" dolts.
Awww, but you "stop global warming at all costs" dolts CARE about us all, don't you?
Too bad you can't or won't THINK about the consequences of your desires. Starve a few million more people in Africa? Who cares as long as it might slow down the warming of a planet coming out of an ice age, because, dammit, the temperature of the Earth in 1900 is what it damn well needs to be for all eternity.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Look at this site, linking Media Matters.... bwahahaha.... what sheep. Slashdot has nothing to do with tech, rather, its a low-budget mouthpiece for cheap socialist talking points with a few sciency articles here and there as a cover. Thats right, keep telling us to use 1 sheet of toilet paper, slashdot. Your saving the world!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"Global Climate Change" is much more forgiving if/when the computer models and dire predictions turn out to be inaccurate.
Getting hotter? Global Climate Change
Getting colder? Global Climate Change
More rain? Global Climate Change
Less rain? Global Climate Change
Hurricanes? Earthquakes? Global Climate Change
Bridges/mines collapsing? Global Climate Change
Me stubbing my toe in the parking lot? Global Climate Change
See? Global Climate Change encompasses so many more potential disasters than Global Warming.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The warmest year was 3,995,198,201 B.C. Everyone knows that! Sheesh! You kids these days...
No, NOAA isn't the only place you can get it. But he can't list all your places for you (look for it, ferfuckssake) and why should he? You'll only turn round and say "I don't want to look at 100 sites".
When the data includes
Biology
Paelontology
Geology
Space Science
Weather
Climate
and donzens more scientific areas to look, which one should be collecting, sorting and making available all this data? US.gov? IPCC (oh, no, you'd complain that it was all biased if it were owned by an organisation like that). Mobil? Texaco?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1885
s ens_error_matter_gues.html
or
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/does_han
I used to believe that the global rise in surface temperatures was a settled fact. Since reading about Hansen's error, I have had questions about the data. I've been told that no peer-reviewed science publication seriously questions the data showing a global rise in surface temperatures. This isn't actually true. I found these articles after doing a quick search:
Ren, G. Y., Z. Y. Chu, Z. H. Chen, and Y. Y. Ren (2007), Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05711
Karlén W (2005) Recent Global Warming: An Artifact of a Too-Short Temperature Record? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment: Vol. 34, No. 3 pp. 263-264
Khandekar, M.L., Murty, T. S. and P. Chittibabu (2005). The Global Warming Debate: A Review of the State of Science. Pure & Applied Geophysics, Vol. 162 Issue 8/9, p1557-1586, 30p
No scientist "denies" global warming. Rather, what these scientists say is that it must be demonstrated, and the data that we have on surface temperatures does not do that unequivocally.
There are of course contrary views.
The conclusion I draw is that the science is not settled. I regard with suspicion any claim that it is.
Which, no matter which side you are on the issue, you must admit is a much more...convenient... term.
The reason people use the term "Global Warming" is because that's the term that was thrown around so casually to start the discussion.
"Global Warming", pictures of melting snow on mountains, melting glaciers, melting arctic ice, increasing temperatures....that's the language of the film An Inconvenient Truth. There's not a single comment in that film (as I recall, feel free to correct me) about temps going down anywhere, ever, or anything that would taint the "OMG the world is heating up" message.
It's *only* once the naysayers put forth enough data to show that the changes were neither homogenous nor unidirectional, the canon was changed to "global climate change".
So yeah, it IS global climate change. It *may* be that it's changing faster than ever. It may even be that some avoidable human activity is accelerating it. But (I would say thanks to the fervent, 'infallible' approach that the frothing eco-nuts brought to the issue) the entire subject has been reduced to the level of a religious argument: on both sides you have True Believers flinging poo at each other and no actual hope of resolution.
-Styopa
Given that this is a government organization, I think the refusal to hand over the source code is wrong (obviously there is no national security concern). Could a FOIA request force this?
For, scientists working outside the government, I think providing the algorithm and data are sufficient, although even in those cases I would prefer that they open source (not necessarily GPL, though) their code. (We have.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Why doesn't Congress just repeal the ban on CFCs? That way we can just destroy the ozone layer and all the CO2 will just escape into space?
Currently, I am on the fence about the actual cause of global warming. Is the primary cause of global warming the result of human activities, or is this possibly a classic third variable scenario?
I haven't actually SEEN any attempt to falsify. This would require that the alternate process be investigated in a rigorous manner (so not cosmic rays then) or why the known science (CO2 as a GHG) isn't having any or much effect. Not seeing any of that. Just "you're wrong." That isn't falsifying any more than an automatic contradiction of a statement is an argument.
So before you can claim anyone being tarred and featherd (figurateively or otherwise) you'll need some people who've actually tried to falsify.
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 32 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
I've called or written to scientists on several occasions and asked for access to their raw data, and in each case the people I talked to were gratified that I cared about their work and sincerely interested in discussing it with anyone who wasn't outrageously rude or obviously politically motivated. I've gotten DOC data and raw engineering counts from stream samplers, literally millions of data points straight from the instruments, just by asking. Nobody's ever refused.
I have heard of scientists refusing to do anything for people who were obviously politically motivated hacks, but even that's just rumor. Scientists are generally OK with information sharing, even if they work for corporations and can't do it "officially".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
taste?
damaged by dogma
...who said with 95% certainty that 1998 was the hottest year EVAH in the US. It's called hubris. They have too much of it.
What I find interesting, and realize it may just be coincidence, but from the global graph, it looks like WWII saved us by delaying the rise by 30 years. Would we have noticed 30 years ago? On the other hand, would it have been easier to deal with with the smaller population of 30 years ago, or did we just not have tech to be able to do so then?
