Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter

Ponca City, We love you writes "In England they called it the Great Frost, while in France it entered legend as Le Grand Hiver, three months of deadly cold that fell over Europe in 1709 ushering in a year of famine and food riots. Livestock died from cold in their barns, chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travelers froze to death on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years with temperatures as much as 7 degrees C below the average for 20th-century Europe. Now as part of the European Union's Millennium Project, Scientists are aiming to reconstruct the past 1000 years of Europe's climate using a combination of direct measurements, proxy indicators of temperature such as tree rings and ice cores, and data gleaned from historical documents."

Comments

Bring back the Frost fairs.

[auric_dude]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs.

Re:Bring back the Frost fairs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are that the equations are too complex and the whole project falls apart around half way through.
Anybody want to place bets?

Re:Bring back the Frost fairs.

[will_die]

Unlike what wikipedia states the frost fairs did not stop because of global warming.
The rate of flow and the layout of river have changed which are the primary reason you don't have the Thames freezing any more, the BBC has pictures of parts of the Thames frozen during from this and previous years but that is in slow moving areas.
Also during the years they had some of the longest lasting fairs they were doing construction on the river and daming up parts or slowing the flow of sections and those were the areas that froze.

Re:Bring back the Frost fairs.

[nightranger]

1963 was the last time I "remember" it freezing. I was pushed across the river at Kingston upon Thames. And I've got a picture to prove it.

Re:Bring back the Frost fairs.

[phosphorylate this]

And yet London and its surrounds hardly ever get any snow anymore - witness how unprepared they were for the 5cm they got this year. I don't think river speed can be the only cause.

The climate in England has changed since 1500's, as it did between 1500 and 1000. This is what happens naturally to some extent, the question is what extent. We are currently in a period of warmth for the better, the reasons behind this are debatable (and may have more than one cause).

Re:Bring back the Frost fairs.

[sudog]

-12? -15 C? wtf..?! That's not cold!

I hope this is a lab model

[Chrisq]

Scientists Reconstruct Millennium's Coldest Winter

I hope this is a lab or computer model, and does not involve spraying particulates into the upper atmosphere.

Re:I hope this is a lab model

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not funny.
There are real crackpot scientists out there trying to do this.

Re:I hope this is a lab model

[interkin3tic]

This is not funny.
There are real crackpot scientists out there trying to do this.

See, that to me IS funny. The thought of failed evil scientists trying to seed the next ice age, only to be beaten by Greenhouse Gas Man... I'm going to make that into a movie.

Re:I hope this is a lab model

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, maybe it is a countermeasure against global warming. :P

So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

More evidence to contradict common mythological belief in global warming! HA!

Re:So what about global warming ?

[wisty]

Well, if the climate models could re-create the last 1000 years, that would be a pretty good validation. I doubt they can though.

I'm not a skeptic, current climate models are not bad. The iterations of IPCC predictions have seemed to close in on their old "most likely" scenarios - which tends to validate that they are not just making stuff up.

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source. Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not sure - some of them may be available), but apparently it's more important that researchers keep their competitive advantages away from other researchers than to allow people to replicate their results.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source.

Yes, because climate scientists would rather act as gatekeepers for patches submitted by kids in their basements than focus on the work they're paid to do.

And how do you know that open source principles aren't in play with the work they're doing? Just because they don't have a project up on SourceForge doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't working with any and all interested parties. It might just be that they don't throw the doors wide open and say "Come on in everybody" for a project that you need a high level of expertise to be involved with.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Timothy Brownawell]

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source.

Yes, because climate scientists would rather act as gatekeepers for patches submitted by kids in their basements than focus on the work they're paid to do.

"Open source" doesn't have to mean "patches welcome :)".

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Pentagram]

Well, if the climate models could re-create the last 1000 years

It's not too difficult to construct a model that simulates past events, because you know exactly what behaviour it should have.

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source. Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not sure - some of them may be available),

No offence, I notice the qualifiers, but I suspect you're not well up on how the (academic) scientific world works.

First, you should note the difference between a scientific model and a computer model. Generally the scientific model is the theory and the computer model simply an implementation of it in program form (though some have argued that a computer model *is* a scientific model, but let's not confuse things).

Anyway, the theory is certainly not kept secret -- it's published in papers and discussed and argued over. That's the whole point of science!

The computer model though is generally not kept secret either. There's no need. The scientific theory is the key, and it doesn't harm the scientists to let others play with their model. Many programs used (I would guess) are open source or public domain. Even if not explicitly so, researchers will often supply copies of the code on request. If the code is not supplied, it's probably because the scientists haven't got around to it yet, or because no one needs it, or because the code involved is trivial.

but apparently it's more important that researchers keep their competitive advantages away from other researchers than to allow people to replicate their results.

I don't know where you've got this idea from, but this doesn't really happen. Researchers may keep ideas quiet until they publish to avoid someone else claiming the glory, but after they publish it's in their interests for as many people to use their work as possible. If people replicate their results, then that's independent verification of their results -- wonderful! If people build on their model to produce a better one, they get cited and gain influence -- great! The difficulty for researchers is actually the opposite problem -- getting people to notice and user their work. I'm sure there are counter examples, but that has been my experience.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[dattaway]

Well, if the climate models could re-create the last 1000 years, that would be a pretty good validation. I doubt they can though.

Our sun is about to enter the 309 year cycle with that ice age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the code is not supplied, it's probably because the scientists haven't got around to it yet, or because no one needs it, or because the code involved is trivial.

I'm involved in scientific computer modeling, and I've had requests from other researchers to use my code. Though I love everything open-source and believe in sharing information, so far I've decided not to give my code to anybody. The reason is that when you write code only for your small research group, it's usually not very well documented or easy to use. Therefore I know I would get flooded with support requests and questions about the code, and unfortunately I don't have time for that. I wonder how other researchers have dealt with this problem.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you've got this idea from, but this doesn't really happen. Researchers may keep ideas quiet until they publish to avoid someone else claiming the glory, but after they publish it's in their interests for as many people to use their work as possible. If people replicate their results, then that's independent verification of their results -- wonderful! If people build on their model to produce a better one, they get cited and gain influence -- great! The difficulty for researchers is actually the opposite problem -- getting people to notice and user their work. I'm sure there are counter examples, but that has been my experience.

To amplify on this, your scientific credentials depend to an extent on how often your work is referred to in other publications. They won't be if you keep the details secret. These credentials, the scientific relevance of your work, if you will, can have a pronounced effect on your funding by various grant-giving agencies. No-one's going to give you much money if your work is ignored. On the other hand, if your work is widely quoted/referenced, your chances of winning the grant sweepstakes go way up. You need to prove to other workers in the field that you know what you're doing. True, you don't want to be scooped, but you lose out by keeping your results secret.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Burnhard]

I don't know where you've got this idea from, but this doesn't really happen. Researchers may keep ideas quiet until they publish to avoid someone else claiming the glory, but after they publish it's in their interests for as many people to use their work as possible. If people replicate their results, then that's independent verification of their results -- wonderful! If people build on their model to produce a better one, they get cited and gain influence -- great! The difficulty for researchers is actually the opposite problem -- getting people to notice and user their work. I'm sure there are counter examples, but that has been my experience.

Your faith in the scientific method is very sweet; unfortunately it has been shown (Wegman, McIntyre et al.) that Climate Scientists often don't publish all of their data and code. With a lot of these studies it's almost impossible to provide independent verification and a lot of work involves reverse engineering from their results to find out exactly what they did (`Mannian' PCA for example).

With respect to getting people to notice their work, in Climate Science it consists of a simple press release warning of (take your pick) catastrophic warming, catastrophic flooding, catastrophic cooling, catastrophic extinction, catastrophic weather, dead penguins (Linux fans please note!).

Re:So what about global warming ?

[MrNaz]

Science has been open source since before you were born. Peer reviewed journals have been the way research (at least non private sector research) gets spread between universities and peer reviewed.

Industry shills like yourself may be learning to be a bit more subtle in the ways of FUDcasting, but know that there will always be people smarter than you who will call you on your BS.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Logical Zebra]

The theory can be accurate, but the computer model is often not. Why? Because the theory is "analog," while the computer model is digital and must deal with discrete math at a necessarily low resolution.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[wisty]

Past climates are not easy to model - I think it's something about the CFL and the speed of sound making it very difficult to model the weather on a yearly (let alone decade plus) timespan.

Perhaps climate funding goes to the groups with the best models. If this is the case, they would see their code base as a competitive advantage, and there is not way all of them will release their (generally publicly funded) code voluntarily. Even if they wanted to, their administrators might hold them back.

Also, there is no guarantee that code matches the spec (i.e. the published model). Errors, undocumented features, dark hacks and "corrections" can mean that the code can do anything. Maybe the code is embarrassing. Maybe secret bits of the theory are being held back. Who knows?

In an ideal world, the IPCC (which is not short of resources) would publish the software models it uses for its reports. In an ideal world, Newton would have published his calculus, and not just the results that he used it to find.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Randy Savage]

It is not black or white. I have typically found the absence of clear instructions is caused by haste, or poor writing standards, rather than a desire to obfuscate.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[junglee_iitk]

I have "optimized" (by running profilers on it) a very VERY good program for molecular simulation. It can do molecular dynamics, monte carlo, gradual insertion and what not...

It is designed to run on super-computers, and the next best contestant (Towhee), which is open source, is no where near it. For a simulation that takes 10 days on Towhee, we take only 3 days.

And it all is proprietary. It was written and maintained by a group of PhD students over many years, and they used to distribute binaries to those who needed them. No source code!

I got the source code in the name of profiling, but actually because they offered a PhD position to me, and I was supposed to work on it.

In short, competitive computer models remain closed source. The theory might be well published, the implementation remains within those who want to publish some-thing before someone else does.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if the climate models could re-create the last 1000 years

It's not too difficult to construct a model that simulates past events, because you know exactly what behaviour it should have.

The problem is, of course, that the past has this irritating way of not-quite conformin to the models.

Then there are the issues of over- and underfitting. Creating a model that passes through every datapoint is indeed trivial, but also completely worthless, as such a model has zero predictive ability.

Actually creating a good model from incomplete data (ie. everything outside of positive sciences, where you can create any situation you care to model and see what happens) is not trivial at all. In fact it's very, very easy to make dumb mistakes.

Just an example : look at the climate for the pas 100 years, and you'll think "oh-oh, it's going to heat up". Look at the last 1000 years, and you'll think "nothing much going on, quite nice weather". Look at the past 10000 years and you'll immediately say "oh-oh, in a few years temperature is going to drop VERY much". So which is correct ?

The answer is simple : they're all correct. You can't prove any of them wrong. Since the "climate" around claiming which one is true is so political I'm just not going to say which one is more believeable.

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source. Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not sure - some of them may be available),

No offence, I notice the qualifiers, but I suspect you're not well up on how the (academic) scientific world works.

First, you should note the difference between a scientific model and a computer model. Generally the scientific model is the theory and the computer model simply an implementation of it in program form (though some have argued that a computer model *is* a scientific model, but let's not confuse things).

Anyway, the theory is certainly not kept secret -- it's published in papers and discussed and argued over. That's the whole point of science!

The computer model though is generally not kept secret either. There's no need. The scientific theory is the key, and it doesn't harm the scientists to let others play with their model. Many programs used (I would guess) are open source or public domain. Even if not explicitly so, researchers will often supply copies of the code on request. If the code is not supplied, it's probably because the scientists haven't got around to it yet, or because no one needs it, or because the code involved is trivial.

As the other comments amply prove, you're living in a dream world. Getting code from researchers is a huge deal, and even if you get the code, that doesn't mean you understand it.

Add to that the fact that code is "debugged". Ie. the scientists "corrected" the code until it gave the results they wanted to see. I'm not suggesting debugging is not necessary or that scientists are dishonest (some certainly are, but not many). I'm just saying it's just too easy to "debug" your way out of inconvenient results, and therefore sometimes it's done as an honest mistake. Certainly students make the mistake of debugging their way towards what they think is the "correct" result way, way too often.

Furthermore it's very, very hard indeed to accurately determine if the code matches the model. For a lay-person it's impossible, and for an expert it's a work of months, if not years.

Add to that that most researches cannot "quickly verify" computer models that require years to calculate on supercomputers. Even if the resources are somehow available, it's often hard to justify spending huge computer resources on comparing the outcomes of 2 completely different programs (ie. verify that program 1 by researcher 1 gives the same result as program 2 by researcher 2, and explaining the results). It's hard enough to create and run 1 program.

Even in the positive sciences themse

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Jesus_666]

I don't know where you've got this idea from, but this doesn't really happen. Researchers may keep ideas quiet until they publish to avoid someone else claiming the glory, but after they publish it's in their interests for as many people to use their work as possible. If people replicate their results, then that's independent verification of their results -- wonderful! If people build on their model to produce a better one, they get cited and gain influence -- great! The difficulty for researchers is actually the opposite problem -- getting people to notice and user their work. I'm sure there are counter examples, but that has been my experience.

Also, having their work replicated means that they get quoted more often - and that's what being a scientist is really all about.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[DriedClexler]

Generally the scientific model is the theory and the computer model simply an implementation of it in program form ... Anyway, the theory is certainly not kept secret -- it's published in papers and discussed and argued over. That's the whole point of science! ...The computer model though is generally not kept secret either. There's no need. The scientific theory is the key

I don't think what you're saying is quite right. For well-understood, well-exploited phenomena, like electronics, this might be correct. However, if current climatological theories uniquely determined a mathematical model, the only difference we would ever see between any two models would be minor, and wholly-attributable to the greater precision one model used.

In reality, scientists have to do a lot of parameter selection and curve-fitting. There is nothing with those techniques, but when abused, they can make the data say whatever you want. I could have a completely incorrect climate theory yet claim that certain historical parameters change in just the right way that the model's output matches all known data up until this year ... and then silently release "updates" each year as I fail to correctly predict anything, yet insist you trust my current model, because all my colleagues agree with it. (Hey, sounds like Linux distros! j/k, j/k, don't mod me down)

So it's not enough to be able to point to textbooks and journals because there's still a lot in the way of "judgment calls" that have to be made when making a model, even once you know the scientific theory.

My standard for when a climate model has been appropriately "open-sourced" would be:

1) Anyone can download, edit, and run the model and all the source to arbitrary precision. (with an exception for the source code for 3rd party applications that are widely used outside of climatology, like Matlab.)
2) The source code is documented internally and externally, such that all functionality is explained.
3) All assumptions made in the model are justified by reference to a scientific publication, with preference for less specialized ones.

So, does such a model exist? If so, is it the scientific consensus and the one guiding and justifying public policy?

DISCLAIMER: None of the above reasoning is intended to justify inaction on global warming or rejection of science that brings bad news. If you are interpreting it that way, you're doing it wrong.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally the source code and documentation for models is freely available. Have a look here:
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/ccsm3.0/#src

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Rockoon]

It is pretty black and white when you make official requests for their data and source code and do not recieve them, so to have to resort to Freedom of Information requests which themselves get ignored until lawyers get involved, and only after many many years might you recieve the data required to validate their work but quite often you are met with the situation that "the data is no longer available." Even large scientific bodies such as the NOAA drag their feet and obfuscate when these requests are made.

