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Formerly Classified Global Warming Spy Photos Released
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama administration has released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice, following a declassification request by the National Academy of Sciences. The images feature a 1m resolution, and scientists who have had to base climate models on 15m- or 30m-resolution photos are rejoicing. The photos, kept classified by the Bush administration, show the impact of global warming in the Arctic and the retreat of glaciers in Washington and Alaska."
"Glaciers are not permanent structures. So what?"
Neither are humans, particularly when they have no fresh water.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Neither are planets.
How long as it been accelerating?
Oh, right, only since the Industrial Revolution.
How long have been watching this debate repeat itself over and over and over again in the precise and exact same and identical manner?
Oh, right, only since we have Slashdot.
"it's happening much faster than ever before thanks to human behaviour"
that's the leap that you aren't being very convincing about. there seems to be this movement of "omgz everything humanz do is wrong!" which isn't science.
Perhaps if you stopped attacking straw men, you might realize that there is ample science to back up this point.
Earth's survival was never in jeopardy. It's Human survival we worry about.
The great irony of the glacier retreat being the harbinger of doom for humanity is that on most continents the glacial retreat is uncovering substantial quantities of archaeological evidence. I wonder what the people whose archaeological evidence we are finding thought about the glaciers when they encroached on their lives thousands of years ago. It is an interesting juxtaposition.
Man -- I was about to mod you up till you hit on the racist BS. Overbreeding is rampant everywhere.
The fact is, the single most polluting thing a person can do is have kids. I'm intentionally child free so in the balance of things, I could drive a hummer, alone, with extra lead weights in the back, 100 miles per day. I could leave my lights on 24/7, run AC to frigid temps in the summer, blast the heat in the winter, keep a propane flare burning ten feet tall day and night in the back yard, and still not come close to the devastation caused by parenthood.
I don't actually live my life that way, because I'm a bit frugal. What mystifies me is why words such as "conservation" and "conservative" have such differing application when both imply frugality to me -- frugality in how we use environmental resources, and frugality in how we use financial resources. I want to see the birth of the frugal party. Pun intended.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"it's happening much faster than ever before thanks to human behaviour" that's the leap that you aren't being very convincing about. there seems to be this movement of "omgz everything humanz do is wrong!" which isn't science. global warming advocates can't remove the emotion from their arguments, which makes me suspicous.
The great thing about science is that the OP doesn't need to be convincing. Anyone can look at the data and reach a conclusion.
In case you don't want to become an expert in the field, however, and are willing to accept an overwhelming majority of existing experts, you would find that "97.4% believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures." (from the OP's link).
Perhaps if you didn't accept that poll, you might find that "Only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; and 84% believe global climate change poses a moderate to very great danger.". And so on.
Personally I don't get it. Why is it so hard to accept? Reliance on academic authories has its pitfalls of course, but a certain point you need the humility to accept that there is no debate over this particular point among experts.
It reminds me of the "debate" over whether or not 0.999... = 1. Non-mathematicians will swear up and down that it can't be. They'll pull out everything they've got, but at the end of the day, just because you don't understand it doesn't make it so. Read with a careful eye, but c'mon, the cause of the current change in global mean temperatures is no longer a debate.
And there you have it folks- a classical false argument by claiming that the other party said something they did not.
No one's saying the industrial revolution was a sin. Sin doesn't come into anything; this isn't religion.
The industrial revolution was the beginning of an upward swing in our carbon emissions. The emissions have had a warming effect. We can subsequently choose what we'd like to do about this, especially in light of technology available now which wasn't available at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Earth doesn't particularly care if it gets warmer. We (and a number of other species) probably do. If we don't like the consequences of warming, we have the option to decide that they're bad enough for us to take action to change them.
But that's a little too logical, apparently, so you go on perverting arguments so that you can claim to "win" without actually standing on any remotely logical basis.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
See, this is why I try not to get into the specifics. Climate change is a complex, interdependant subject and you can cherry-pick any result you like, but that doesn't mean you understand what's actually happening.
Either you choose to believe that nearly all climatologists are incompetent and that non-scientist bloggers know way more about the field of climatology than people who've studied it for years, or you pull your head out of the sand and start listening to the people who've seen all the data and are actually qualified to have an opinion.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You're told secret data has been wrestled from the grasp of the corporates and you're given a link. The page presents a pair of images right at the top, unavoidable; seen before anything is even read. Two images; one of vast quantities of ice, the second utterly free of ice. Global Warming has been implicated before you've read word number one.
If you look carefully you might notice one end of a landing strip just inland in both photos. These photos cover very small areas; only a few miles. The caption reads:
Sea ice forms along the coast in the winter, and generally melts or breaks away by mid July. Observations of sea ice position reveal considerable year-to-year variability. Changes in the timing of coastal sea ice breakup and in the location of offshore sea ice have significant local impacts: ecological, biological, and human. This image series portrays changes in the timing of coastal sea ice breakup, and gives information on smaller scale properties of ice. This information recorded over long periods, is required to understand and model the dynamics of sea ice and how changes or trends develop and influence other systems.