Just a "what if" game, but it sparked my curiosity...
Of course the US record is just a small fraction of the global record, and, thus, this error didn't affect global temperatures by much. What is troubling is that an error like this could be overlooked--because the underlying data is not subjected to any public scrutiny--in the freakin' United States. The question, then, is what major flaws might be hidden in the GLOBAL data if the most sophisticated and well-maintained network in the world has this sort of bad data? If the US data was off by 0.3C, what might we find in Africa? Or rural SE Asia? Or Siberia? The former Soviet bloc states?
The fact is that we put a remarkable amount of faith in the data from surface stations--which are adjusted for time of measurement, then adjusted again for physical location, then adjusted again for urbanization (based on other stations which have, themselves, been adjusted), and those adjustments are NOT well documented and there is no empirical evidence to support the "correctness" of the adjustments. It is reasonable to assume that if we have major errors, the rest of the world as a whole has WORSE errors since their networks are not nearly as well-maintained as ours and they are starting with more suspect data in the first place.
Can you read? You have 3 choices, and the only one that includes the word "raw" is "raw GHCN data + UHCN corrections". That's not raw data. The other 2 options also include adjustments/consolidations.
(One reason people want the raw data is because the error graph in the IPCC report appears to show that of the 0.6C temperature increase, 0.5C (!) may be from the error corrections applied.)
There is no reason that taxpayer funded data, owned by the government, unrelated to any national security should be kept hidden. The same goes for the adjustments.
In fact, I would go a step farther. Why shouldn't NGOs (UN IPCC) be required to release all data and methodologies for any report? Death reports, water studies, climate, etc.?
This web site shows many flawed weather stations: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/
t o_measure_temperature_4.html
t o_measure_temperature_23.html
t o_measure_temperature_12.html
My favorite is the one near a burn barrel: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/06/how_not_
Here's one on the receiving end of the exhaust from several air conditioning units: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/07/how_not_
This one's next to an air conditioning unit, a chimney and a grill: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/06/how_not_
Ignore world temperatures, they've increased more than one degree in the northern lattitudes, ignore CO2 levels, ignore the crazy weather, I'm 46 and I've never seen anything like what we have. Ignore all of that, what pray tell is melting virtually all glaciers at a rate that no one thought possible. Some of the glaciers date back more than a million years. Most of the ice that's melting now is tens of thousands of years old yet it's expected to melt in the next hundred years, not theory it's happening. Numbers can be distorted to mean anything when we are talking about small changes that have dramatic effects. Is this a NASA rep discovering a problem or is this the Bush administration performing damage control? Even if it isn't NASA has a history of defending dogma. It pratically had to rain on the landers for NASA to accept that there has been recent water on Mars. At what point do we start accepting global warming? How deep do coastal cities need to be underwater? They can say we aren't the cause all they want but no one is rationalizing how such a massive spike in CO2 levels aren't having an effect on the environment.
Didn't we already have this discussion a while ago when sombody posted observations from http://www.surfacestations.org/
The article you referenced is titled:
"Blogger Forces NASA to Tweak Climate Data"
Rather deep inside, it does indeed describe some of the bloggers as "fringe groups". For a casual reader scanning this article, what impression would she/he get?
"Hmm. Those NASA scientists screwed up again. The little guy was right. May be that global warming talk from those government scientists are so reliable..."
Kudos to Fox for spinning a factual article artfully to suit their slant.
What might be a more accurate head line? How about:
"NASA corrects trivial error in climate data found by blogger"
I've hit my 30 comment limit so I have to post anonymously, but:
... they're not so easy for laymen to run themselves, but ...
...
Lots of data at NCDC.
Simple interactive Java climate model JCM5.
3D general circulation model EdGCM (based on NASA GISS Model II, state of the art in 1983 and what James Hansen himself used in his famous 1988 testimony to Congress).
For more modern and advanced models
There are a variety of Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) which are not fully 3D models but represent a lot of physics and don't require a supercomputer. One such is UVic; there are many more (here).
You can even get full blown state of the art GCMs which run on supercomputers, like NASA GISS Model E or NCAR CCSM, but expect to run them for most of a year to get any kind of result
The author laments on not understanding why conservatives don't want to save the planet for future generations. He mentions some basic "conservative" values....which are really universal values, not just owned by "conservatives".
I thought it was well known that the Republican party is actually three separate groups, all with differing or conflicting interests. There is 1) Big Business which is focused on the short term profit, 2) Religious Fundamentalists focused on making everyone share their values, and 3) true conservatives who want a limited and financially responsible government. Group 1 is in direct conflict with 2 and neither have anything to do with group 3.
What the author is seeing are responses from the Big Business conservatives and not the religious group or the anti-big government group.
...Antarctic ice is growing, it has been for at least the past two decades. There is a smaller chunk that is shrinking, but the larger mass has increased much more than the small mass has lost.
Greenland use to be green.
Most of the ice that's melting is below water level. 89% of an iceberg's mass is below water level. Ice has less density than water, hence a higher volume and hence melting icebergs do little to increase the overall volume of the oceans. It's the ice on land that we need to worry about. Further, if the global temperature is rising then the equilibrium of the ocean will change. More ocean water will evaporate.
Carbon samples from the poles have shown that it was hotter on earth before now, in the last 13000 years I believe. They have also shown that increases in global temperature have preceded increases in global CO2. Not followed them.