This goes right to the peer review process. This stuff is supposed to be validatable, but even years after publication which is supposed to be post-validation, you are fighting to get the data needed to validate. Often a requirement of a Journal (such as Science, or Nature) is also that the data is to be archived and available, but the standard when it comes to Climate researchers who are publishing is that its simply OK that the data is neither archived nor available... that nobody bothered to do any validation at all.

The peer review process is a complete failure in the climate sciences. It appears to truely be a clique of climate scientists blindly signing off on each others work while they rake in the government grants.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just have a lot more faith in the models if they were open source.

The models are open source. Download them yourself at http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine was recently asked to do a peer review of a paper which potentially trumped his own research, with the data analysis done using a program he wrote. He was a bit amazed that the editor couldn't really see where the conflict in that might come in...

The programs are "open source" - most of the time posted on the researchers' own websites.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[spun]

Those are some pretty big accusations. Care to back them up with actual references?

Re:So what about global warming ?

[SnarfQuest]

I suspect that the current "global warming" programs have been written with the assumption that global warming is real, and that they have built this "fact" into the programs. Since there is no way to review the source code to see if this is true, they protect themselves from discovery of this fact. In any other area of science, peer review is considered important, but in this area anything that supports it is lauded, but anything that negates is either ignored or loudly declaimed.

You MUST believe whatever they tell you, or the inquisition will come after you.

There are many bizarre ideas that you must believe to belong in the global warming cult. Such as, the sun has no effect on the earth, carbon produced by SUV's (which is less than 2% of that produced by natural means) is the major cause of global warming, volcanoes don't produce greenhouse gases, the Earth's temperature has never varied more than 1/10 of a degree over the last million years.

What can you say about a program that assumes that the sun and volcanic eruptions have absolutely no effect on the global temperature?

Until you seperate global warming from religion, you will not get any real science done. Until the real cause is understood, there cannot be a usable correction. Any "fix" without understanding the real problem would be like changing the tires on your car when you see an pool of oil under it. You've done something, spent a lot of money, but fixed nothing.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Maxo-Texas]

He would like to but the references were unfortunately lost in a hard drive melt down.

You just need to trust him on this.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, competitive computer models remain closed source.

Sure, for the fields you listed it might be, but we're talking about climate modeling and it's almost entirely open source.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[zippthorne]

Uh.. A lot of the code for the models are as open source as you'd care. Although not actually open source in the gpl or free software sense, you can often request the code from the institutions that are running it, and they might just send it to you at no charge as long as you agree to their terms.

Not that it'll do much good if you've haven't got an up-to-date cluster running, but you can still look over the code, at least. I'd say that if you're a grad student, you're almost certain to be able to get it.

Also, the models themselves are detailed in journal articles, which while not always freely available, are definitely available at your local university library in some form. Free to peruse, and you can probably get a card if you ask nicely.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[ozbird]

In short, competitive computer models remain closed source. The theory might be well published, the implementation remains within those who want to publish some-thing before someone else does.

So it's a pissing contest first, and the progression of science comes a distant second?

Re:So what about global warming ?

[cryptolemur]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not sure - some of them may be available)

Since you asked:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/tools/

and some documentation with output (for reverse engineers :)
http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_model_documentation.php

I believe some grants/universities do forbid open sourcing code, or even making it available, at least fro some time.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

References.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[spun]

Seriously? You cite a weblog written by a mathematician without an advanced degree, who is a self proclaimed global warming denier? And where on that blog does it back up Rockoon's claims that the raw climate data is unavailable?

Re:So what about global warming ?

[junglee_iitk]

When it comes to job, no one does anything out of good will.

Why do you think communism failed while capitalism succeeded?

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Reziac]

In fact, you may very dangerously break things, if you act based on a flawed model. This is why schemes to "halt global warming" (frex by blowing stuff into the atmosphere or the sea or what have you) are so scary -- it's meddling based on partial and possibly quite wrong information, for which any negative consequences might not be seen for decades, but could well be irreversable when they do come.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't dealt with this at all, but I would imagine a polite "Here's the code. I did not document it and I do not have time to provide support or answer questions on it." would suffice(May want to put that in the source). Delete all email requests that you get about the code, and go on with life and research.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[ceh2624]

I agree with the this poster. Code written for wide distribution is, by necessity, written on a more friendly and documented manner. Code written for a small group only needs to be understood by that small group.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[riverat1]

Snarfy,

Climate models are built on physics. They make no assumptions about "global warming" (GW) being real or not. They just model the physical processes that occur and output results based on that. At least for some models the source is available but if you don't have at least a Masters in physics it's not likely you'll be able understand them to any degree. Could it be that the reason that work that discounts GW is ignored or declaimed is because it's simply wrong?

For more information about climate models check here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/faq-on-climate-models-part-ii/

I find it bizarre that you think anyone would have to accept those things you listed to accept GW. Of course the sun has a major effect on earth but the changes that have been observed don't explain the observed changes in climate. Of course the yearly carbon cycle puts tremendous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere every year and also removes a basically equal amount too. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up and down by 3-9 ppm each year because of it. But we also know how much the level of CO2 each year (lately about 3 ppm/year) and we know how much human activities produce each year (ex: 1 ton coal at 70% carbon produces about 2.3 tons of CO2 when burned). Of course volcanoes produce GHGs. But in a normal year it amounts to less then 1% of human production. It would take something like the Yellowstone Caldera going off to make much of a difference. And of course temperature has varied over the last 1M years. Otherwise there would have been no ice ages. But it's changing now at a rate not known in the historical record outside of catastrophic events which will be a problem.

The effects of sun and volcanic eruptions are included in the models. One test that was made of the models was against the inputs from the eruption of Mt. Pinitubo and they modeled the effects of it very well.

The fact is that the climate models don't work if you remove CO2 from the equations. If you can come up with a model that does work without CO2 (and is otherwise scientifically defensible) you will be famous.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[mrmeval]

They won't open source any of it as it would reveal their bias.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that the current "global warming" programs have been written with the assumption that global warming is real, and that they have built this "fact" into the programs.

Not so. Global warming results from the basic physics. Your opinions are counterfactual.

Read this blogpost explaining the models

And everyone should read this history of the science behind global warming

Re:So what about global warming ?

[alemaco]

Parent is all but a troll. If you disagree with parent, it doesn't mean he's a troll. If you disagree with parent please write down your ideas (not that I care) or shut up.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[BoothbyTCD]

Sounds like academic science to me...or more honestly, it sounds like any human endeavor.

Re:So what about global warming ?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Yes it does. Otherwise, the only options are 1: take it or 2: fork the source. Not that you can really expect to run weather simulations on your PC.

A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Schiphol]

Apparently, winter of 2009 will be one of the coldest in the last 30 or 40 years. Many people is saying that we should find such extreme temperatures increasingly common as a result of global warming.
Is it impossible that this particular result is being publicised to remind the general public that we have been like this before in history, and that global warming may not be to blame as regards are current weather? At the very least, I am afraid this piece of news may have this as a result.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[VShael]

The article may be a contributing factor to global-warming denialists, but they'd have continued denying anyway. The fact that they might seize on this, and twist it to their aims, is neither here nor there.

The great frost was a relatively little known event historically, to the point that wikipedia only recently got a page about it, and as of this moment, it still hasn't appeared in the page detailing the events of 1709.

Even for those who want to claim it somehow invalidates global warming, it should be noted that the great frost was followed over the next few years by a period of rapid temperature increases. If they want to somehow draw a comparable link between 1709 and 2009, you can throw that back at them as another meaningless statistic.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

What? Winter isn't a global phenomenon. It occurs on one hemisphere at a time. AFAIK, Australia has a particularly hot summer this winter. And it's not a particularly cold winter here.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Kokuyo]

Winter 2009 where exactly? I live in Switzerland and this has been a winter that has finally come close to what I was used to as a kid. I'm still waiting for one that will be on par.

So where is this super-cold winter supposed to be?

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[jamesh]

Australia has a particularly hot summer this winter

Worst. Understatement. Ever.

It got to 46 degrees C (114F) here two days ago, and temperatures all over southern Australia broke records. Over 100 people have died in fires and over 600 houses have been lost (in Victoria - i don't know about other states)

On the northern side of the country they are having some pretty bad floods.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

My biggest issue with the global warming debate, is that it's not a debate. It's religion. Your side calls the other "denialists", the other side call yours "fanatics" or "hysterics".

It doesn't help that scientists/politicians/news have claimed the onset of catastrophic climate change in both directions several times before in recent history. The burden of proof is just huge ("yeah, right, like we'll believe you _this time_"), and that cannot be ignored by deriding the ones that point out flaws.

In all other scientific theories, if a prediction is proven wrong it requires updating or invalidating the theory. When it comes to global warming it is never anything but "the denialists reading it wrong".

You can't first claim "this is probably the last year you can ski here". Then, after several years of record snow fall, change it to "this is extreme weather, just like we said global warming would lead to!" and expect that to convince anybody that disagrees with the theory.

This "the world is flat", "no it isn't" bickering is what makes me not give a damn. Come back when this is no longer a religion and I'll reconsider.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Mascot]

Where I live we just broke a 70 year old record for snowfall in a given period. I see no sign of global warming making this place snowfree anytime soon.

I keep my car running 24/7 to try to help it along, but I still have to shovel the snow _upwards_ when clearing it off the roof.

Recently read that the ski resorts in the Alps are also struggling with the highest snow fall in a decade.

We clearly need bigger cars.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists. It's straw man attacks like these that make denialists into denialists: instead of criticising the models, the predictions and the findings, you come up with your own stuff. Or you choose to criticise moonbat environmentalist hippies instead of the science.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[VShael]

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists. It's straw man attacks like these that make denialists into denialists: instead of criticising the models, the predictions and the findings, you come up with your own stuff. Or you choose to criticise moonbat environmentalist hippies instead of the science.

Exactly right.

For example, the oft-troped canard that scientists claimed we were heading for a new ice age back in the 70's.

Most predictions of an impending ice age came from the popular press (eg - Newsweek, NY Times, National Geographic, Time Magazine). As far as peer reviewed scientific papers in the 1970s, very few papers (7 in total) predicted global cooling. Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming due to CO2.

But of course, the denialists (yes, I'll use that term, because that's what they are) still repeat this debunked claim. In that way, they are damn similar to creationists: Repeating old discredited arguments based on misinformation to back their points.

This means YOU, Anonymous Coward above ("It doesn't help that scientists/politicians/news have claimed the onset of catastrophic climate change in both directions several times before in recent history.")

(Source : http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm )

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Antique Geekmeister]

Can I send you mine? The import duties might be expensive.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Lumpy]

It's not for my locale.

We had record snows... I remember them being the same in 1976, my parents remember winter being this way most of the time in their early lives.

They also said that Detroiters and New Yorkers whined just as much about a little bit of snow back then as they do now.

Call me when I have significantly colder days for longer. We had our very normal stint of 14-24 days below 10degF although none below 0DegF which is abnormal.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[vague disclaimer]

Your side calls the other "denialists"

They get called deniers because that is exactly what they are: in the face of overwhelming evidence, they continue to deny, using logic that is identical to 9/11 wonks, moon hoax nutters and, yes, even Holocaust deniers.

The classic approach is to take one *apparent* anomaly and present is as if it is Popperian falsification - when the truth is more often that the supposed anomaly is itself explained by the theory

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[M-RES]

I see no sign of global warming making this place snowfree anytime soon.

Now you do see the problem with your statement don't you?

You see no sign of GLOBAL warming having a LOCAL warming effect? This is one of the big problems - people assuming that 'global warming' means every single micro-climate in every single locale on the planet will experience a warming effect, rather than the reality that they'll probably experience more extremes of weather pattern (places with wet climates will get wetter, places with dry climates will get drier - to grossly generalise).

What GLOBAL warming shows us is that the mean temperature across the entire planet is increasing, not just in your local neighbourhood (if in your local neighbourhood at all).

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[iplayfast]

I had several feet of snow fall on Nov 12, (3-4 feet deep on top of the car). Usually it doesn't start coming down like that until Dec, and in 2007 we still had green grass at Christmas.

The average temp would be probably around the -7%C this year, at a guess.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[AchilleTalon]

Well, this is all about how would you expect the street man to make himself an opinion, if it worth him to have one, but it should since credits are somewhat dependants on him and his peers, if the first line information channel is itself biased, incomplete or worst totally incompetent? Then, even if this channel is working well, how would you expect the street man without any scientific culture at all to be able to understand and analyze for himself this information?

I think it is just not possible at all unless the whole country scientific culture become a priority in the educational institutions. Otherwise, the street man will stick on myths and legendary stories from the bible or any other book looking like an authority or someone using it like an authoritative book.

I am not optimistic about any change in this direction, even if the new USA President is less dummy than the former one.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll quote from the comments of that article:

The claim by Peterson that there were only 7 papers in the 1970s predicting cooling is just ridiculous. Anyone can check this with a quick look at Google scholar. Here are two examples they have missed, but there are many more.

Return of the ice age and drought in peninsular Florida?

I keep seeing examples in the media where scientists in one breath state "we don't know precisely why this is occuring", then in the next "but we're sure it's man-made". I'm sorry, that's no science I am familiar with.
Joseph M. Moran, Geology 3 (12): 695-696 (1975)
Convection in the Antarctic Ice Sheet Leading to a Surge of the Ice Sheet and Possibly to a New Ice Age
T. Hughes, Science Vol. 170. no. 3958, pp. 630 - 633 (1970)

What is strange is why people attempt to re-write recent history in this way, when their claims can so easily be disproven.
Where did all the stories in the papers, TV and magazines come from? Were they all just fabricated? No of course not, they came from scientists who made suggestions (like the above 'possibly to a new ice age') which were then hyped and exaggerated by the media. Much the same thing is happening now with the global warming scare.

Then, of course, the comments pointing out how the articles are not really about that etc. And so the circle continues. My point isn't that that comment is accurate, but that there always is one. And then one against it. Ad nauseum.

In a great many theories, common sense can lead you to a conclusion. Anybody can take ice out of the freezer and put it in a kettle on the stove to watch water go from ice to water to vapor.

In the case of man-made global warming, you simply have to pick a side. Who do you trust? There's virtually nothing you yourself can easily verify personally. There's no single "look how this was theorized 50 years ago and not a single of its dozens of predictions have failed" item to point to. On the other hand we can point to failed weather forecasts every single week.

It's simply not possible to come to an objective conclusion without dedicating huge amounts of time to the pursuit. And even then there's no guarantee where you'll end up (there are still serious scientists around that argue against the man-made global warming theory, after all). Most don't bother. Most just pick a side. You believe the one, or the other. Then you start throwing rocks at "the other".