In other words these photos are 'evidence' of nothing. Minor, small scale year-to-year variation in ice flow patterns. The use of these photos in this manner is equivalent to claiming that because there was snow on my walk on January 10, 2008, but none on January 10, 2009, my environment has been ruined by Global Warming.
Yet there it is, fed to the reader at the very start of the story; no disclaimer provided. The pair of photos will now be repeated ad nauseam for years on end around the planet. Biden will have a blown up poster of these photos in his town hall kit by Wednesday. Fresh new memes the huckster elite will use goad "The West" into self inflicted poverty; "See? The planet is in peril! Man must be stopped!"
Here is a recent and well researched report on the $79 billion that has been spent by the US government (only) on climate research over the last 20 years. 19 pages and 52 citations. I dare you to read it. Global Warming advocates are not the underdogs. They rule vast quantities of public money.
In almost all other matters you can take it as a given that around Slashdot you will find if not cynics then certainly skeptics. On the other hand if it has a Bush taint, a little anti-business flavor and it's wrapped up in a Global Warming ribbon you people suck it up like hicks at a Benny Hinn sermon.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
although I'm no expert on the matter
That's exactly the issue. I'm not either - but I give a lot more weight to the people who are.
Facts are indeed facts, and I would bet a lot of money that you haven't looked at nearly as many of them as a climatologist. What is it about being partially-informed that makes people so willing to declare fully-informed people flat-out wrong?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
At least we're winning the battle against something!
Of course climate change is happening. It always has. The question are WHAT is happening, and HOW the information is treated. If anyone, including noted scientists, say anything remotely the opposite of the climate change cabal, they are run out of town, belitted by their peers. They have their jobs & credentials taken away. That sounds more like the status quo is trying to hide something to me. When I was growing up, I was always taught to question the mainstream. But if you do that when it comes to climate change, you are labeled a nut. And now we all these new fangled ways to make money from climate change. And I guarantee you, the poor & middle class will be the ones paying. The rich just buy their way out with carbon credits.
It's absurd to be basing multi-trillion dollar policy decisions on this garbage.
But you have to base them on something, and the policy-makers are right to base them on the overwhelming consensus of climatologists. What else do they have to go by? Even if those 97% somehow turned out to be wrong, isn't it better at this stage to mould the policies so that our impact on the climate is as small as possible, just in case?
9/11 called, they want their planes in the air. You're not seriously discounting that humans impact temperature are you? I live in Phoenix and even the weatherman goes on tv and comfortably states the blatantly obvious that all this concrete pavement does indeed increase temperatures. This is why the city is so much warmer than the rest of the desert. Man kind has an serious impact on it's environment no matter how much you wish to believe that we don't.
You need to understand that the Earth doesn't care if we live or die, it will go on spawning more life as it always has. The Earth heats up on its own and cools down on its own. The difference is that humans are now messing with the Earth to a large enough extend that it will probably swing more wildly from one extreme to the other as far as temperatures go. We're on our way up, we can either act to slow it down, or ride the wave and let millions die when storms get stronger and stronger and droughts force more and more to starve to death. Humans will survive, our way of life however will be greatly impacted.
No one can state when the massive changes will occur so there's no need to panic and destroy economies but we need to act to preserve our way of life.
Either you choose to believe that nearly all climatologists are incompetent and that non-scientist bloggers know way more about the field of climatology than people who've studied it for years, or you pull your head out of the sand and start listening to the people who've seen all the data and are actually qualified to have an opinion.
I wouldn't go as far as to say they're incompetent. I do think they're jumping to conclusions, and I do think it is just opinion repeated enough to become "fact". And I'm sure a lot of them have the same feeling, but don't want to mess up their careers by speaking against the current zeitgeist. A few _have_ tried. Pointing out fallacies in the man made global warming theories is akin to walking around cursing people back in the middle ages. It only gets you burned at the stake, so why do it. When it's not "allowed" to point out issues with a theory, any theory, it has become religion, not science. That alone should make us all very suspicious.
There are too many instances of "we can't think of any other reason, so this must be man-made global warming", or "we have never seen this before, and we don't know what's causing it, but we're certain it's human emissions". I'm sorry, but you're just ruining your credibility as a scientist when stating you don't understand it, then in the same sentence claim to be an authority able to state the cause.
There are just too many variables. We can barely predict tomorrow's weather with any degree of accuracy (in some areas even that's stretching it), but we are supposed to believe any scientist that claims to have GLOBAL weather licked? I can't help but think those guys got an overdose of arrogance. Yes, they're very different things, but that's still faith, not science.