Data has shown that increases in solar activity have directly correlated with increases in global temperature.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
This comment brings up the issue of whether people are being PAID to leave comments at sites like Slashdot. I don't know if the person leaving the comment is paid, but the site referenced is a PAID site, financed by the coal and oil industries.
With so much money being thrown around by the oil and coal industries, why would a person leave a comment like this for free?
For sure. One thing I remember hearing that the recent IPCC report left out was the effect of ice streams. These streams are expect to increase the rate of melting in Greenland and Antarctica, but since they're still poorly understood, they chose to leave them out altogether. This makes the estimate for sea-level rise most likely an underestimate - although I suppose there could be another factor (unknown unknowns, as it were), that would have the reverse effect.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"The population has grown and at some point resources simply won't stretch far enough for all of us."
Yawn. This was a big fear forty years ago, and yet it hasn't come to pass, despite world population exploding beyond all predictions.
There are still plenty of resources to go around. The method of distribution needs work in some places, but it's not a problem in the civilized world, where only the rich are thin.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Am I the only one who quickly looked at the title and thought this was about a new muppet movie?
Greenland use to be green.
Not very, but what's your point? The U.S. used to be a tropical jungle when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. That doesn't mean that we want that kind of climate.
Most of the ice that's melting is below water level.
And much of it isn't. The amount of ice that is not contributing to sea level rise is irrelevant; what is relevant is how much ice is contributing to sea level rise. (And most of the rise so far is not due to melting at all, but to thermal expansion of water.)
Further, if the global temperature is rising then the equilibrium of the ocean will change. More ocean water will evaporate.
Yes, and that extra water vapor adds to the greenhouse effect. Great.
If you're implying that the additional evaporation cancels out the sea level rise, you're wrong. By a lot.
Carbon samples from the poles have shown that it was hotter on earth before now, in the last 13000 years I believe.
It was about this hot at the end of the last ice age, but probably not hotter.
Again, what is your point? Just because it has been hotter in the past doesn't mean that we want it to be again.
They have also shown that increases in global temperature have preceded increases in global CO2. Not followed them.
That's true of the ice age cycle, and is due to ocean storage of CO2, but that doesn't mean that CO2 doesn't warm the Earth. Indeed, you can't explain the full extent of the temperature increase without CO2. CO2 doesn't start the warming, but it amplifies and prolongs it.
Data has shown that increases in solar activity have directly correlated with increases in global temperature.
Not really. And correlation aside, the magnitude of the solar activity is inadequate to explain the observed warming (or an equivalent amount of cooling).
Open the code used to calculate the temperatures to the public and open the data. The US citizens paid for this information, let them have it. If this information was open for review then this wouldn't be the story it is.
- real hackers don't have sigs -
Yes, Hansen adjusted for heat island effect. The question remains why it appears that the adjustment was applied to high quality sites like the Grand Canyon station and possibly others.
Right. So we can infinitely expand the carrying capacity of the earth?
That's beyond optimistic. That's a delusion of grandeur.
Repost of my AC post:
... they're not so easy for laymen to run themselves, but ...
...
Lots of data at NCDC.
Simple interactive Java climate model JCM5.
3D general circulation model EdGCM (based on NASA GISS Model II, state of the art in 1983 and what James Hansen himself used in his famous 1988 testimony to Congress).
For more modern and advanced models
There are a variety of Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) which are not fully 3D models but represent a lot of physics and don't require a supercomputer. One such is UVic; there are many more (here).
You can even get full blown state of the art GCMs which run on supercomputers, like NASA GISS Model E or NCAR CCSM, but expect to run them for most of a year to get any kind of result
It could be a synergistic combination of weather and bad farming practices. If you are on the edge and there is a drought going on, bad farming practices in one area can make the weather worse in other areas. The process continues until you reach areas that have more redundancy.
For that matter, the big stock market crash of 1929 could play a part in this. If the economy tanks, crops may not be planted in areas where they are risky, increasing the odds of erosion. Or bad farming practices may be 'encouraged' by the need to maximize profits and minimize costs.
We're dealing with complex, interactive systems that are linked in ways that we do not fully understand.
"On the other hand you have dedicated scientists getting research grants to study the problem."
t ml= & l1=
And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?
Exactly.
Stop deluding yourself, scientists feel financial pressure too, and pretending it doesn't exist does no one any good at all.
"You are on a site that is dedicated to science, so the people HERE understand that research grants provide relatively LOW SALARIES."
O Rly?
It seems that those "people" need to check their facts then, because they're dead wrong. Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000. That is over twice what Teachers make, nearly twice what police officers make, and more than software engineers, physicians, and attorneys.
http://www.indeed.com/salary/Research-Scientist.h
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Police+Officer&l1
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Teacher&l1=
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Software+Engineer
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Physician&l1=
So when you say "relatively LOW SALARIES." what are you "relating" them to, professional athletes and CEOs? I had a hard time finding ANY occupation that, on average, got paid as much as research scientists (be glad you're a dentist if you are, ka-ching!).
"People who want to dedicate themselves to science and helping society go to work for universities and you are trying to smear these people by saying they are in it for the MONEY?"
No, Mr. Strawman, what we're saying is that without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done. Pretending that they are above the inevitable corruption that follows money is naive in the extreme.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Aren't you cute. The population has grown and at some point resources simply won't stretch far enough for all of us."
There is this shocking, general belief that populations are exploding.
The truth is different: in countries as diverse as China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Iran (yes, Iran), and Mexico plus all of Europe, birth rates are below replacement levels. In Russia, there were four deaths for every birth last year. Even in India, the birth rate has collapsed, even if it is still well above replacement.