The irony is that most of the changes needed to cut down on emissions has immediate and quite noticeable local effects. It has no negative effects. Instead of focusing on something people can relate to, politicians opt for "the sky is falling" fearmongering.

The reason is obvious, of course. Fear is a lot more potent as a political tool. Take a small country like mine. Politicians are making a huge deal about environmentally friendly cars. When doing so they focus exclusively on local emissions. If nobody here ever drove again, we'd cut the global emissions by some 0.00000015%. Give or take a zero. That has nothing to do with global climate, that's a political agenda.

In any case where you have a controversial issue, where one side does not welcome discussion, that's grounds for scepticism in itself. Whenever a global warming evangelist answers "I read this article about that 'hockey stick' temperature curve being in error" with something along the lines of "you idiot hippie!" as opposed to explaining the Wahl and Ammann examination, it's not helping their credibility. And there's a lot of that going on. _A lot_. You can't behave like an evangelist and expect not to be treated as one.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[berend botje]

Can't blame the climate for the arsonists.

Forest fires are a natural forest rejuvenation mechanism. Temperature isn't so much the cause as is drought (although they often go hand in hand).

However, if the news is trustworthy, the current fires are most all set by insane criminals.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[russotto]

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists.

There were some rather dire predictions about the 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[whoop]

followed over the next few years by a period of rapid temperature increases.

So, what was it that caused global warming 1710+? SUVs? Aerosol deodorant? Oil refineries? Americans consuming too much? Because today, these sort of things are the reasons for global warming. The globalwarmites definately never want to hear anything like "temperatures fluctuate."

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me this then. Can the weather man predict exactly what the temp is next week on friday at 2 pm in the middle of times square? It really is THAT simple. They make a slightly less than accurate prediction that it will probably be in the 20's. If it is in the 30s they shrug and go 'oh well guess our model was wrong'.

If you can not say with any sort of certainty that it will be 20-22 next week on friday. How am I supposed to take your word for it that it is going to be X degrees warmer/cooler next CENTURY? You really have to go no further than your local news station to get the 'proof' that most of this 'global warming' is bunk...

I am not saying it does not exist. I am saying the models are usually 'fudged' around to work to the current pet theory. There are thousands of factors. Not just the 'OMGZ WEZE ARE POLUTINGS'. We are only now just starting to get an idea of what other junk the sun is pumping out that effects our climate. It seems like many models treat the sun as a constant variable when it is NOT.

But I do know one thing making a half baked policy on a half baked theory is a BAD idea. Many government programs are just plane wasteful in and of themselves and we want the government to make it all better.

Here is a theory maybe its just warmer because there have been less volcano? Or maybe something in the earths core has started emitting more heat? Or maybe the sun is giving off more solar radiation (on its cycle)? There are tons of these things which can change the weather. There is no one single silver bullet I can tell you that right now.

Call it what it is, bad science. Theorys have testable points. If you have to 'fudge the numbers around' to make it work it probably is a broken theory in some way. The main article talks about deriving temperatures from samples. Sounds exactly like 'fudging numbers around'. Even if those numbers 'prove global cooling'. I would still say it is bad science.

To put this to rest we would need thousands more temp sensors all over the globe equally scattered. Including many layers in the oceans and the sky. Then many years (probably 2-4 hundred) then we MIGHT start to get a workable theory.

But maybe, JUST maybe if we repeat it enough it will be true.

Also to defend the other AC. 'this is probably the last year you can ski here' is EXACTLY the sort of junk science you will get out of news organizations. This sort of junk reinforces the idea that it might be true to people who do not know any better. I have seen almost those exact words many times. Also the ski resorts will 'play it up' a bit to draw in people. So you now not only have the paper saying it you have a business saying it to bring in more money.

Do not confuse theory with fact. Again I am not saying that it does not exist. I just am saying that the models are mostly based on data that is being fudged around to fit a particular agenda. Then the theories are fudged around to do the same thing.

Even Einstein did this he had his great 'cosmological constant'. As he was trying to fudge his theory to fit his world view. He called it one of his greatest mistakes.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[UnknowingFool]

The situation with climate change is the same as evolution. In the field itself, there's not really any debate about whether it exists. There is some limited debate about whether man-made activities are to blame but the general consensus is that man-made activities are to blame. However outside of the field, there is lots of debate. It's not religion; it's a bunch of outsiders who have a vested interest and are trying to create a controversy where it does not exist.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists.

Who made the claim is irrelevant. It was all over the media, and the media is what people go by, not scientific papers. If any scientist stepped forward to say "that's bull", they got a tiny little block of text on page 27. If any scientist stepped forward to confirm it, they got the cover.

That's how skewed the coverage is. It's not "allowed" to voice any other opinion but the "correct" one. That's not a good trend, regardless of topic. As this example would seem to show rather well.

So how does the media react now? I read an article where a meteorologist stated "after a few oddball years, they're now back to normal". He'll probably be ridiculed for forgetting what he was supposed to have said to be politically correct.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[1u3hr]

You can't first claim "this is probably the last year you can ski here". Then, after several years of record snow fall, change it

And who is the "you" you are quoting here? Name a specific person (or committee, whatever) that made such a prediction. Or is it just another straw man, or journalistic hyperble misquoted as if it were a statement by a scientist?

This "the world is flat", "no it isn't" bickering is what makes me not give a damn.

So you will refuse to look at the evidence until there is 100% consensus? That never happens. There are always, literally, people who will insist that the world is flat.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Mascot]

Now you do see the problem with your statement don't you?

No. I do, however, see a problem with your humor-gene.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Timothy Brownawell]

Who made the claim is irrelevant. It was all over the media, and the media is what people go by, not scientific papers. If any scientist stepped forward to say "that's bull", they got a tiny little block of text on page 27. If any scientist stepped forward to confirm it, they got the cover.

That's how skewed the coverage is. It's not "allowed" to voice any other opinion but the "correct" one.

That sounds less like favoring the party line, and more like "we're all DOOMED" making for profitable headlines.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

Source? That's a rhetorical question, btw, I'm actually saying you haven't got one.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Abcd1234]

This is probably a troll, but...

If you can not say with any sort of certainty that it will be 20-22 next week on friday. How am I supposed to take your word for it that it is going to be X degrees warmer/cooler next CENTURY?

I can tell you, right now, today, that the temperature six months from now will be warmer than the temperature today. Why? Because what you're talking about is weather, and it's short-term chaotic. What the climate science community is talking about is climate. They deal with long term trends, where that short-term noise is factored out. The fact you don't understand the difference speaks to your lack of education in science and statistics.

Here is a theory maybe its just warmer because there have been less volcano? Or maybe something in the earths core has started emitting more heat? Or maybe the sun is giving off more solar radiation (on its cycle)? There are tons of these things which can change the weather.

And, believe it or not, climate scientists have looked at them all. Yes, it's true... you aren't actually smarter than the entire world's climate science community. And bad news: none of them can account for the level of climate change that's been observed. In just the last 50 years there's been a staggering increase in global temperatures, and none of those factors that you cited can account for them.

I just am saying that the models are mostly based on data that is being fudged around to fit a particular agenda.

According to whom? Have you looked at the models? Examined the data? And if you're so sure, why haven't you written a peer reviewed article refuting these models you've apparently debunked? I'm sure the scientific community would appreciate it.

Even Einstein did this he had his great 'cosmological constant'. As he was trying to fudge his theory to fit his world view. He called it one of his greatest mistakes.

Ummm, that wasn't a "fudge factor". That was a valid term in the equations he produced. The only "fudge" was to assume the value of that constant was zero. Ironically, in that sense, he got it wrong: Go look at cosmic expansion, specifically the fact that it's accelerating. This just happens to coincide with a positive value for that constant you're happily deriding.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

Yes, and one of the reasons for those predictions was in fact the natural cycle of hurricanes, mentioned here, and explained away here (note that Christopher Landsea actually thought there was no evidence for linking hurricanes with global warming when he withdrew from the IPCC in 2005).

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[luzr]

Well, there e.g. was "arctic summer will be ice free by 2013" claim: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm So, if arctic summer is NOT ice-free by 2013, are you going to reconsider the science?

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[legirons]

Apparently, winter of 2009 will be one of the coldest in the last 30 or 40 years.

So after the entire industrial sector goes bankrupt this year and stops emitting heat, cars are no longer being made (especially crap american ones), air fares become unaffordable, and the cost of energy takes a hike (assisted by environmental taxes), you think next winter might be cooler?

N.S.S.!

Just look at the weather-changes after a bank-holiday (3-day) weekend to see how we affect the local climate.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet it's the popular press giving the "you won't be able to ski here next year" bullshit that makes people think global warming is a joke.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[adonoman]

Or you could read the article where it states:

"In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040."

So you have one Professor going around saying "Hey everyone! The ice will be gone by 2013! - Well actually I don't know that I just wanted your attention so I could point out that the albedo affect of sea-ice plays a slightly larger role than we had previously thought."

Then everyone else responding: "Yes, it does appear that the ice may disappear earlier than we had thought - 2013 is a little unlikely though - maybe 2030 or 2040, but 2013 is not outside the realm of possibility."

The media then listens to this and goes: "Hey everyone! The ice will be gone by 2013!"

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Muros]

Its bloody freezing here. I mean, literally freezing, solid water and all. I'm not used to that kinda crap.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

No, I'll start believing I can walk on water. Duh.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Kokuyo]

Ah, I see we have card-carrying Greenpeace members with mod-points among us ;).

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[interkin3tic]

My biggest issue with the global warming debate, is that it's not a debate. It's religion... In all other scientific theories, if a prediction is proven wrong it requires updating or invalidating the theory. When it comes to global warming it is never anything but "the denialists reading it wrong".

You could easily say the same thing about creationism. Neither one has been proven wrong. There are plenty of examples in evolutionary science that seem to be contradictions when the context is ignored or one doesn't bother reading the evidence. If you don't go heavily into the literature on either side or both sides, it can easily seem like a "yes it is! No it isn't!" argument in which either side has no proof, but that's not the case.

With the global warming controversy, the arguments on EITHER side are complex and well reasoned in some cases. Unfortunately, the louder voices are also the ones that tend to oversimplify, the greenpeace VS big oil. That argument IS more like religion, and some scientists engage in that too. Scientists are people after all. Both sides do have some loud irrational proponents, but it's wrong to conclude that neither side is rational at all, they both are.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[operagost]

By using the fake word "denialist" in your response, you proved his point. Pathetic.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[operagost]

One degree is staggering? Oh, BTW: that one degree was already erased in the time span from 1998-2008.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[operagost]

To use the climate change lobby's methodology, it must have been J. S. Bach's offspring that caused the increase. He was really cranking them out at that time!

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Abcd1234]

One degree is staggering?

Yes. It really is, when you're talking about the global mean, mere fractions of a degree are enormous. YOu do realize this, don't you?

Oh, BTW: that one degree was already erased in the time span from 1998-2008.

Citation, please.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[techno-vampire]

If they want to somehow draw a comparable link between 1709 and 2009, you can throw that back at them as another meaningless statistic.

Yes, especially when you consider that in 1709, Europe was in the early stages of the Little Ice Age. The weather in general was much colder then than it is now.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[techno-vampire]

I can tell you, right now, today, that the temperature six months from now will be warmer than the temperature today.

Not if you're talking about Melbourne, Australia, it won't be. You have to be a tad more careful in making these blanket statements.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at all the great things that have come from global warming.
1) many scientists have job security and a steady paycheck now
2) those same scientists have funding that make most other scientists jealous
3) it makes for great TV shows on Discovery channel
4) it gives purpose to people who are going to argue anyway. At least they now have something to argue about.
5) its a great platform for politicians to mud sling. (fuel for the FUD engine)

Gosh, what would we do without global warming.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Ferretman]

This demonstrates a very poor knowledge of history I'm afraid. The Frost Fairs didn't end because of "rapid temperature increases"; they ended because the river was straightened and so it moved faster through the city.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[sheepofblue]

So you are saying that in the past there has been rapid swings in extremes in temperature and this validates the green madness? How does that work? Seems we have had a run up of temperatures which peaked to years ago and are now declining, yet this time no swing will occur due to global warming ???? Do these great models that predict global warming accurately predict the great frost and little ice age while containing no data from those times?

Sorry things have been warmer but I will continue to deny the theories of the green madness crowd as they generally seem to contain bad science in the name of fund raising and government control.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

There has never been a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement from climate scientists.

Oh, so the UNEP are not climate scientists?

The warning comes four years after a study for the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that more than half of resorts in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria could be forced out of business over the next five decades as the snow line rises.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

Actually, I did not. But thanks for proving you don't know what a proof is.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, that wasn't a "fudge factor". That was a valid term in the equations he produced. The only "fudge" was to assume the value of that constant was zero. Ironically, in that sense, he got it wrong: Go look at cosmic expansion, specifically the fact that it's accelerating. This just happens to coincide with a positive value for that constant you're happily deriding.

Uh he was fudging it around so it neither expanded or contracted. He believed it should be steady state. So he fudged it to make it steady state. When it was not. It took two or three other scientists of the era to grab him sit him in a room and SHOW him that he was wrong. Up until that point he would coldly dismiss other peoples work as 'bad math'. He PERSONALLY called it his biggest blunder.

Also I think the rest of the discussion took care of the fact of what I have been seeing of bad math and science. You can create all sorts of models. But ones that do not act like the real deal are probably not right...

I can tell you the weather will probably be warmer as its called summer. We have a pretty good grip on why that happens.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[tmosley]

That's fine, until a political party adopts it as their party line, and they institute regulations that drive industry overseas, creating a huge trade deficit, winding up with the potential collapse of the entire economy.

While they're at it, they pander to fears about nuclear power, forcing us to rely on the same polluting hydrocarbons that are causing the problem they claim to want to save us from.

Yeah...

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[tmosley]

Well, that's a Jesus and the egg question if I ever heard one.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[KeensMustard]

My biggest issue with the global warming debate, is that it's not a debate.

Indeed it isn't, but not for the reasons you are describing- rather that amongst the worlds leaders, politicians, kings of industry etc, there is wide scale (almost universal) acceptance that the current climate change is due to the dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The reason they are not acting is not due to arguments over the cause of the problem, but because they would much rather that someone else step up to pay the tab.

The burden of proof is just huge ("yeah, right, like we'll believe you _this time_"), and that cannot be ignored by deriding the ones that point out flaws.

You are right about the burden of proof, but wrong about where it lies. CO2 is a greenhouse gas - if you put it into the atmosphere, we would in the absence of any other data expect that it will have a warming effect. Therefore the burden of proof is on those who claim otherwise, to demonstrate why it would have either a negative effect, or even more counter-intuitively, no effect whatsoever. In all other scientific theories, if a prediction is proven wrong it requires updating or invalidating the theory. When it comes to global warming it is never anything but "the denialists reading it wrong". You can't first claim "this is probably the last year you can ski here". Then, after several years of record snow fall, change it to "this is extreme weather, just like we said global warming would lead to!" and expect that to convince anybody that disagrees with the theory. This "the world is flat", "no it isn't" bickering is what makes me not give a damn. Come back when this is no longer a religion and I'll reconsider.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[mqduck]

However, if the news is trustworthy, the current fires are most all set by insane criminals.