Sure, populations are still expanding globally: but this is a function of life expectancies rising fast in
developing nations. But where birth rates have fallen below replacement levels we are now seeing DECLINING populations. Japan's total population has fallen, and it's working age population is shrinking at an alarming rate. In China, the result of the one child policy in 1979 has also led to an enormous drop off in births. (And one that is compounding now: there are fewer women of child bearing age, having fewer babies.)
Look up the UN population data - they have been consistently revising down "peak" population for 15 years. Read Fewer by Ben Wattenberg. It is amazing to discover that there will probably be fewer humans - by choice - in a 100 years than there are now.
--- My dad's political betting
Encourage better gas mileage for cars
Subsidize efficent inter-city transit (electric railways)
Tax hydrocarbons
Cut the farm subsidy
Encourage smaller family sizes (voluntary)
The other side says it's not important enough to: Build more hydropower (dams)
Build more nuclear power (zero CO2 emissions)
Limit population growth (which in the US and Europe come from migration/immigration)
Encourage smaller family sizes (voluntary)
Limit urban sprawl by crime control and urban renewal
And because of the opposition to these points, we will go on discussing this forever.
Is that delusions even a problem? As another poster points out, population may still be growing, but there's signs of population decline. My take is we'll see peak population a bit before 2050.
I know.. I'm not making a hockey stick arguement. But the fact is there is already dissapearing potable water in heavily populated areas of china as well as the US. We are, right now, operating beyond currently sustainable levels in energy and water usage, and that in turn is and will be placing pressure on food.
And, more people are demanding more as "all boats rise". Consumption is skyrocketing even though population is merely growing. What do people do who don't have kids? They consume...
Wattenberg has as much of an agenda as anyone else. He comes from the American Enterprise Institute, remember...? Sure, Europe and Japan's populations will decline, but the rest of the world, including the U.S., will continue to rise. Resources for the increasing population will be strained to the breaking point, especially with Climate Change in the mix.
How will the U.S. respond? Well, the Pentago is already looking into it.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
"And if the problem were not as bad as we thought, or is non-existent, how much money would those scientists get then?"
... are you paid, or a dupe?
About the same, doing something else.
"Research Scientists have an average salary in the US of 83,0000."
Well thanks for making my point. This is MUCH LOWER than corporate research scientists are paid.
My question, what kind of person tries to obfuscate the facts about global warming by trying to smear the researchers, saying they are only in it for the money?
I mean, aside from those who are paid by Exxon, etc. And since so may are paid by Exxon, etc., what kind of dupe shows up at a place like Slashdot and makes those arguments for free?
So
First of all, 20 years ago it WASN'T Global Warming, it was Global COOLING. We were all going to freeze to death. Now those exact same scientists are letting us know that we are all going to BURN to death.
Lets take out all of the computer computations and biological / meteorological babbling out of this and look at FACTUAL science. Something that cannot be refuted, but seen as something that 100% happened. Geological studies have shown that the Earth has cycles of cooling and warming. Nothing abnormal at all if you ask me. As a matter of fact, temperatures are cooler today than periods in our recent past using the data that some of the babbling is about.
NOW, do I think that humans have had ZERO impact on the Earth and some of the things that are happening. ABSOLUTELY NOT, I feel that we HAVE contributed to a very small degree some of what is happening. Not to the point, however, that it would reverse the current warming trend if we all fell off the face of the planet though.
Serious congratulations here, friend. Very __ very __ rarely do I encounter anyone capable of getting past "OIL COMPANIES BAD PANIC GOOD" to at least the minimal sanity level of "without money to pay for the research, research doesn't get done." you display here. Which was pretty much my point, you're not going to research anything that might conceivably question your funding source. Weird how many people think that blindingly obvious principle automatically invalidates all anti-AGW papers, no matter what their actual thesis or supporting evidence, yet somehow have a blind spot as to that same argument would automatically invalidate pretty much all pro-AGW papers as well, and with rather better financial motivation to boot...
As an illustration of what I believe will happen I am going to borrow a quote from one of my favorite science fiction movies:
Professor Bernard Quatermass: The will to survive is an odd phenomenon. Roney, if we found out our own world was doomed, say by climatic changes, what would we do about it?
Dr. Mathew Roney: Nothing, just go on squabbling like usual.
Professor Bernard Quatermass: Yes, but is we weren't men?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Actually, if we made everyone fabulously wealthy (i.e. as wealthy as the US, Western Europe, Japan), population growth would stall entirely, since that's what happened when the US, Western Europe, and Japan all became fabulously wealthy. The problem is, making everyone fabulously wealthy (i.e. "economic development" or "globalization") will...lead to a shortage of resources. It's not population growth that's the issue.
Population growth these days is simply self-perpetuating poverty, and poverty doesn't put up much of a fight for resources. (Okay, maybe that means all the poor countries starve to death, but at least the rest of us don't have to go to war. Even if it is North Korea--sure, they have nuclear bombs, but if they actually use them instead of just making vague threats about it, they're not getting any more food aid.) It's development that's the issue. Poor countries don't want to stay poor, but rich people somehow want to pay the same price for gasoline even when poor countries are getting rich enough to afford some and increase demand.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I followed your links. If you note here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/sta tion_list.txt
e mId=1610
Wickenburg is listed as a "rural" station (It's near Phoenix):
---ID---- Legend: R/S/U=rural/sm.town/urban A/B/C=dark/dim/bright cc=country-code brightness-index
722780090 WICKENBURG lat,lon (.1deg) 340 -1127 R3C cc=425 16
Here are some nice photos of the "rural" Wickenburg station:
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_it
Does this look rural to you? See any problems? I will help you out. It's next to a building, blacktop, and HUGE air conditioners. This totally violates the guidelines for locating a station.