Or their descendants.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you, right now, today, that the temperature six months from now will be warmer than the temperature today. Why?

Uh... because summer is always warmer than winter? Your intellect makes me dizzy.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[AliasMarlowe]

To use the climate change lobby's methodology, it must have been J. S. Bach's offspring that caused the increase. He was really cranking them out at that time!

Personally, I blame PDQ Bach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.D.Q._Bach I have all of his sublime compositions on CD, which must contribute to some extent.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[MrHanky]

I didn't say that. I said they didn't come out with a "this is probably the last year you can ski here" statement, and your link doesn't support such a claim either.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[niktemadur]

It should be noted that the great frost was followed over the next few years by a period of rapid temperature increases.

I wonder if the Gulf Stream was disrupted or weakened that year, because that's what keeps the UK relatively toasty at such high latitudes. Consider that London is about as far north as Montreal, then compare the kind of winters both cities get.

Is it plausible that some localized phenomenon, under optimal conditions (such as weather or oceanic currents), could generate a butterfly effect, growing to such a scale that it could negatively impact the Gulf Stream?

Here's another possibility - a major volcanic event somewhere around the world right before the chill. A massive volume of ash spewed into the atmosphere has a way of lowering world temperatures for a couple of years.

Any knowledgeable geologist here on /. know if there was a big volcanic eruption within the time frame in question?

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[conureman]

Up at my folk's farm in Ashland Oregon, they have had several snowfalls this winter, and it's been below freezing several times, here by the banks of the San Joaquin. I have to put on a jacket sometimes. Yeah, it's been harsh.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[jamesh]

Can't blame the climate for the arsonists.

And you can't blame the arsonists for the heat. Hottest day ever.

However, if the news is trustworthy, the current fires are most all set by insane criminals.

We have a mix of causes:
. lightning
. trees falling on powerlines (very very windy that day)
. carelessness (cigarette butts, power tools)
. maliciousness

They have certainly found a few people who have caused a few fires due to the last two items and are looking for more. The really awful thing is people relighting fires after they have been brought under control - having seen the number of lives (human and animal) and all the suffering that goes with it, they go and relight them again.

Lighting fires for some people is an addictive behavior and they don't consider the consequences so the act isn't necessarily done with malicious intent, but that's just sick.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Splintax]

I can tell you, right now, today, that the temperature six months from now will be warmer than the temperature today. Why? Because what you're talking about is weather, and it's short-term chaotic.

You meant can't, right? The temperature six months from now is also 'weather' and is also short-term chaotic.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[vague disclaimer]

Oh goody. The "we don't like your argument so we'll mark you troll" brigade is still in charge around here then.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Ihlosi]

You meant can't, right? The temperature six months from now is also 'weather' and is also short-term chaotic.

Okay ... how much would you _bet_ on the temperature six months from being colder than today, north of the equator?

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[algoa456]

The IPCC reports claims that GW started around the mid 1970s - not 50 years ago as you report. (RTF Report) The report glosses over the fact that many glaciers started receding around 1870. Models - even the best of them - are often an approximation of reality and the cone of predictive uncertainty increases exponentially as it moves away from its base data. In the 1960s the Club of Rome used models by Jay Forester to predict outcomes of the next 30 years. Forester was the most eminent modeler of his generation. The models proved to be incorrect and inaccurate. Exactly why are you so sure the current climate models are accurate?

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, as one of the other commenters pointed out, we *can't* look at the models or examine the data. It's all considered proprietary. Give us the models and the data, or shut up.

Re:A somewhat Conspiracy-Theory-ish observation

[Splintax]

Winter days are usually colder than summer days and vice-versa, but there are still warmer winter days and cooler summer days. The GP said "[the climate science community] deal with long term trends, where [...] short-term noise is factored out". Predicting the temperature on one day six months from now is not dealing with a long-term trend where short-term noise is factored out. The random variation is significant when you're talking about the temperature on a single day.

That's volcanic compared with some things ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds positively warm compared to the cold hearts of some girls I've known.

But not as cold as some geeks' overclocking setups.

Bad Science

[UbuntuLinux]

This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?

We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?

Re:Bad Science

[Timothy Brownawell]

This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?

They've found a way to turn a supercomputer into an extremely powerful thermometer, far better than that wimpy glass tube you have.

We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?

Because their superpowerful supercomputing thermometer is far to big to stick in the ground like that.

Re:Bad Science

[mommycalled]

Are you serious? I have to ask because too often people write something meant as jest and it comes out as serious. So when are you going back in your time machine to ask the people of the 1700's to measure the air temperature with that really new fangled thing called a thermometer. New fangled because Robert Fludd was the first scientist to combine Galileo's thermoscope with a scale in 1638. Unfortunately each thermometer was unique--there was no standard scale. It wasn't until 1742 Anders Celsius proposed a scale with zero at the boiling point and 100 degrees at the melting point of water. Of course every household had a thermometer in the 1700's I hope you noticed that the ground around your house that was frozen to a depth of up to 3 feet in some parts of the US are completely unfrozen by late April or early May

Re:Bad Science

[Mister Whirly]

"IE the temperature"

I use Firefox to get the temperature.

Re:Bad Science

[Anonymous Coward]

This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?

Do you have a thermometer that can measure the temperature of an object three years ago?

We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?

So the Earth was 500ÂC a few million years ago because the mantle down there is 500ÂC?

The Earth doesn't work like that. Besides, some rocks have (literally) never seen the light of day. The temperature of, e.g., the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge is not representative of the temperature of the air over southern Europe.

Re:Bad Science

[AliasMarlowe]

This article, and the research it talks about, is nothing but bad science. Computer models? Tree rings? Proxy indicators? This isn't the internet we're talking about, people, its the climate. IE the temperature. And how do you measure temperature? Well, I use a thermometer, why can't these people?
We all know that, over time, layers of sediment build up, and so, by digging into the ground you are seeing the earth as it was some time ago - so why don't the scientists just use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil at different depths?

So they say there wasn't much sunshine that year, or the year you were born. Well, just bend over, and we'll stick this here large thermometer where the sun don't shine...

As usual...

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit of topic, but funny enough, as usual one could say, when it gets cold as hell, someone is bound to invade Russia. In 1709 it was the Swedes that marched against Moscow. The later attempts by Napoleon and Hitler failed as well, mostly because it got a lot colder than usual.

And as can be expected, most of the Swedish army froze to their death, paving the way for the expanse of the Russian empire.

One can only hope

[Shivetya]

that if they can show periods of both cooling and warming that they actually publish it any get past the hyperbole of the groups who profit of the global warming industry. The problem with every generation is that they think they are unique. It has all happened before and will happen again.

Still it is a great thing to announce during a cold snap.

Re:One can only hope

[UnknowingFool]

What is often misconstrued about global warming is I think the result of bad reporting. Climate scientists are not saying that the Earth is getting warmer. The Earth has in the past experienced periods of warming and cooling, and doubters often use that flawed argument against it when it isn't valid. The whole tenet behind global warming is that the Earth is warming up faster than at any period in history. It's not that change is occurring; it's that it is occurring at an accelerated rate. Scientists fear that the rate is faster than flora and fauna can adapt which leads to environmental disaster.

Re:One can only hope

[Anonymous Coward]

For that matter, Global Warming "denialists" (or some of them) are misrepresented as well. many of us don't believe the world isn't getting warmer, just that the science concerning how and why hasn't been settled satisfactorily. Moreover, we believe that the steps being proposed to "fight global warming" are, at best, unnecessary and ill-conceived, and at worst a money-making scheme (i.e.: carbon credits).

Generally speaking, we know that the climate changes. NO ONE is arguing that.

(okay, there's always SOMEONE arguing a completely invalid point.. but you know what I mean. )

Re:One can only hope

[phosphorylate this]

This is not a case of a brave few denialists with nothing but their wits being cornered and forced to fight the good fight:

Mineral Extraction Industry + Oil Extraction Industry + Auto/Aero/shipping Industries + Fossil Fuel Energy Sector + Agriculture & Forestry Sectors + The populations general apathy and inertia against change

>>

any feasable Global Warming Industry (I mean where the F*** do these guys make their profits)

The problem with every generation is that they think they are unique.

When talking about human things like "sexual freedoms", "the corruption of those who lead" or the "rudness of youth" your right. But when considering environmental destruction, species loss, population growth or technological change and sheer ability of man then for the last 500 years each generation really has been unique. And in that uniqueness we will stumble, sometimes doing good sometimes bad.

Despite all our current problems and those we try to predict for the future, unless your of blue-blood most people look back at history and are thankful for the state of today. When we worry about the future we meerly wish to maintain or improve on this situation IMHO. Although there will also always be doomsayers.

It's all a plot ...

[Anonymous Coward]

to put another stealth tax on us poor honest law-abiding motorists.

Everything is. Everything

what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says that the temperatures went down to -15 Celsius, I must be missing something, -15 is nothing, it's much lower than that every winter in Quebec...?

Re:what?

[Captain Hook]

The problem is not absolute temperature, it the difference between what is expected and the actual temperature was.

The supply of seasoned wood would not have been large enough to last a longer colder than expected winter. Similar for food supplies for both people and livestock.

Barns would not have been build with thermal insulation as a primary concern, far more important would have been rain proofing and making sure enough air gets in to prevent suffication so a very cold snap would have caused serious issues for livestock welfare.

Not that cold

[Dan East]

"On 10 January, Derham logged -12 ÂC, the lowest temperature he had ever measured. In France, the temperature dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 ÂC on 14 January and stayed there for 11 days."

For the imperialists among us, -15 C is 5 F. That's really not that cold, and I don't know about the whole "exploding trees" and "combs falling off of chickens" stuff supposedly going on at that temp. I live in Virginia, which is considered the South. We're at a significantly lower latitude than France, and we've had at least 5 days of single digit F temps just this winter alone, and that is typical. Of course our cold temps pale in comparison to Canada, and the northern New England states Maine, New Hampshire, etc.

So maybe those temps are atypical for parts Europe, but trees, and chickens and many types of livestock endure temps that low regularly every single year, which makes me wonder if there was some hyperbole going on back in 1709.

Re:Not that cold

[oliderid]

We're at a significantly lower latitude than France, and we've had at least 5 days of single digit F temps just this winter alone, and that is typical.

France and other western european countries enjoy (imho) the gulf stream effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream

Buildings, farms and livestock (especially in southern france) aren't designed for such temperature and certainly not for long period under such a temperature.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

... but trees, and chickens and many types of livestock endure temps that low regularly every single year, which makes me wonder if there was some hyperbole going on back in 1709.

Are you suggesting Sir that our ancestors might be prone to exaggerating? Telling tall tales? Prone to jest?

Hogwash I say! Pure unadulterated hogwash.

Now if you'll excuse me I've an appointment with Baron Münchhausen.

Re:Not that cold

[jspoon]

The chicken comb thing happens in the midwest. It's pretty much frostbite, and a caution that the same will happen to your ears if you let it. Of course, where I'm talking about the low temperatures are below zero, Fahrenheit, and the wind chills can be pretty extreme. Never heard of trees exploding-I wonder if someone had an ice storm and got confused about what actually happened.

Re:Not that cold

[Dekortage]

Of course our cold temps pale in comparison to Canada, and the northern New England states Maine, New Hampshire, etc.

Where I live in upstate New York, we've hit -15 F (-26 C) several days this year. Further upstate from me has gotten to -25 F (-32 C) below. Friends in Maine tell me they've seen -35 F (-37 C) this winter. These weren't just for a day, but for several, even more than a week at times, before returning to ever-so-slightly warmer temperatures.

Even if things were cold back in 1709, methinks they doth protest too much.

Re:Not that cold

[addsalt]

In France, the temperature dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 ÂC on 14 January and stayed there for 11 days

What? While the weather here in France has been a little colder than normal (I'm midway between Paris and Lille), saying it has been -15C for 11 days is just false. There has been one day where this area hit -15, but we've been staying above 0C most days.

Re:Not that cold

[chrisgeleven]

We had a -20 F day a few weeks back one morning in Southern NH. A few hours north of here was even worse, -40 F I heard.

Usually in the winter, Southern NH is in the 10F-30F range. We may have a day or two that drops below 0 or a day or two when it can get into the 50s, but those are fairly rare.

We had couple weeks in a row this year of single digits to near 0 day time temps. It was really unusual for us in the southern part of the state.

Of course, a few years ago, I remember a week of 60 degree temps in the middle of January. Now THAT was unusual.

Sometimes NH weather is absolutely nuts.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of trees exploding-I wonder if someone had an ice storm and got confused about what actually happened.

Probably the ice storm.

Dead tree breaking sounds like a crack. Live tree breaking sounds like a small explosion. "They say."

Re:Not that cold

[xaxa]

Of course our cold temps pale in comparison to Canada, and the northern New England states Maine, New Hampshire, etc.

Where I live in upstate New York, we've hit -15 F (-26 C) several days this year. Further upstate from me has gotten to -25 F (-32 C) below. Friends in Maine tell me they've seen -35 F (-37 C) this winter. These weren't just for a day, but for several, even more than a week at times, before returning to ever-so-slightly warmer temperatures.

Even if things were cold back in 1709, methinks they doth protest too much.

And here in London... well, I'll let Wikipedia say it:

London has a temperate marine climate, like much of the British Isles, so the city rarely sees extremely high or low temperatures. Summers are warm with average high temperatures of 23 ÂC (73 ÂF) and lows of 14 ÂC (57 ÂF), however, temperatures can exceed 25 ÂC (77 ÂF) on many days.[76] Winters in London are chilly, but rarely below freezing with daytime temperatures around 2 - 8 ÂC (36 - 46 ÂF), while spring has mild days and cool evenings.

We had 15cm of snow last week (on Sunday/Monday), the most in 18 years. Most years it snows maybe once or twice, if it settles it doesn't last more than a day. I'd protest if it got to -37C! I think I'd have to wear all my clothes.

Re:Not that cold

[gilleain]

GP was quoting. It was -15 on the 14th Jan 300 years ago.

Re:Not that cold

[jwilty]

"Before the year was out more than a million had died from cold or starvation"

I'd like to see the actual breakdown of deaths from cold and from starvation. Even with buildings designed for warmer temperatures, I have a difficult time believing "Livestock died from cold in their barns..." at +5 F. The combined body heat of many livestock gathered in a small indoor space should have raised the temperature significantly.

Perhaps many of the memories of the harsh winter were influenced by the poor crop and subsequent food shortages the following summer?