So here we have a bad (they think it's good?) "rural" station that is likely/possibly/who knows? used to adjust the Phoenix/Tucson temps.
Now, smart guy, follow your own link and _show_ me how this "rural" station was/wasn't used to correct the Phoenix and Tucson urban temps. You can't, because the detail on exactly what individual adjustments were made is not there. Go ahead, prove me wrong!
-SlashNut
P.S.
The mod system SUCKS here at Slashdot. The parent should NOT be a 5. Just pointing people at a dump of lots of INCOMPLETE data doesn't prove your point. Replies that point this out are modded 0 or 1.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Okay wiseguy, let's say I'm a tenured climatologist. I get 83,000 bucks a year. I'm tenured, I cannot be fired. If I start to publish papers about global warming, I get 83,000 bucks a year. If I start to publish papers disproving global warming, I get 83,000 bucks a year + whatever Exxon/Mobile is willing to pay me for that. On which side would you expect rigged result?
My question, what kind of person tries to obfuscate the facts about global warming by trying to smear the researchers, saying they are only in it for the money? ... So ... are you paid, or a dupe?
... someone who evaluates both the solar theorists' and the AGW alarmists' actual science, and puts his own money where the sense is?
Well, I presume you're referring to my other posts in this thread, so let's put it this way.
Were all AGW media-pushed theories to be 100% correct, or underestimated, I would be in a rather privileged position, as I happen to be a Canadian citizen. Were the AGW alarmism pushed by the media to be correct, I would be laughing, because all I would need to do would be to invest my money in Nunavut tundra soon to be the breadbasket of North America as the current American Great Plains dry up; and into the Ellesmere Island Club Arctic properties soon to replace the current Club Med resorts.
However, I just put a shade under a quarter-million of my own money into a development in Ecuador.
So, you tell me. Does that make me paid, a dupe, or
Doesn't matter to me what you think, since the money's sunk now, but go ahead, tell us what you think, and in 10 years we'll come back and figuure which of us is the numbskull.
A lot?
0.5 deg in the last 100 years? (1 C in the US)
Meanwhile astrologers shake their heads at the predictions of economists.
When glaciers run down the hill a bit faster and go out to sea what happens? I think you are looking at this entirely the wrong way since others see more icebergs and ice shelves moving faster as an indication of warmth. The increase in area as volume reduces is not really what I would call "Antarctic ice growing".
* Greenland use to be green.
Not really, it's been almost a complete ice flow since the last ice age, except for two narrow and deep fjords that the Norse settled in for several generations before finally dying off (and/or giving up) from many different causes.
See pages 211, 212 from "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, a facinating read about the historic collapse of civilizations, and of the indicators for our current ones.
My favourite quote from the book is "What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?" - "did he shout - Jobs not Trees!"?
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
It's hard to take Hansen seriously when he says global warming is a huge crisis, but doesn't even take the issue seriously enough to release the raw data and algorithms used to calculate the GISS data. Credible doubts have been raised; things like air conditioner exhaust, light bulbs, and other sources of bias have been identified, and now we find there are errors in the algorithms too. Maybe the rest of the data is perfect, but sunlight is the best disinfectant.
If Hansen really cares about climate change, then he should release all the relevent GISS information for public scrutiny. Unless he believes a threat to his ego or funding is a bigger crisis than global warming, it's hard to understand why he would not do so.
It's also difficult to escape the fact his response, attacking the motives of critics, is not exactly the model of a dispassionate scientist. When did science become the arena of highly paid polemicists? Surely we can do better, on such an important issue.
So... what happened to the Coming Ice Age? Did we have that already? I forget.
Oh, then there is/was Acid Rain. Whatever happened to that?
This was just getting interesting, but it seems that the Snocone has just melted. It would appear that its a lot easier to generate lots of critical comments without actually providing any data from peer-reviewed journals that would substantiate the significance of any of these "critical comments".
I am left wondering why
1) if rapid global warming were not occurring are we NOW seeing so many tropical and subtropical organisms moving their distributions poleward, while we are not seeing hardly any [any?] high latitude species moving their distributions toward the equator?
2) if rapid gobal warming is not occuring why are virtually ALL [all?] the world's glaciers retreating simultaneously?
3) why are the summers starting to feel a lot hotter?
It's funny when US temps were up in 2006 "scientists" were claiming it was significant even though global temps were at a six(?) year low. Now they tell us that US temps are insignicant to the overall global temps. ......Climate experts generally do not make much of temperature fluctuations over one or two years, but Lawrimore said the record 2006 temperatures were part of a long and worrisome trend. For instance, NOAA said, the past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the continental United States.
Climate Experts Worry as 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S.
Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years -- capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday. According to the government's National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth -- which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year's Day -- was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
m.watkins
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I keep reading all these articles about warming caused by this or not... Does it really matter? Making the air better quality and keeping the earth a much cleaner place overall will be a plus for everything, not just humans. It costs a lot of money, sure but I'm sure health care costs will drop from airway problems and the benifits for the environment will also be big. So humans MAY or "may not" be causing it, that doesn't matter. Keeping the earth clean should be the first thing to do.