Re:Not that cold

[Lumpy]

non judicious trees that dont handle EXTENDED periods of sub 20 degrees temperature will freeze and "explode" as in very slowly split open from the expanding ice.

the "cold snap" would have to last at LEAST 1 week and have no temperature rises or direct sunlight to cause bigger trees that have enough water in them to "explode".

as for chicken combs freezing and breaking off, sounds like raging old coot embellishment to me, the chicken would have suffered frostbite and had it blackened and dead far before it froze solid and broke off. Livestock dying inside is suspect as well, but I'm guessing what they called "inside" was a lean-to with 2 or more sized wide open and not a modern barn where you can close off all four sides and maintain at least 10deg higher temps inside just from the body heat of the animals.

yes I grew up on a farm, we also forested the land as well.

Re:Not that cold

[VON-MAN]

The whole quote should be this:

"On 10 January, Derham logged -12 ÂC, the lowest temperature he had ever measured. In France, the temperature dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 C on 14 January and stayed there for 11 days. After a brief thaw at the end of that month the cold returned with a vengeance and stayed until mid-March."

Which means that it stayed at these low temperatures for 11 days, it thawed for 6 days, and then it froze again for 1 and a half month. So it mostly froze hard for a _long_ time, and this means that in that time the freeze has time to really set in. Hence exploding trees.

"We're at a significantly lower latitude than France", New York and Madrid are at the same latitude and don't have the same climate. You really cannot compare like that.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

Buildings, farms and livestock (especially in southern france) aren't designed for such temperature and certainly not for long period under such a temperature.

They design livestock in France? Must be delicious.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

300 years ago. Remember that. You have a crop failure and you don't just phone up the next supplier on your list. Crop failures due to extreme cold would be widespread, meaning that it effects everyone and everything. And yes, the total death toll probably did take into account people that continued to die into the Spring and Summer because there wasn't enough food. Again, 300 years ago. This is a key point that many people here seem to keep missing. Life was very different back then.

Re:Not that cold

[UnknowingFool]

It didn't necessarily say that all of it happened at -15 C everywhere. Remember the -15 C was only what was recorded in Paris. It was not that temperature everywhere. -15C is however usual for Paris for 11 days; elsewhere it was colder than normal.

From the article it said that the unusually cold winter destroyed the winter crop staples like winter wheat which led to starvation in the summer (when it was to be harvested).

Re:Not that cold

[jsiren]

-15 ÂC is nothing if you're dressed properly. If you're in the position of an 18th century peasant in having no properly heated place to stay and no way to dress properly for the weather, things can get ugly really fast.

Considering the region's usual climate, the buildings most likely didn't much of a thermal insulation to speak of, so when it was -15 ÂC outside, it wasn't very warm inside either. (Somebody probably will correct me if I'm wrong.) Animal shelters probably had no heating at all. Making fires in the shelters was probably not an option, if it meant choosing between equal risks of freezing and burning the animals. Some animals could perhaps have been temporarily kept inside the house, but that wouldn't have solved the whole problem.

As to trees "exploding", it's not unusual for trees to split with a loud bang when it's cold enough. All it takes is a tree with a high water content and a long and deep enough frost period for the water in the tree to freeze. The water expands as it freezes, and when it expands enough, something has to give. If this is a new thing to an observer, together with a record cold spell, it probably is very impressive. I don't know if some more fragile woods might actually explode; we do have ash trees and even oaks in southern Finland, and they do survive the occasional cold spell. The 1709 frost must have caught plants "off guard"...

Re:Not that cold

[AchilleTalon]

I can certify chicken are not freezing in place in an non-isolated and unheated barn by -30ÂC. I used to have many chicken in such a barn and the temperature often goes well below -20ÂC here and it can stay such for a week or so. Also, I never say an exploding tree in my whole life, for such a phenomenon to manifest, the tree must be full of water and the freeze being very fast.

Re:Not that cold

[Dekortage]

In -37 C, you just don't go outside much.

I had never studied London's climate (nor have I had the opportunity to visit, unfortunately), but that does seem mild. Even though we've had -15 F here in the winter, NY summer days can hit 90-100 F (32-37 C) with ease. A bit more extreme than your spot, I guess.

Re:Not that cold

[zehaeva]

I've seen trees explode(well the aftermath) here in upstate NY. It usually only happens when you get a cold snap BEFORE winter. Before the trees have enough time to pull all the sap out of them selves. Trees with tons of sap still in their trunks, sap made up of mostly water that expands when it gets cold, that suddenly drop to teens F and single digits F will make a tree explode.

Re:Not that cold

[zehaeva]

non judicious trees

not to be too much of a nazi but do you mean Deciduous Trees?

Re:Not that cold

[mdielmann]

A tree will explode if it freezes rapidly. If the tree doesn't have time for the sap to go to the roots, this is a risk. Of course, trees that have a higher sap content or lower sugar content will explode easier (greater expansion and less cold tolerance). Calgary, Alberta, Canada has this problem due to chinooks. You can find a number of trees there with massive splits on the sides from sap rising from the roots during a chinook and then freezing just days later.

Re:Not that cold

[sexybomber]

15cm of snow? That's just shy of six inches. Here in Buffalo we call that "Tuesday morning".

Re:Not that cold

[xaxa]

In -37 C, you just don't go outside much.

That's what I think of -5C! (People from Canada/USA/Scandinavia/Eastern Europe just laugh. They laughed at all the English people making a big deal out of "not much" snow, too.)

It does tend to be damp and cold though, which is less pleasant than dry and cold.

I had never studied London's climate (nor have I had the opportunity to visit, unfortunately), but that does seem mild. Even though we've had -15 F here in the winter, NY summer days can hit 90-100 F (32-37 C) with ease. A bit more extreme than your spot, I guess.

Ocean currents bring water from the tropics (Gulf of Mexico) to western Europe. That warms western Europe in the winter, and cools it in the summer. The same happens (to a lesser extent) around Vancouver.
It's predicted that if the Earth warms too much, this current will move, and the warm water will go to Greenland instead of Europe (so Europe will freeze, but it won't matter because the land will flood anyway because of Greenland's ice melting).

Here's a map of average January temperatures, you can see western Europe is warm for its latitude: http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/currents-and-temperature-jan-enlarge-map.html

Re:Not that cold

[Lumpy]

No I mean trees with non-sound judgment. Come on it's cold out and they are not wearing a sweater? What's up with that!

Sometimes the spelling checker backfires, this is one of those times.

Re:Not that cold

[tux_rocker]

Also note that if it gets -15 C in Paris, that's probably because there's a cold wind blowing from the northeast. If it's -15 C in Paris, your spit will go "clunk" somewhere in Russia and/or Scandinavia.

Re:Not that cold

[Dekortage]

People from Canada/USA/Scandinavia/Eastern Europe just laugh. They laughed at all the English people making a big deal out of "not much" snow, too.

I lived in the American South for several years. The small town I lived in had no snow for two winters in a row, so they sold the town's snow truck. The next winter, we got a whole inch of snow, and the town almost totally shut down for a couple of days because there was no truck to plow the snow aside.

Compare that to when I lived in Buffalo, NY, where we sometimes got five inches of snow per hour -- for six hours or more.

Re:Not that cold

[zehaeva]

I was just checking, I mean cause sweaters on trees might be a good idea. ^__^

Re:Not that cold

[ivan256]

I had a huge pine tree explode in my back yard at the start of this winter. Usually happens if there's a big ice storm early in the season. The last time I remember widespread tree explosions was in the winter of 1997, which was much worse than this winter. This winter, power was out for four days, and there was a good 2" coat of ice on all the trees. In '97, power was out for weeks, and the ice was 6" thick on large trees and buildings.

Yes, it's literally an explosion. There is a loud bang, and the tree breaks into very small pieces. There is still wood shrapnel across my back yard (since I haven't cleaned it up yet), and the next morning the whole area smelled like pine.

Re:Not that cold

[ivan256]

Wikipedia remembers better than I do. The storm I'm recalling was on January 5th 1998.

They even have an entry for this year's storm: Northeastern Ice Storm of 2008

Re:Not that cold

[SnarfQuest]

We frequently have several days in a row with the temp below -20F during the winter, and I have never noticed trees exploding because of that. Trees exploding because of lightning yes, cold no.

Re:Not that cold

[frank249]

Minus 40C is not uncommon even in central Canada. We are so far away from any large body of water that it gets colder here than in parts of the Artic. I recall -54C back in 1974 and then the sap in the trees did freeze expanding the truck to the point where the tree cracked. Not really an explosion but when you are camping out in the woods it sounds loud enough to seem like an explosion. The lakes freeze but not to the bottom and the wildlife seem to make out ok. The deer seem to have more trouble with the deep snow than the cold.

Minus 12C. Meh. We play hockey with just a sweater at -12C.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

april fools?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4571982

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even have to RTFA to know (by reading the summary) that 5 F was the estimated AVERAGE temp that winter, which means it is quite likely that it got considerably colder a lot of the time during that winter, hence the exploding trees and chicken combs freezing off.

Re:Not that cold

[Reziac]

Having lived in Montana during the Great Winters of the late 1960s/70s, when winter temps regularly hit -65F (and sometimes didn't get above -45F for several weeks in January) ... livestock deaths due to cold are rare even among stock that spend the whole winter out on the range, and the real cause of death is usually not so much cold as starvation due to being trapped away from feed (either grass being too far under the snow, or the rancher being unable to get hay to them) following a major blizzard.

I never saw birds dying from -65F temps in Montana -- in fact those little chickadees (which must weigh all of 2 ounces) are around all winter, in large numbers. Now, birds getting caught in an ice storm might be another matter, but I never saw dead birds after such storms either, and we had plenty of 'em.

Nightcaps freezing to the bed?? Maybe if your roof leaked. Once in a while my fire would go out in the night, and when I woke up it'd be -10F in my house. Water jug would be partly frozen, but my nightcap certainly wasn't, let alone any other body parts.

Exposed thin tissues like the tips of cats' ears and chicken combs can get frostbitten (in which case the tips sortof dry up and fall off) and the same for human ears if you don't wear a hat. But merely zero temps generally won't suffice to do it.

Methinks it was not the severity at fault (after all, Scandinavia has much worse winters every year, and survives it!) but the lack of preparedness, given that this was an unusual cold for the era and area -- much as happens when Alabama gets an ice storm today.

"When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it rains, I cain't fix it no-how."

Re:Not that cold

[zehaeva]

No, not just maples, oaks and others. By seen I mean walked up to and touched and marveled that a tree could explode like that. Not seen as in looked at pictures.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad they didn't have McDonald's with the Big Mac back then. A nice warm sack of those would keep one alive for a little while anyway.

Re:Not that cold

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that his measurement was not in the normal Centigrade (Celsius) scale that we're familiar with. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsiuswikipedia:

In 1742 Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701-1744) created a "reversed" version of the modern Celsius temperature scale whereby zero represented the boiling point of water and one hundred represented the freezing point of water

Given that the measurements were taken in 1709, it was a different scale, though the article may've converted units.

I wonder how we'd cope now?

[Bearhouse]

And with roads and rivers blocked by snow and ice, it was impossible to transport food to the cities. Paris waited three months for fresh supplies.

OK, modern power transmission and transport infrastructure is much more sophisticated. But still very vulnerable to extreme weather conditions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_storm#Notable_ice_storms

Modern 'just in time' supply chains have less stock everywhere in the pipeline, so are intolerent of the slightest disruption. How would we do if this kind of thing hit again?

Re:I wonder how we'd cope now?

[cowscows]

It's an interesting side effect of the drive towards efficiency that our economy has leaned heavily on. We're seeing the results now that things are getting rough. You've got a ton of companies that were just barely profitable, and once things started going even a bad, it was only a matter of a couple months before many of companies started collapsing or having to cut big portions of their workforce and we end up in that downward spiral of economic tanking.

In theory, it's good for the consumer to have competing companies cut their margins and prices down to the last nickle, and it holds true in practice while times are good. But those companies that are existing right on that edge of profitability have no safety cushion, and are completely at the mercy of the outside economy.

When things start to collapse, they'll all crumble much faster than expected, because there's no wiggle room anymore. It was all driven out in the name of efficiency and productivity.

Re:I wonder how we'd cope now?

[phosphorylate this]

Yes but modern people have better food storage, eat 3-4 times what is necessary for survival, discard 100s of calories out of habit and have fat-stocks that are much greater than prevoius generations. I mean if we had to eat boiled shoe out of desparation imagine the resources a modern city has tucked away :)

I would also debate the more-fragile transport chains. We in the "west" are so far from starvation we don't even know what it looks like, its just a boogyman our ancestors had to deal with. Did anyone in hurricane Katrina die of starvation?

Just another example that "global warming" is bunk

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there you have it. Looks like we must have gone through Global Warming even back then. And we (and countless polar bears) obviously survived.

Global warming (and "global cooling" as described in the 1970's) is nothing more then politically correct rhetoric. Call it "Global Climate Change" or "Global Climate Concern" but stop preaching something that is nothing more than a cyclic event.

A story for Depression II?

[smchris]

When oil will start to become as common as it was in 1709 and we'll have more homeless?

-15 C? Give me a break. I live in Minnesota. -15 C is a _good_ night in January. I've seen more than -30F (-34C if I Qalculate! correctly) and over -100F (-73C) wind chill by the old calculations. I had to start the car once at -24F this year -- and that was what it got _up_ to by a sunny holiday 11 am.

Dang. Never seen a tree explode though. That sounds exciting.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in northern Vermont and it was common to see at least one night in February go down to -50 F in the winter. I remember in 93 we had it drop down to -60 F twice and that doesn't factor in the wind chill.

Molog

Re:A story for Depression II?

[xaxa]

I expect you're prepared for that. Happens every year?

Living in London, I'm not prepared for -15C, but that's OK, it never happens. I'm not really prepared for -5C. When there was 15cm of snow last Monday most people didn't go to work: very little of the public transport was running, mostly because it's not worth spending millions on snow/ice clearing equipment that'll be used once every 20 years. They also ran out of salt/grit, the emergency stockpiles weren't big enough.

The last time I took the "wow! it snowed!" photos was 2007. It seemed a huge fall of snow at the time. Looking back, you can still see the grass, and it only lasted a day.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[carnalforge]

Wow man, i thought that even in what's considered the world's coldest city, Yakutsk the coldest measured temperature was -64.4C (-83.92F). -100F (-73.3F) in Minnesota? Maybe you refer to some other Minnesota that we dont know that happens to be somewhere in siberia? :-P

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Culture20]

Wow man, i thought that even in what's considered the world's coldest city, Yakutsk the coldest measured temperature was -64.4C (-83.92F). -100F (-73.3F) in Minnesota? Maybe you refer to some other Minnesota that we dont know that happens to be somewhere in siberia? :-P

He explicitly stated -100F was Wind Chill.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[VON-MAN]

Yes, but almost non-stop for two months?

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Muad'Dave]

I don't know what a Qalculate is, but (as you probabably are aware) Google is great at unit conversion. You can 'search' for "-30F in C" which yields "(-30) degrees Fahrenheit = -34.4444444 degrees Celsius". You can also do things like "1 us gallon in cc" with gives "1 US gallon = 3 785.41178 cc".