I am DEEPLY suspicious about man-made global warming for a number of reasons. Here are just some:
1. The goal posts are always moving. We can NEVER get a fixed set of predictions to hit or miss to prove or disprove the warming and/or human cause. The most-recent version of this is that we are NOW told there will not be any real heating until 2009 (AFTER the next US presidential election...so democrats can wave headlines around with doomsday predictions and not worry about being proven wrong before the election. hmmmmmmm)
2. "Warmest year ever", "Coldest year ever", "Warmest year on record", etc. Since modern weather measuring equipment has only existed for a brief flicker of time in the geologic scale, these phrases are just plain silly. Even the thermometers used a few hundred years ago may not have been calibrated to todays standards, and while indirect things like sediments and tree rings may give clues they are even less-well calibrated.
3. If you cannot explain the past, your predictions for the future are just well-funded guesses. Until supporters can tell us what EXACTLY caused all previous warming and cooling patterns, they cannot honestly claim to understand the mechanisms well enough to properly predict the future. This would be funny if it were not so dangerous. Supporters of the global warming claims want to force entire societies to change in dramatic ways. They want political changes and societal changes that will have sweeping effects. Many average citizens will lose jobs, and homes, and marriages. Industries will be halted/moved and allocation of resources will be shifted. Indeed, changes in politicians will ripple into changes in policies in areas completely unrelated to the climate. The risks to the lives of individuals are on BOTH sides of the action/inaction debates but the proponents of action never consider that, actually I suspect they desire that.
4. We are told the US is the biggest contributor (the BIG SINNER) but as soon as problems are found with the US data, we are told that the US numbers have little to do with the global data and that anybody who links the two is an idiot. hmmmmmmm
5. We are told "The debate is over" over and over again and anybody who says "No it's not!" is trashed with the loaded label "denier". Debates end when they end, not when partisans on one side scream that the debate is over and start hurtling epithets at the other side. In my experience, when epithets are used, the people using them are doing so as a poor substitute for hard data and good logic. Science needs no such insults, and science needs no such consensus. When I see either insults OR consensus in science, I know I am probably not seeing science.
6. Supporters of the idea of man-made global warming continually and intentionally mis-characterize their opponents as deniers of global warming. This is dishonest and simplistic. SOME deny that any global warming is taking place. SOME of these people simply disagree with the very concept that a "global temperature" is valid or of any non-political value. MOST opponents, however, agree the globe is warming, but do not agree that man is causing it. SOME opponents simply question the idea that the climate of 1900, as a random example, was perfect and that it is valid to panic whenever the climate is warmer or cooler than it was on whatever date was selected. If supporters of this are so correct and so supported by science, then they need not mis-characterize their opponents' positions.
7. The supporters of man-made global warming are all in it for the money and prestige. They inevitably get huge piles of money and resources from governments, and the money is dedicated to research into global warming. Their peers hand-out awards and back-pats over this stuff. Just how many of the researc
Everyone consumes; not having kids allows someone to produce more.
That assumes that people want terms that match the facts, though, rather than terms that sound good and get the interest of the papers ;)
If you produce more, someone has to consume it, or you get fired.
Regardless, if you aren't busy raising kids, you're going to do something with all that extra time and money, aren't you?
"I was not at all advocating that"
Yes you were and I obviously read your fucking comments you stupid twit, how else did I go through and respond to each individual point.
"Now, go take your meds and learn a little reading comprehension."
Well, if you were planning on coming across as a rational well adjusted person, then this really cemented it.
You said something colossally moronic and I called you on it. Don't be a cunt just because I caught you.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Well thanks for making my point."
... are you paid, or a dupe?"
If your point was that you were completely wrong, then yes.
You said they get paid LOW SALARIES" and I showed you were wrong.
Why be a dick about it when you get proven wrong?
"My question, what kind of person tries to obfuscate the facts about global warming by trying to smear the researchers, saying they are only in it for the money?"
No one did that, what kind of liar relies on straw men like you just did when they can't refute my point?
"So
So, is your point so weak that you result to slandering people when it gets crushed like I just did to it?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Okay wiseguy..."
I stopped reading right there.
If you'd like to try without being a cunt right off the bat, then let's. Otherwise fuck off.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
It never ceases to amaze me how hard you people try to rationalize your viewpoints, no matter how ridiculous and hypocritical you look in the process.
Like you did right there.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Giving everyone some retirement plan may be a better idea. If I was a third world subsistence farmer and had no way to accumulate wealth for my old age I would also want to have many children, hoping at least one or two survive into adulthood and are successful enough to provide for me.
It never ceases to amaze me how delusional and out of contact with the actual practice of science people are. The reality of scientific funding has nothing to do with the fantasy wherein scientists get together in smoke-filled back rooms and privately decide what conclusions they're going to reach before they apply for grants. As I noted, funding agencies don't ask what conclusion you intend to support AT ALL, and in fact will not fund a proposal that claims to know what conclusions it will arrive at before performing the study! Grant proposals do not state what the study will conclude.
There is nothing hypocritical about what I said. Unlike, say, the NSF, oil companies do fund studies which reach pre-determined conclusions. And I stated that there are also perfectly legitimate contrarian papers, which are funded by perfectly legitimate sources (like the NSF) — further disproving the ridiculous idea that you can only get funding for "politically acceptable" conclusions.
"The reality of scientific funding has nothing to do with the fantasy wherein scientists get together in smoke-filled back rooms and privately decide what conclusions they're going to reach before they apply for grants."
And no one anywhere claimed as much. The fact that you have to resort to this kind of hyperbole speaks to the strength of your point.
"There is nothing hypocritical about what I said."
The time honored refrain of the hypocrite. "Nuh-uhhhh...Nu-uhhh..."
"Unlike, say, the NSF, oil companies do fund studies which reach pre-determined conclusions"
And some don't. Pretending that studies that diagree with your viewpoint are poisoned because of it is moronic. Judge each study on its individual merits, unless you're not interested in science but ideology.
People bend their ethics in the presence of money. Your pet scientists do it too. That was my only point, and frankly, it's dead nuts irrefutable.
Stop wasting your time trying.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"No, he said RELATIVELY low salaries"
And I related them to other jobs and they were STILL HIGH.
"and said that this was respect to corporate research scientists"
After I showed him he was wrong, because his original point was garbage.
And now you're wrong too.
"The point, you will recall, is that climate scientists aren't in it for the money: "
No, the point I was addressing was that the salaries were low, which is a lie.
Neither you nor he have done anything to refute that, because you can't, because they're not.
This make three times you've chimed in and been completely wrong.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Yes, $83,000 is a low salary for someone with a doctorate. Researchers get low salaries.
Corporate scientists get much, much better pay.
The global warming deniers are being paid in the hundreds of thousands. One anti-global-warming article pays $10,000
"People bend their ethics in the presence of money. Your pet scientists do it too. That was my only point, and frankly, it's dead nuts irrefutable.
Stop wasting your time trying."
So you're trying to claim scientists don't get corrupted by money? Right, STFU with that, no one's buying.
And then, please quote where I called YOU a hypocrite. If you can't, then retract your claim that I did so.
As to your points, I don't give a fuck about them. They don't matter to my point, and I really don't care to hear your ideas on the subject.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Yes, $83,000 is a low salary for someone with a doctorate. Researchers get low salaries."
It's more that physicians (MD) or Attorneys (JD) both of whom have a doctorate They get more than psychologists with PsyD's, and Principals with EdD's. The site I linked to says they're not low, RELATIVELY which was the original claim.
Just saying "Researchers get low salaries" without evidence (which I provided and you did not) is pointless.
I gave links and evidence. You gave nothing but a statement which my evidence makes clear is quite wrong.
Care to back your statement up with more than, well, than not a god damn thing like you currently have?
You're wrong.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Ok, you never called me a hypocrite, you merely called my viewpoints hypocritical. As to your points, I don't give a fuck about them. They don't matter to my point, and I really don't care to hear your ideas on the subject. In other words, your point is trivially disproven but you don't want to admit it and refuse to even consider the possibility that your point is stupid.
What we are discussing is the accusation that the tens of thousands of scientists who are trying to alert the public to the global warming problem are part of some huge hoax, intended to get money for themselves.
On the other side of the argument is vastly-profitable Exxon, pumping millions and millions of dollars into a propaganda campaign to convince the public that global warming is a hoax and they should keep burning more and more oil.
You are saying that it is the tens of thousands of scientists who are only doing it for them money.
"Ok, you never called me a hypocrite, you merely called my viewpoints hypocritical."
This is the kind of accuracy that is present in your though process. It shows in your posts.
"In other words, your point is trivially disproven but you don't want to admit it and refuse to even consider the possibility that your point is stupid."
No cunt, in other words, I made a very clear point, you did nothing but run off at the mouth and avoid it, and I don't give a fuck what you think because, as you already admitted, you aren't reading what I say, you're reading what you think and making it into what I say.
You didn't refute a single thing I said, you just spouted off and were wrong. Why would I give a fuck what you think when you make false accusations because you're reading comprehension sucks?
I gave links and facts. You gave nothing, but keep saying you've done something to refute me.
It's that kind of reasoning that made you think I called you a hypocrite, and you were wrong about that too.
Get back to me when your reading comprehension improves.
On second thought, don't.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"I gave links and evidence. You gave nothing but a statement which my evidence makes clear is quite wrong.
Care to back your statement up with more than, well, than not a god damn thing like you currently have?"
Support your statements like I did or fuck off.
"What we are discussing is the accusation that the tens of thousands of scientists who are trying to alert the public to the global warming problem are part of some huge hoax, intended to get money for themselves."
No, we're not. I don't give a fuck what you thought YOU were discussing, but that was not what I was discussing, and YOU responded to ME.
Also, that was never the accusation, that's a stupid childish straw man that you concocted because reality is irrefutable. I never claimed that ANYWHERE, so don't argue it with me.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
First you said
""Ok, you never called me a hypocrite"
Then you said IN YOUR VERY NEXT POST
"You called me a hypocrite"
Which one is the lie liar? How do you say two completely opposite things, then have the balls to call ME names when I have evidence in black and white that you're lying?
"You called me a hypocrite"
Then why did you say I didn't liar?
How fucking messed up are you?
"Which is provably irrelevant"
In other words, you can't refute it, so it's irrelevant. Again, exactly what I expected from a liar like you.
"Arguing with you is like arguing with a retarded 5-year-old."
And arguing with you is like arguing with a liar. No, actually, it IS arguing with a liar.
Go ahead and claim otherwise, while everyone can read the quotes that prove it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"You are, as you're poorly attempting to use "retarded 5-year-old logic" to argue that "Your views are hypocritical" isn't equivalent to explicitly saying "You are a hypocrite"."
It's not, you're just not smart enough to understand the difference I guess.
And that's funny liar, if that's true, then why did YOU say I didn't call YOU a hypocrite?
Were you lying then or now?
You lost liar, and your desperation right now proves you know it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
But hey, let's see how long we can keep this going. I want to see how many puerile jeers I can elicit from you in lieu of cogent arguments about biases in AGW research. Maybe you can spend all day avoiding the point.