Similarly, you can do wacky things like "1 gallon per hour in hogsheads per fortnight" which yields "1 (US gallon per hour) = 5.33333333 hogsheads per fortnight".

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

When there was 15cm of snow last Monday most people didn't go to work: very little of the public transport was running, mostly because it's not worth spending millions on snow/ice clearing equipment that'll be used once every 20 years. They also ran out of salt/grit, the emergency stockpiles weren't big enough.

Any trees explode?

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really that ignorant?

It's not about absolute temperature. It's about relative temperature and the magnitude of change from the usual conditions.

The local ecosystems won't be prepared for such a temperature drop. The trees wouldn't have the subcellular structure to prevent from going through phase-transition and freezing. They probably didn't burst into flames, rather, they probably became very brittle and shattered during a strong wind.

In addition,the local infrastructure couldn't handle it (structures weren't designed to maintain warmth at those temperatures, so people and livestock froze to death).

Just my 2 Euro Cents.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a fellow Minnesotan, I too was 'awestruck' by the 'impressively' low temperatures sited.

Wasn't it within the last decade that we hit -40 (which is the same in C or F so I won't bother with a unit). I actually walked a half mile out in that with just my winter coat (figured I'd see what -40 felt like), felt rather nice out as there was no wind.

I haven't ever seen a tree explode, though I have seen exploded trees up in northern MN. They are pretty impressive.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[sgtrock]

Wind chill on the old scale, too, which tended to run a lot lower than the new one.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

The last time I took the "wow! it snowed!" photos was 2007.

This was like two years ago. You must be a very old man.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Vellmont]

I think the point the GP is trying to make is that cold isn't really as severe as the article was trying to make it sound. Reading the article it sounds like it got to near absolute zero, and everything was starting to super-conduct.

I'm sure if the environment hasn't adapted to that kind of cold it can cause severe problems for people. But I've never seen a tree explode, and I've gone through -25F on an extraordinarily cold day in Minneapolis.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[tux_rocker]

I find it interesting to note that salt distinguishes truly cold countries from moderately cold ones. In the truly cold countries they just live with ice and snow on the roads, and make the surface a bit rougher by spraying sand on it.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[SilverJets]

I'm not really prepared for -5C.

Buy a sweater. There now you're prepared.

Ok, maybe two sweaters in case one gets a hole in it.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh? The infrastructure over there is prepared for such low temperatures as it is the norm.
It is much different in a country that isnt used to such cold, as buildings and such lack the proper insulation

Re:A story for Depression II?

[ShannaraFan]

"I had to start the car once at -24F this year" - only once? I remember two consecutive mornings (SW metro) back around mid-January when the thermometer in my truck said -24 at 9:00am.

Re:A story for Depression II?

[drsmithy]

Similarly, you can do wacky things like "1 gallon per hour in hogsheads per fortnight" which yields "1 (US gallon per hour) = 5.33333333 hogsheads per fortnight".

Sadly, it doesn't stick "and that's the way I like it!" on the end...

Reputable science

[ferd_farkle]

This from the magazine that recently ran with a cover story proclaiming "Darwin Was Wrong".

"...trees exploded... chicken's [sic] combs froze and fell off..."

What next, Elvis sightings?

Re:Reputable science

[Anonymous Coward]

The cover story about "Darwin Was Wrong" was, of course, strictly accurate, as it concerned the growing evidence that horizontal gene transfer is actually a significant feature even in multicellular life, and hence that the "tree of life" that Darwin's original version of evolutionary theory was based around is, in fact, more wrong than we thought it was.

Of course, it was a sensationalist headline, but that's not quite the same as being disreputable.

it's all relative

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen several comments here saying "It gets colder than that here. Grow a pair, wusses!" I'd like to point out a few things to you idiots.

First, cold is relative. If you're in a place that rarely goes below freezing, then having it suddenly go to -15C is a huge change. If you live somewhere that gets colder than that, well then good for you. But not everyone does. I suppose you'd tell people in Hawaii that they're morons for not keeping snow gear around for that once-in-a-lifetime snowfall that they might get.

And second, we're talking about life 300 years ago. If it suddenly got that cold, you couldn't just turn up the heat, or run down to the corner store and get a thicker hat and blanket. These were different times. There was no electricity. Whatever supplies you had were pretty much what you lived with.

So to say "But it gets colder where I live" really doesn't say anything of value. It just shows how self-centered and narrow-minded you can be.

Re:it's all relative

[Culture20]

So to say "But it gets colder where I live" really doesn't say anything of value. It just shows how self-centered and narrow-minded you can be.

Most of the "But it gets colder where I live" are directed at the exploding trees, dying livestock, and chicken-combs falling off.

Re:it's all relative

[berend botje]

Trees that are prone to explode in cold weather don't grow up to be large trees, they get killed of rather soon.

So, it is no miracle you don't see exploding trees in your cold locale.

Now get the Amazon rainforest to -15C and I promise you a whole lot of snap, crackle and pop!

Re:it's all relative

[rirugrat]

Re:it's all relative

That's what they say about incest.

Re:it's all relative

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they were responding to SPECIFIC events described, such as massive livestock death, when they live in areas WITH livestock that do not experience massive death every single year. They weren't just posting "oh it gets that cold here all the time!", they were posting "that level of coldness does not cause those specific events to occur, making the whole description somewhat suspect, or possibly exaggerated".

Re:it's all relative

[jaraxle]

Exactly.

I can easily say "it gets colder here" where "here" is Winnipeg, MB. This winter we've had a fairly consistent streak of -30 C weather, sometimes colder, with a windchill dropping it to -50 C at times.

However, it's also a dry cold, while in Vancouver I believe at one point it got to below -10 C but because of the proximity of the ocean, it sure eats into your joints and no amount of layers can keep the cold out. While we in Winnipeg are used to and prepared for -30 to -40 C weather in the winter, Vancouver wouldn't be prepared for anything below about -5 to -10 C and they are certainly not prepared for anything more than a couple of centimeters (maybe an inch) of snow. My parents were in Vancouver late December '08 and they are from Winnipeg. They couldn't believe how cold it felt while they were there, and they are used to -30.

300 years ago, if you're not expecting even a bit of variation in temparature it can wreak complete havoc on the population.

~jaraxle

Freedom.

[bigattichouse]

And into this mess the democratic revolution was born. Interesting, climate change leads to social change. (see James Burke's "After the warming")

The code is not the model

[Anonymous Coward]

The physics included is the model.

And if you don't know that the equation in filre #6273, line 182-9 is actually wrong (it should be +0.034*THETA, not +0.043*THETA) then the code can be 100% correct but the model wrong.

Look at MS's products for interoperability. Is the code being asked for? NO. Documentation on the protocol is. Why?

Well you tell us. Why is interoperability not being served by the CODE being opened?

Warm? Cold?

[Burnhard]

Hang on a second, didn't the IPCC already study this? Its third report completely removed the medieval warm period from a series of graphs and statistics! Are you telling me that was all a load of rubbish and that we don't actually know the climate of the last 1,000 years? So if that's the case, why are Hansen and Gore running around the world with their trousers around their ankles preaching that current warming is unprecedented in the last 1,000 years?

I invite knowledgeable sceptics to respond (this is not a troll!).

Re:"Proxy indicators"?

[XSpud]

I wouldn't have thought climate scientists would have much of a problem with climate proxy indicators being referred to as indirect evidence so there's no need for your use of the pejorative term "euphemism" there.

And if you think "circumstantial evidence" includes race, sex, and religion in a court of law, you clearly don't have an understanding of this term either.

Read up a bit on the science involved and you might be surprised to find some of these proxy indicators are little different than using the existence of fossils to infer the presence of dinosaurs in prehistory.

Or perhaps you don't believe in dinosaurs?

This project appears to be good science, whatever your views on climate change - it's recognizing there is a limit to the accuracy of what we currently use as proxy indicators, but by comparing proxy indicator predictions against actual measurements, it hopes to refine our use of these indirect measurements so we can use them to get a clearer idea of the causes of current climate trends.

It's millennium, not millenium

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that people would have gotten this right then years ago.

Global Warming not Global Weather.

[jellomizer]

The key area of the debate of Global Warming is the fact that the math is based on statistics. While statistics calculations are relatively easy (especially with a computer) the problem is getting good random data, and factoring in additional effects. Then for most people the calculations used are not as intuitive by most people even the ones who are good with math. So it makes the entire concept and all the work done difficult for people to get. So if they don't understand it what will they do... Go with their gut instinct.

Some people will disregard the data all together, then other people will take the data as absolute truth and see the world ending. Then there are people somewhere in the middle who will either think it wont be that bad, or a bit worse then estimated.

Now global warming in is simplistic view means the Mean of Normal Distribution Curve of probability for the weather has shifted up in temperature. That doesn't mean the shape of the Normal Distribution Curve changes it is still normal, If we were destined to get record cold this year we will probably still get it. Except for the -10F temperature we get -8F temperature.

Re:Global Warming not Global Weather.

[Smight]

Personally I think global warming would be a good thing and may even slightly flatten out the distribution curve. If the polar icecaps have melted the current and atmosphere are going to calm down consicerably as it won't have the extreme temperature difference of sub-zero ice at one end bathwater warm water in the middle.

Most of the land at the equator is a desert already but much of the northern landmass is still locked in semi-permanent winter. Melting the perma frost on that vast landmass would be much more useful to us than making sure it doesn't get a few degrees warming in the tropics.

Re:Global Warming not Global Weather.

[phosphorylate this]

Except the distribution itself can also change as feedback mechanisms with different time-scales each react to the new equilibrium. No that we will reach a new equilibrium anytime soon if CO2 does turn out to be a major climate-forcer.

Stradivarius....

[Notquitecajun]

There's some interesting theories out there that the extreme cold weather during the general time period TFA refers to is partially responsible for the sounds produced by Stradivarius violins - that the particular slower tree growth during the period resulted in a type of wood that brought about the unique sounds of those instruments. Probably a more music-savvy person can expound on the matter.

Re:Stradivarius....

[schwinn8]

Recent studies have shown that the famed sound of the Stradivarius violins was not caused by the wood, but by the chemicals used for varnishing: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122141228.htm

Re:Stradivarius....

[bigmouth_strikes]

Also, most people -including violinists - can't tell the difference between a Stradivarius and any other violin anyway.

"For another, even trained musicians can't reliably pick out the sound of a Strad, he said."

Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[mbone]

The cold winter in 1709 was towards the tail-end of the "Maunder Minimum" in sunspots and solar activity. Given that sunspot numbers are again unusually low, maybe it will happen again.

Re:Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[should_be_linear]

Don't warry, we have already technology in place to shield us from cold due low solar activity. It is, basically, thick layer of CO2 [turning to sun my naked ass].

Re:Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[Anonymous Coward]

careful... you'll get yourself labeled a 'denialist' with talk like that.

Re:Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[SnarfQuest]

Sorry, but according to the global warming experts, the sun has absolutely no effect on the global temperature.

Re:Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[Timothy Brownawell]

Sorry, but according to the global warming experts, the sun has absolutely no effect on the global temperature.

Day being typically warmer than night is purely an illusion, and if the sun disappeared tomorrow global temperatures wouldn't change.

Re:Related to the Maunder Minimum ?

[geekoid]

Incorrect.
Global temperature has an effect on global temperatures, and no scientist says otherwise.

Please stop spreading lies.

Illiterates

[Anonymous Coward]

It's millennium.

So what is the CO2 we're releasing doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, *naturally* it would be making the oceans acidic and raising global temperature averages.

What is "unnatural" about that?

Re:So what is the CO2 we're releasing doing?

[Troed]

Are you under the impression that the levels of atmospheric CO2 are in any way out of the ordinary historically?

They're not, and the oceans are nowhere near becoming "acidic" either.

Verify myths before spreading them, even if it might require you to go beyond tabloids and weird propaganda.

Re:So what is the CO2 we're releasing doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are going with the whole "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" theory? Sound.
I have also been hearing this crackpot theory that the Earth isn't flat. But if that is so, where would the dragons at the edges of the world go?

Re:So what is the CO2 we're releasing doing?

[Troed]

I subscribe to the Karl Popper version of science, yes. I like facts, not fiction, and the IPCC climate models have been proven wrong.

Proven.

Little Ice Age

[JTsyo]

The History Channel had a show about this over the weekend. There was also a year that it snowed in July in the Northeast US. The possible reasons they gave were: -solar min -volcanic activity releasing sulfur high into the atmosphere -fresh water from northern ice disrupting ocean currents

Re:Little Ice Age

[Anonymous Coward]

Except "Little Ice Age" generally refers to a period that began 400 years before the event we're talking about here.

Re:Little Ice Age

[Opyros]

The year with snow in July was 1816, the so-called Year Without a Summer, caused (probably) by the Tambora eruption.

And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

"They get called deniers because that is exactly what they are: in the face of overwhelming evidence, they continue to deny, using logic that is identical to 9/11 wonks, moon hoax nutters and, yes, even Holocaust deniers."

And what about proven scientific fraud?

A couple of years ago, two Canadians named Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick (aka MM) decided to try to recreate the famous "Hockey Stick." As I recall, one was an economist, the other a mathematician - their work was just to reproduce the results Mann had published using Mann's own model and technique.

They couldn't do it.

In fact, they found two things:

First, Mann and his team had cherry picked their data. They took only the lowest samples from the Medieval Warm Period, and only the highest samples for the modern period. In the case of the former, quite a lot of data was collected and then withheld, data which placed the Medieval Warm Period as considerably hotter than today. This is the equivalent of a historian trying to erase the Roman Empire from history.

Second, Mann's model itself would generate a "hockey stick" out of any data that was fed into it. MM fed a number of samples that were actually random noise into the model, and every single one came out a hockey stick.

Once MM corrected the graph and collected more representative data, what they found was a Medieval Warm Period quite higher than temperatures today, followed by a dip in temperature, and a rise in temperature in the last few years, but NOT one that was out of the ordinary in terms of size or scale.

The paper in which this was published ( http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.mckitrick.2003.pdf ) raised enough questions that in 2006 it was put before a committee led by a statistics professor named Edward Wegman, which performed an independent review of both Mann and his team's "hockey stick," as well as MM's work on debunking it. Not only did they find and report to Congress that the "hockey stick" could not be reproduced, but also that the entire paleoclimate field had become isolated and often unwilling to share important data, or clarify their methodologies - in some cases claiming that a bad methodology was fine because the answer was correct anyway. MM's work was upheld, and the "hockey stick" was debunked.

Sources so far:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanOp-Ed.pdf
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354

When it comes to the IPCC report, the committee broke its own rules to use Mann's "hockey stick." This is documented here: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html

This is very far from "logic that is identical to 9/11 wonks, moon hoax nutters and, yes, even Holocaust deniers" - it is, however, a damning observation that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[russotto]

Not only did they find and report to Congress that the "hockey stick" could not be reproduced, but also that the entire paleoclimate field had become isolated and often unwilling to share important data, or clarify their methodologies - in some cases claiming that a bad methodology was fine because the answer was correct anyway. MM's work was upheld, and the "hockey stick" was debunked.

The IPCC, though, and the "global warming consensus" people, still claim the hockey stick is valid and label anyone who says otherwise as a k00k and a denier.

To me, the most damning part of it is the feeding of "red noise" into the model and getting a hockey stick. If a model doesn't have the power to distinguish between the phenomenon you are looking for and noise, it's clearly worthless, and there should be no further argument about it.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[PeterP]

I think that MM's claims have been shown to be wrong.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=8

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[shma]

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Oh, and McIntyre isn't a mathematician. He only holds a Bachelor's in mathematics. I fucking hold a bachelor's in mathematics, but I don't go around calling myself a mathematician.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

You might want to look at the source there. Realclimate is a website operated by Michael Mann, who created the "hockey stick" graph in the first place - and who also shocked the Wegman panel by citing his own papers as "independent verification."

If you want some more detailed information on this, you should read this: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf - it discusses the way MM found climatology circles to work, as well as discussing the censored data and why it's important.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

Oh, I see. So some dude with a BSc in Math claims to find a hole in the data, and when the original authors rebut his claims... you just assume MM was right (as opposed to, say, poking holes in the rebuttal).

Nope, not biased at all...

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[SilverJets]

I don't think you understand what biased means.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

Oh, I have a bias...never suggested otherwise. I do want to point a couple of things out:

1. It wasn't just MM disputing the "hockey stick" - a independent panel of statistics experts reporting to Congress examined it, Mann's work, and found that MM were the ones in the right.

2. The "hockey stick" was found to be the result of faulty mathematics...by people who specialize in mathematics. That makes them experts in their fields.

3. If Mann is so right, why doesn't his model stand up to scrutiny? Why did it CENSOR the data from the Medieval Warm Period? Why does it produce a "hockey stick" shape out of red noise around 99% of the time? Why does it rely on only one source for modern temperature figures, and that source itself is notoriously unreliable as a climate indicator?

Let me put it this way - Mann and company are hiding and misrepresenting data and methodologies, and asking us to just take their word for it. MM are pointing out there is a problem, making all of their work publicly available, and have received independent verification that their math is correct from experts in statistics and statistical analysis.

Who do you find more trustworthy?

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

You mean Realclimate, the website run by, um, Michael Mann...the man who created the "hockey stick" graph in the first place?

And, while McIntyre may not be a mathematician, Wegman was a professor of statistics, and his panel - which verified MM's findings - were also experts in statistics and statistical analysis. They were able to verify and reproduce MM's work, and not Mann's, and they were using Mann's data and methodologies.

Also, while McIntyre may not be a mathematician, Ross McKitrick, the other side of the MM team, is a professor of environmental economics - and economists spend a lot of time dealing with mathematical models.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Anonymous Coward]

The expected result of politicized science.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

1. It wasn't just MM disputing the "hockey stick" - a independent panel of statistics experts reporting to Congress examined it, Mann's work, and found that MM were the ones in the right.

Uhh, if you're talking about the National Research Council panel, the BBC seems to take the exact opposite stance on the results. Are you saying the BBC is lying? Or are you talking about a different panel?

2. The "hockey stick" was found to be the result of faulty mathematics...by people who specialize in mathematics. That makes them experts in their fields.

If that's true, great. But the validity of those results seems to be in question. Some claim the math is bad. Others don't.

3. If Mann is so right, why doesn't his model stand up to scrutiny?

Way to beg the question. You assume the model doesn't stand up to scrutiny, yet I've already provided an article that claims it does. Are you right, or am I?

Let me put it this way - Mann and company are hiding and misrepresenting data and methodologies

According to you. Citations, please?

MM are pointing out there is a problem, making all of their work publicly available, and have received independent verification that their math is correct from experts in statistics and statistical analysis.

I've already provided at least one citation that indicates otherwise, a citation not produced by Mann, et al. I'm sure I could dig up others.

So, who's right?

Who do you find more trustworthy?

Well, the denialists:

a) make the false assumption that the entire scientific community is a monolithic, closed clique that can't possibly be trusted,
b) are blinded by the romantic notion that the loan maverick is more trustworthy than the community (what I like to call Galileo syndrome)
c) are populated by those with a clear vested interest in finding AGW false (eg, the fossil fuel industry)
d) like to trot out old and dead arguments that have been long refuted, a tendency that's disturbingly mirrored in the Intelligent Design community.

Given this, I tend toward siding with the scientists, flawed as they may be. But, of course, that's a bias in an of itself (and one I will happily admit to).

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

I hate replying to my own post, but...

1. It wasn't just MM disputing the "hockey stick" - a independent panel of statistics experts reporting to Congress examined it, Mann's work, and found that MM were the ones in the right.

Uhh, if you're talking about the National Research Council panel, the BBC seems to take the exact opposite stance on the results. Are you saying the BBC is lying? Or are you talking about a different panel?

Just on this point, the real issue is that the results from the NRC *both* affirmed Mann's results, while at the same time echoing some of MM's criticisms. But the key point is this: Mann's results we *not* refuted by the panel (at least if the BBC article is to be believed, I haven't actually gone through the panel's results).

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

2. The "hockey stick" was found to be the result of faulty mathematics...by people who specialize in mathematics. That makes them experts in their fields

Ah, no, you're talking about Wegman, et al. The same panel who's results have been heavily disputed, having been accused of twisting results in order to come to their conclusions, and having only been peer reviewed by inviduals Wegman personally chose. Further, Mann, et al, make the claim that even after correcting the errors Wegman, et al, found, the result is the same... and that the same results pop of out completely different constructions.

So... who's right, again?

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[shma]

You mean Realclimate, the website run by, um, Michael Mann...the man who created the "hockey stick" graph in the first place?

Run? He's one of twelve different contributors. Here's what they had to say about Wegman's analysis, by the way. I'll just post the most important parts here:

Wegman had been tasked solely to evaluate whether the McIntyre and McKitrick (2005) (MM05) criticism of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) (MBH) had statistical merit. That is, was their narrow point on the impacts of centering on the first principal component (PC) correct? He was pointedly not asked whether it made any difference to the final MBH reconstruction and so he did not attempt to evaluate that. Since no one has ever disputed MM05's arithmetic (only their inferences), he along with the everyone else found that, yes, centering conventions make a difference to the first PC. This was acknowledged way back when and so should not come as a surprise.

But, and this is where the missing piece comes in, no-one (with sole and impressive exception of Hans von Storch during the Q&A) went on to mention what the effect of the PC centering changes would have had on the final reconstruction - that is, after all the N. American PCs had been put in with the other data and used to make the hemispheric mean temperature estimate. Beacuse, let's face it, it was the final reconstruction that got everyone's attention.Von Storch got it absolutely right - it would make no practical difference at all.

Oh and this was laughable:

Also, while McIntyre may not be a mathematician, Ross McKitrick, the other side of the MM team, is a professor of environmental economics - and economists spend a lot of time dealing with mathematical models.

Yeah, those economists are great at modeling! Just look at how they predicted the last 6 months!

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

"Run? He's one of twelve different contributors. Here's what they had to say about Wegman's analysis [realclimate.org], by the way. I'll just post the most important parts here:"

Why don't you try actually reading some material on Wegman and his analysis, rather than just parroting Mann and his cronies.

The Wegman report: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf

If you read nothing else, I would suggest you read the Findings section on page 3.

Commentary on Wegman: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanOp-Ed.pdf

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

OOC, why is it you continue to parrot McKitrick's opinions as though they're gospel, while flat out ignoring anyone else? It's classic cherrypicking, and I'm surprised you don't see that. I mean, jebus, big shocker, McKitrick likes the (highly politicized, heavily criticized, non-peer-reviewed) report that vindicates his results. Surprise surprise!

Got a third-party, actually independent source? (BTW, I strongly suspect the answer to that is 'no').

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

"OOC, why is it you continue to parrot McKitrick's opinions as though they're gospel, while flat out ignoring anyone else? It's classic cherrypicking, and I'm surprised you don't see that. I mean, jebus, big shocker, McKitrick likes the (highly politicized, heavily criticized, non-peer-reviewed) report that vindicates his results. Surprise surprise!

Got a third-party, actually independent source? (BTW, I strongly suspect the answer to that is 'no')."

Besides Wegman, and perhaps a couple of solar activity scientists, no. But then again, finding an independent source on this matter is tricky in any event. One of the things Wegman commented on was that Mann was central to a lot of the work done on this matter, and most of the articles published regarding the "hockey stick" were co-written with Mann or a member of his team.

Come to think of it, it seems to me that the divide is between Mann and his team and MM. I have little doubt that there are many articles discussing and debating this - I know there was a series called "The Deniers" that dealt with this, and listed a number of people. There was also a very famous public letter by something like 500 scientists arguing against the current state of climatology. But you asked me a question, and a worthy one - why do I trust McKitrick, and not Mann? I am prepared to answer that.

My training is as a historian, and I've never really left that focus. I have a degree in Medieval Studies, a degree in English Literature, and right now I'm working on a Master of Arts in War Studies, studying cavalry in the First World War. So, I tend to look at things through what is called "abductive reasoning" - I collect as much evidence as possible before coming to a conclusion, and I put off theorizing as late as possible.

One of the things is that historical research tends to have biases, and so part of my training is getting beyond those biases. So, part of whether I trust a source or not is not based on the conclusion that they come to, but how they handle the evidence that leads them to this conclusion, as well as how they discuss the implications - and handle criticism - of that conclusion.

To cut a long story short (I know - too late), McIntyre and McKitrick impressed me on all counts, and I found their work - as far as I understand it - to be logical and well reasoned. They also exposed what I consider serious flaws in the way Mann and his team operated - including cutting out evidence and cherry picking data. I can't begin to understand most of the math on either side, but MM made their case in a convincing way.

Mann has impressed me considerably less. As I said, the cutting out of the Medieval Warm Period by censoring the data is a very poor methodology, but I also pay attention to how they handle challenges to their theories. Reading the Realclimate explanation of how CO2 levels can instigate a temperature rise while they actually rise after the temperature goes up left me bemused as Realclimate twisted itself into a pretzel to try to discount it. Compare that to a researcher in Scotland named Chris Merchant who put together a wonderful presentation where he provided a counter-argument to "The Great Global Warming Swindle" ( http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/chris ) - he came across as a credible scientist, not an extremist, and most important of all, he didn't twist himself into a pretzel to make his point.

Now, I have accused Mann of being an academic fraud, and I stand by that. I don't think he represents the sum total of climatologists - I think Chris Merchant is far more representative - but I look at what I've seen of Mann and his team, and I am very far from impressed. He made a case based on cherry picked data from sources that lowered the temperature of the Medieval Warm Period and raised the modern temperature, and even his model may be suspect. It is the cherry picking of data and trying to remove the Medieval Warm Period that makes me level the accusation of h

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Abcd1234]

Besides Wegman, and perhaps a couple of solar activity scientists, no. But then again, finding an independent source on this matter is tricky in any event.

Right. So you have your studies and scientists, that all happen to parrot each other, that convince you. I have my studies and scientists, that all happen to parrot each other, that convince me. The extremists turn the debate into a black-and-white, all-AGW or all-natural forcings shouting match, and nothing productive actually gets done (the jackass who modded my posts Troll being an excellent example).

Now, the logical position is to remain on the fence while doing whatever we can to mitigate risk without creating an excessive socioeconomic burden. Pity no one actually wants to do that.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[Garwulf]

"Now, the logical position is to remain on the fence while doing whatever we can to mitigate risk without creating an excessive socioeconomic burden. Pity no one actually wants to do that."

Amen to that. It drives me crazy too.

Here's an idea. Let's get all the extremists, give them giant Q-tips, toss them into an arena, and have them fight it out. If we sell the tickets at $19.95 a pop, we could make a fortune...

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[spun]

MM confused degrees with radians (a mathematician and statistics guy don't know degrees from radians? Come on!) therefore, all of their conclusions are utterly worthless and their credibility is beyond suspect. Outside of the insular world of global warming deniers, where debunked and worthless 'research' is parroted back and forth in a circle-jerk echo chamber, these facts are widely know. Only amongst the cherry pickers of the so-called 'skeptics' is this study considered valid, because anything that denies global waring MUST be right. The deniers have decided the truth ahead of time, because they simply do not want global warming to be real.

Re:And what about proven scientific fraud?

[vague disclaimer]

Look up "ad hominem" dude.

Here's the graphs and what's behind this cycle

[missvolare]

This has a great discussion too: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/06/02/livingston-and-penn-paper-sunspots-may-vanish-by-2015/

Don't call people names

[snspdaarf]

Unless you get everything right. Go look up the English translation for Mauna Kea. They do have snow skiing in Hawaii.

Re:Don't call people names

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that they have snow skiing in one place on the Big Island does not negate any of my prior points. Or are you suggesting that because there is skiing on Mauna Kea that you can go buy sub-zero Winter coats in most shops on Oahu or Molokai? Because that was the point. And if that's what you are indeed suggesting, well, you're an idiot.

Re:Warm? Cold?

[Budenny]

We started out with the view, based on historical anecdote, that there had been a Roman Warming and Medieval Warming, that were roughly as large as today's warming. There had also been coolings, notably in between the warmings, and in the late 17th century when the Thames froze, and during the early 19C during Napoleon's famous retreat.

The Hockey Stick proxy work appeared to refute this. It seemed to show that temperatures had not varied a whole lot until the 1980's, at which they took off in an unprecedented way. However, the HS work was exploded, primarily not because of misuse of PCA (though that happened) but because the key proxies it depended on were the Bristlecone Pines, which no-one seriously thinks are temperature proxies. This has been gone through ad nauseam, and you will often find people arguing that the results have been replicated independently, but if you look at the proxies used, and the people doing the studies, you'll find they are not independent.

So this leaves us with a reinstated RWP and MWP and the cooling periods, in short, greater natural variability than the HS alleged. To the extent that the IPCC does not accept this, it is just wrong.

We now get the interesting counter argument, which has become more popular as the HS has been discredited, which goes: Ah yes, but if the MWP existed, it proves that the climate is more sensitive than we have thought, and so we should be more worried rather than less about CO2. The attempt is now to make the existence of the MWP into an argument for higher climate sensitivity. This replaces the previous argument that its supposed absence was an argument for alarm, because it proved today's uniqueness. It is logically fallacious of course, since by hypothesis, we do not know what caused it, and so we cannot say anything about its magnitude, and so cannot reach any conclusions about sensitivity based on it.

Where do we end up? We end up having to argue that todays warming is unique in having been caused by CO2. But this is now much harder to prove, since the problem is we have had two other comparably sized warming periods not caused by rising CO2. How do we exclude the cause of them from operating now, especially if we have no idea what it was?