"Because, you didn't literally say that"
So are you lying now, or were you lying before?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
As noted above, neither. You called me a hypocrite, just without using those words in that order.
That's five, by my count. Care to go for six?
"You called me a hypocrite"
And you also said I didn't earlier.
Which one of those statements was a lie?
Need me to quote them again for you liar?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
"Which one of those statements was a lie?"
As noted above, neither.
Seven.
"As noted above, neither."
Restating your lie doesn't make it any less of a lie.
You lied I caught you.
And now you're trying to avoid admitting it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Eight.
"You lied I caught you.
And now you're trying to avoid admitting it."
"Eight."
In other words, you know I'm right and proving you're smart enough to count with your shoes on is all you have left.
Thanks for admitting it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Now go ahead and reply with "Nine" because you know I caught you lying.
Can we agree that you replying by saying "Nine" is you admission that you're a lair?
Signal this by replying with "Nine" because I've owned you and you want to admit it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Now you're lying about what I've "admitted".
Nine. Keep it up, champ. You know I'm right.
"Nine."
Thanks, I'm glad you know it, and I'm glad we agreed on a way for you to admit it without looking even more stupid.
Nice of you to do exactly what I wanted.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Now you're preemptively trying to find a "graceful" way out and declare victory because you're too immature to back down. No, keep at it. I agree to or admit nothing. I want to see how long you can keep up your self-flagellation. Just like that "Breakfast Club" scene with Bender and Principal Vernon. Of course, that's well before your time. It's morbid curiosity.
Ten.
"Ten."
No actually, there was nothing in there that met your stated qualifications.
OOPS!
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Nice of you to do exactly what I wanted.
You mean, exactly what I wanted, and stated I was going to do. But real clever of you, forecasting the future like that.
Eleven. And hey, twelve.
Keep it up, you can go the distance.
"You mean, exactly what I wanted, and stated I was going to do."
No, actually I mean you're dancing for me because you can't help yourself.
Now reply again, because you know I caught you lying and have to try and drown the conversation so you're not outed.
DANCE PUPPET!
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Sorry, the opposite has already been established. I'll see how long you can keep it up until you give up in shame, or one of us hits the comment limit. Either way will be tacit acknowledgement of my victory, according to the official SIIHP protocol of "I'm redefining any action or inaction on your part or my part to equal your loss and my victory".
13. Keep dancing.
"Sorry, the opposite has already been established."
Except you're a proven liar, so that means what?
Oh that I'm right.
Again.
Keep in mind, YOU replied to ME originally. Owned.
DANCE FOR ME BITCH!!
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
14. Keep dancing.
"Keep in mind, YOU replied to ME originally. Owned.
DANCE FOR ME BITCH!!"
Get someone smarter than you to read that for you so you 'll know why I win.
Go ahead and reply, I know you can't help it.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
And yet you just can't stop. Fascinating. 15.
"Keep in mind, YOU replied to ME originally. Owned"
I did stop. YOU replied.
OOPS! I win again.
Now go ahead and reply again, because you know I won.
Admit it by replying.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
You stopped replying by replying. Funny.
16.
"Admit it by replying."
Thanks, I'm glad we agree we both know I won.
Very manly of you.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
The worlld is increasinhhly shifting to free markets. They have proven to be very resilient.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Have they? Where is this proof?
BWAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH he shut you up good.
SIIHP for the win, Ambitwistor for the dumb name award and the "got owned because he's stupid" medal.
"This thread is in response to the following statement:"
No one cares.
I was talking about my statement, nothing else. I couldn't care less about anything else.
"You are taking the position in this discussion that global warming is a hoax spread by scientists"
No I'm not, and I never said anything of the kind. Stop assigning positions to me that I never took. It makes you a liar.
"No wonder you are getting upset and abusive in response..."
To people like you who have such atrocious reading comprehension and debate skills that they make up positions that I've supposedly taken because they can't refute the position that I actually took.
Respond to WHAT I SAID, not WHAT YOU THINK I SAID.
And I asked for links. I'm not surprised by your failure to provide them, nor by your insistence on arguing points I never made, there's nothing else for you to do since you can't refute me.
You fucking loser.
I win again.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Today we are once again getting rid of vast tracts of agricultural land and paving paradise. Big buildings, parking lots, houses, gone are the trees. Trees that put a LOT of moisture in the air. This process of water evaporating forces the temperature down. This is a physical effect and very well established science going back over 2000 years as the Romans used evaporating water to bring temperature down in their amphitheaters, even the Coliseum.
So yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas that plants use to metabolize into O2. Greenhouses happen to be hot to trap sunlight and protect them. It isn't as if you pump CO2 into a greenhouse to make them hot! That is the lie part. CO2 causing global warming is simply Al Gore's attempt to "save us" from a made up disaster. After all, the 1992 GW report from the UN had no mention of humans causing GW. In 1993 it was added with absolutely no explanation why as pointed out by French scientists recently. I know about other significant problems for the "man is the cause for GW crowd" that will likely come out soon, so stay tuned.
I'll probably get moded down, how dare I tell it like it is.
I'll take a look...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
When was the last famine in a free market society?
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
When has their ever been a free market society, other than in anarchies?
The US is more or less a free market society. So are most European countries. India is becoming more so, but has tariffs that are way too high. China, too. Of course they started so far back, that any progress is immediately noticable.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If that's your standard of a free market, with welfare, medical support, support for infrastructure and public developement, public research and developement, environmental regulation, and more... then fine, yes, "free markets" are very stable. You might want to modify your term though, as the real free marketeers would probably take issue with your characterization.