We also have another difficulty rarely alluded to. It is not just the warming due to CO2 that is problematic, it is the independent assertion that lowering CO2 would produce cooling. This has never happened before. Cooling has always preceded falls in CO2 in paleo times. In modern times it has always happened independently of CO2 levels. If we were to do it, at vast expense, how do we know it would work?

And finally, there is the issue of feedbacks. That would take us too far afield, but its agreed that what warms the planet is not primarily the CO2. It is the feedbacks that supposedly amplify the initial warming, from CO2 in the modern case, but could be from anything. The existence of these feedbacks, and whether they are positive or negative, is heavily disputed.

Its a mess. The best advice one can give is, the science is not settled. But another five years of cooling measured by satellite, that will settle it, if it happens.

thats Unpossible!

[night_flyer]

how could they have warmed up without man-made global warming?

GCM's re-creating the past is not model validation

[slashbart]

You want past climate reconstruction using a computer model. For the last 1000 years? I'm pretty sure that with a model with 1000 parameters I can hit every year within 0.01C. Probably only about 20 parameters should be plenty to get within 0.1C or so.

Really. These climate models should be taken with a huge grain of salt! And re-creation of the past should really not be taken as proof of validity!

Bart

MOD PARENT UP

[Abcd1234]

Yup, the GW deniers got it wrong again. Big surprise...

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Rockoon]

I'd MOD him up, but he cited Mann as verification for Mann... which is presented on a site which actively sensors content contributions that are contrary to what Mann is pushing.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Abcd1234]

So a scientist can't defend one's own work?

Huh. well, good to know. So, would it better to just cite the National Research Council?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[operagost]

So a scientist can't defend one's own work?

Kinda like a crooked judge presiding at his own trial, isn't it?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[spun]

No, kind of like an accused man defending himself. He's not the judge, he's the defendant. And everything I've read show that McIntyre and McKitrick are not any sort of credible scientists, their work has been thoroughly debunked, and Mann's work upheld by multiple independent, unbiased sources.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Rockoon]

The only scientists who claim that McIntyre's work has been debunked are the people he has exposed, or their direct underlings. His attention to detail is an embarassement for the likes of Mann, Jones, and Wang, who each obstruct independent validations of their work.

For the record, Sir, both of these men you are talking about are on the IPCC expert review panel. Their work has been published in peer reviewed journals, and unlike some other folks out there, they actually support and promote the independent verification of their work.

They are good enough for the IPCC, but not good enough for you.. is that it?

Re:"Proxy indicators"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up a bit on the science involved and you might be surprised to find some of these proxy indicators are little different than using the existence of fossils to infer the presence of dinosaurs in prehistory.
Or perhaps you don't believe in dinosaurs?

Nobody has ever used the (non)existence of dinosaurs to push public policy that handicaps our society's productiveness while giving less scrupulous countries the ability to gain yet another competitive edge on us.

Fantastic demands require fantastic proof.

WTF is a 'denialist' anyway!

[slashbart]

I'm a physicist. I happen to doubt some of the claims that AGW proponents think represent the behaviour of the climate.

Why do you claim the right to call me a 'denialist'. I'm not calling you a 'believer' am I?

One of the huge problems with this whole climate change discussion is that it's gone way beyond science, and has become religion!

realclimate.org the name says it all

[slashbart]

If your site name itself claims that you own the TRUTH about climate, than you obviously are not part of science.

Try http://sciencebits.com/ for instance for some interesting insights.

Re:realclimate.org the name says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not part of science either. That's just another biased blog. "Interesting insights" is not a phrase to be used when "cherry-picked articles to suit my prejudices" is too unsubtle. Sticking a few uncontroversial non-global warming stories in doesn't make it any more reliable.

Quite so...

[denzacar]

Of course, it was a sensationalist headline, but that's not quite the same as being disreputable.

Quite so...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html

Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life

* 21 January 2009 by Graham Lawton
* Magazine issue 2692. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

Read our related editorial: Uprooting Darwin's tree

IN JULY 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree.

As far as we know, this was the first time Darwin toyed with the concept of a "tree of life" to explain the evolutionary relationships between different species. It was to prove a fruitful idea: by the time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, Darwin's spindly tree had grown into a mighty oak. The book contains numerous references to the tree and its only diagram is of a branching structure showing how one species can evolve into many.
The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth...

The tree-of-life concept was absolutely central to Darwin's thinking, equal in importance to natural selection, according to biologist W. Ford Doolittle of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Without it the theory of evolution would never have happened. The tree also helped carry the day for evolution. Darwin argued successfully that the tree of life was a fact of nature, plain for all to see though in need of explanation. The explanation he came up with was evolution by natural selection.

Ever since Darwin the tree has been the unifying principle for understanding the history of life on Earth. At its base is LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all living things, and out of LUCA grows a trunk, which splits again and again to create a vast, bifurcating tree. Each branch represents a single species; branching points are where one species becomes two. Most branches eventually come to a dead end as species go extinct, but some reach right to the top - these are living species. The tree is thus a record of how every species that ever lived is related to all others right back to the origin of life. ...The green and budding twigs may represent existing species, and those produced during each former year may represent the long succession of extinct species

For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree. "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change.

So what happened? In a nutshell, DNA. The discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 opened up new vistas for evolutionary biology. Here, at last, was the very stuff of inheritance into which was surely written the history of life, if only we knew how to decode it. Thus was born the field of molecular evolution, and as techniques became available to read DNA sequences and those of other biomolecules such as RNA and proteins, its pioneers came to believe that it would provide proof positive of Darwin's tree of life. The basic idea was simple: the more closely related two species

Re:Quite so...

[Anonymous Coward]

A shrubbery!

Flamebaits saved them... for sure

[denzacar]

They've gathered all the flamebaits in a large pile and lit it on fire. They burn quite nicely.
Then, they roasted some trolls on those flames.
That was probably the only thing that got them through the winter.

Of course, they would have all died from cancer later from eating all that charred troll-meat but hey... it was 1700s.
Life expectancy was around 37 years anyway back then.

Re:Flamebaits saved them... for sure

[night_flyer]

of course its flamebait, anytime someone points out thet the Earth changes temperature all on its own, the messenger gets shouted down... wouldnt want to ruin the scam now would we....

Ask and you shall receive...

[Garwulf]

Ask and you shall receive:

1. There were two congressional panels, not one. The one done by the statistics experts that upheld MM's findings was headed by Edward Wegman - its report can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf

A commentary by McKitrick explaining the report can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanOp-Ed.pdf

2. The National Research Council report can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NRCreport.pdf

From what I understand, you have to read this one carefully - apparently the report and the media spin are in opposition. An op-ed discussing this can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NAS.op-ed.pdf

Documentation of the dishonest approach used to get the "hockey stick" into the IPCC report can be found here: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html

Additionally, you will also find these links of interest:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf

Now, you talk about the "denialists" (which isn't a real word - trust me on this, I write and edit for a living - the word you want is "deniers"...a "denialist" would be somebody who studies or specializes in denial) as though they are either a conspiracy nut or part of a conspiracy themselves. It's not the case with scientists in the field - why would it be the case with commentators inside and outside of it?

For example, I'm a writer, editor, publisher, and grad student. I got into this as an interested party with a critical mind, and the more I looked at the field, the less it made sense. The more I looked at both sides, the more I saw the deniers using critical thinking and attacking the results and methodologies, and people like Mann and Al Gore launching character assassinations in response. One of these "refuted arguments" is the Medieval Warm Period being warmer than today, but the evidence is so overwhelming in favour of it that Mann put that data into a folder with the word "CENSORED" in it for his own analysis. You can't disprove the existence of the Roman Empire in Europe by stating that the Mayans of the time didn't encounter Romans, but Mann attempted to do something similar with his own work.

Are all climatologists fraudsters? I very much doubt it. But Mann did commit what amounts to an academic fraud that changed his field, and in the process undermined a lot of the research in it and relating to it. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and in order to understand its relation to the greenhouse effect, accurate temperature over time measurements are necessary. But Mann skewed his data and created inaccurate temperature over time results - so any analysis based on that "hockey stick" is using inaccurate information, and is in error. This goes outside of the field - a lot of work is being done to determine the role of solar activity in climatology, but if a researcher is using Mann's results, he's not going to be able to make an accurate analysis.

The analysis from the entire field of climatology since Mann's "hockey stick" is now on very shaky ground, and a lot of work has to be redone before the data is trustworthy again. Mann has become a scientific superstar, but the damage that has been done to our understanding of climate is incredibly high.

Re:Ask and you shall receive...

[Abcd1234]

1. There were two congressional panels, not one. The one done by the statistics experts that upheld MM's findings was headed by Edward Wegman - its report can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf

Sorry, that report is *highly* politicized. Hell, it wasn't even peer reviewed. And despite the issues that report identified, they don't substantively change Mann, et al's results.

From what I understand, you have to read this one carefully - apparently the report and the media spin are in opposition. An op-ed discussing this can be found here: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NAS.op-ed.pdf

On the contrary. The BBC's article on the topic does an excellent job of outlining both aspects of the report: a) that the fundamental conclusions of Mann, et al, are sound, and b) statistical rigor needs to be improved in climate science. Go read the summary yourself, it's pretty clear:

"Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium."

Sounds to me like you're the one who's spinning.

The more I looked at both sides, the more I saw the deniers using critical thinking and attacking the results and methodologies,

On the contrary, I see a bunch of people who have a series of preconceived notions about the scientific process, and/or earth's climate and our ability to alter it, and are thus coming to conclusions and then searching for evidence to prove them. Like I've said elsewhere, it's disturbingly familiar to the arguments between creationists and biologists.

and people like Mann and Al Gore launching character assassinations in response

Yup, I have to agree with you, there. The attacks have clearly gotten personal. Again, the ID/Evolution debate rings rather true, here.

But Mann did commit what amounts to an academic fraud that changed his field, and in the process undermined a lot of the research in it and relating to it.

Again, you repeat this, despite plenty of evidence that indicates this isn't at all true. Who's cherrypicking now?

Re:Ask and you shall receive...

[phosphorylate this]

Jeesh guys, at the very least can one side pick a player who's name doesn't begin with "M".

Mann, McIntyre and McKitrick, plus all the abbreviating! How is a sheeple like me supposed to understand your arguments if we can't tell who is wearing the white hat and who wears the black?

Re:Ask and you shall receive...

[Anonymous Coward]

And there have since been numerous reproductions of the past temperature record, quite similar to the Hockey Stick, look
here

Re:"Proxy indicators"?

[XSpud]

Nobody has ever used the (non)existence of dinosaurs to push public policy that handicaps our society's productiveness while giving less scrupulous countries the ability to gain yet another competitive edge on us.

My response was not anything to do with the direction public policy should take, but with the science behind the predictions of climate change - I was merely highlighting that science often uses indirect evidence to formulate theories and this in no way means the science is not valid. IMO it's important the scientific research should be independent of the possible implications of any conclusion, one way or another.

The post to which I responded used emotive and unhelpful language to criticize a lot of good science - the debate would benefit from people concentrating more on the science sometimes, rather than the politics surrounding it.

Fantastic demands require fantastic proof.

So let's help the scientists do some "fantastic science" so we know more about the situation we're in, before knocking them. Unfortunately, we will never have access to direct measurements of historical climate so the more we refine these indirect measurement techniques the better. However, it's unlikely that there will ever be "proof" for those people who think indirect climate measurements should be ignored by climate scientists.

So...

[denzacar]

of course its flamebait, anytime someone points out thet the Earth changes temperature all on its own, the messenger gets shouted down... wouldnt want to ruin the scam now would we....

Now it is the Earth, not the Sun?

I thought it was "Sun's natural cycles" or something...
But I guess it makes as much sense that it is actually this lump of rock that is regulating its own heat all by itself despite being around a huge ball of burning gas.

That's no surprise...

[Roadkills-R-Us]

The Euro trend from Ferraris and Lamborghinis to SMART cars hadn't started in 1709!

Re:"Proxy indicators"?

[Abcd1234]

Nobody has ever used the (non)existence of dinosaurs to push public policy that handicaps our society's productiveness while giving less scrupulous countries the ability to gain yet another competitive edge on us.

People fighting attempts to get religion into schools would likely *strongly* disagree with you on this particular point.

How about a patch of dirty space?

[ThatsNotPudding]

Project back where the solar system was at the year in question and let Hubble take a peek for anything odd.

If it's open, why is it closed?

[Anonymous Coward]

If climate modeling is so open, why is a login needed and "Ultimate permission to utilize this data is reserved by NCAR. "?
US DOE Coupled Climate Model Data Archives

Not so cut and dried

[spun]

Global warming skeptics like to cite this case as if it is clear and unambiguous. It is not. Be sure to read the talk page, it's a doozy!

Re:Warm? Cold?

[Xiroth]

I'm really, really sick of all of the finger pointing and arguments going on. Maybe I'm over-simple, but the way I approach it is with the following questions:
Does increasing CO2 increase the thermal insulation of a system (when compared to normal atmosphere)?
[] Yes
[] No

Does increasing CO2 cause water bodies to acidify?
[] Yes
[] No

Does human activity increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?
[] Yes
[] No

It seems to me that if these three questions can be definitively answered, then we should have a fair idea about where we are. Things like feedbacks and other complications of the system should certainly be considered, but they're secondary to the basic logic that we can apply.

Re:Warm? Cold?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the papers that show even if you remove the tree ring proxies, the other proxies show a close correlation to the hockey stick?

medieval warm period was local, not global...

[big_paul76]

One thing to remember about the MWP is that there's not really any consensus that it was warmer anywhere outside of the North Atlantic region.

So, since we're talking about _global_ temperatures or "global" warming, whether or not one particular region was warmer or cooler at some point in the last 1000 years or so seems like it might be of minimal relevance.

Any sort of theory of global warming doesn't pretend (or at least, shouldn't!) to predict _weather_, or regional differences, just speak to a global mean.

solar cycles have been considered...

[big_paul76]

As someone pointed out before, climate scientists have, amazingly enough, thought about solar cycles, (and volcanic activity, and a few other factors) and concluded that no, solar cycles cannot account for the warming observed.

You're not coming up with anything new by mentioning solar cycles, it's been thought about, and you're not smarter than the sum total of all the world's climate researchers.

What was that noise? An exploding tree!

[algoa456]

Trees exploded! So let me get this right. It was so cold that the sap froze and the tree exploded. (Or is there some other unknown force at work). In the northern areas of the US and Canada I suspect current winter temperatures drop to at least the levels of the big freeze in Europe - recently here in Canada we have endured cold of -24C. I am happy to report, however, no exploding trees.

Re:What was that noise? An exploding tree!

[Ihlosi]

I am happy to report, however, no exploding trees.

Yes, because your trees have (been intelligently designed/evolved/been blessed by his noodly appendage) to withstand temperatures like that.

Why So Serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas has seen temperatures ranging from -30C to +48C. (-23F ~ +120F)

Re:Warm? Cold?

[geekoid]

Mod 'interesting, but wrong' +1

And they succeeded

[strawberryutopia]

Judging by recent weather conditions, that is.