I've said this before: It doesn't matter. The proposed remedies (reduce emissions) are all good regardless. But the knee jerking hysterics-mongers are going about it all wrong. We're not solving a damn thing by politicians yapping about us all switching to electric cars. That's moving pollution, not reducing it. And the majority of "solutions" are of that sort, and only for political gain by playing on the armageddon fears of the population. Only now it's the elected officials spouting it, as opposed to the church or just the loon on the street corner.
If anyone, including noted scientists, say anything remotely the opposite of the climate change cabal, they are run out of town, belitted by their peers. They have their jobs & credentials taken away.
Just to prove that denalists don't suffer from paranoid delusions ...
Meanwhile in the real world there is no such thing as "the climate change cabal," what there is are thousands of mainstream scientists who basically agree, and a handful who are either skeptical (not a bad thing in itself), or outright denialist. The scientist of greatest "note" who falls outside the mainstream view, (and even he seems to have conceeded on AGW now), has not lost his job or credentials but retains his professorship at MIT. Even the kind of "scientists" who "publish" in phish-journals like Energy and Environment, are not thrown out of the academy --though they damage they do to poor unsuspecting individuals like yourself would be minimised if they were.
When I was growing up, I was always taught to question the mainstream.
Which has left you automatically assuming that if 3000+ expert scientists say black is black, and 50 scientist (of which maybe a handful qualify as experts) say black is white, that black simply must be white. Given the epistemological rigor of western Science, "questioning" mainstream science (not merely in regard to climate change) is no guarantee of good mental health. Of course, it's a different story in regard to belief systems which are held as mainstream without such strong foundations.
But if you do that when it comes to climate change, you are labeled a nut.
Putting to one side the more finessed skepticism of a Lindzen or a Piekle, chances are that people with a predisposition to reject science on the basis of how well established that science is are nuts. As you confess, your denialism doesn't result from any appreciation of the science, but from the psychological effects of what you were taught "when you were growing up," or rather, from your tendency to overgeneralise what you were taught to fields of human knowledge where it is simply inappropriate
Perhaps you should balance a skepticism of the mainstream with a skepticism of the contrarian? You might not be so easily duped by AGW-denialists if you did.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
So... the vast majority (if not all) climatologists are actually lying about their conclusions because they want to get certain candidates elected, thus helping to perpetuate a political climate which is favourable to them being given grants to pursue further studies in the field that they've been lying about.
Or, they're just telling the truth. Which one was the simplest explanation again?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
If you're simply "Questioning the Mainstream", you're missing the point somewhat. The point is not to question something specific; the point is to question everything. Not only should you be sceptic of people who believe that global warming is real and man-made, but also of those who deny this. In fact, what you should do in all cases is not trust anyone, but look at the studies and data yourself, and judge it on sound scientific reasons.
here is a prominent scientist that has been crapped on by his peers for not following the status quo- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html
With all due respect to an eminent and brilliant physicist, Freeman Dyson is not a climatologist. The very article you link notes that he is a "subversive" who feels it's important to be in opposition. While I find that a commendable trait, it should be noted when considering his "anti-establishment" views. IMO, he's right when he says that global warming is not adequately established. But my metaphor is, "the majority of runs made by fire departments turn out not to be fires; we could save a lot of money by requiring an independent confirmation of a fire before the trucks go out." Maybe it's true, but the potential consequences are too horrible to contemplate.
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." Arthur C. Clarke said that. Dyson, to his credit, does not say climate change is impossible. He merely says he does not believe it to be bad.
there are so many external benefits to going green beyond global warming it's not even funny.
Living in a valley it's always disturbing to see a nice haze of brown over the town i live in during the dusky hours.
Air quality, cars that run on obscenely small amounts of fuel, etc. It's absurd to dig in and drag ass on something so important.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
liberals
And this is the problem with people like you. You assume everything must be poitical. Well, not everything is. Especially not facts. What other scientific ideas are you willing to ascribe to politics? Gravity? Electromagnetism? Thermodynamics (that's even worse than climate change: it says we're really screwed). Evolution? ...logical that we're still warming up from it.
You don't think the climate scientists might have noticed that too? Perhaps if you actually took a look at the work that they do rather than simply spouting off you might rrealise that.
I'm aware that liberals with mod points will probably mod me troll for daring to disagree with them
You're not being daring. You're being an idiot.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Pointing out fallacies in the man made global warming theories is akin to walking around cursing people back in the middle ages. It only gets you burned at the stake, so why do it. When it's not "allowed" to point out issues with a theory, any theory, it has become religion, not science. That alone should make us all very suspicious.
Scientists spend their lives poking holes in other people's theories, for their own personal academic gain. Pull your head out of your ass and read the comments section of a journal. Of course, they are more along the lines of poking holes in the specific theory of T. Cobbley et. al., because few scientists are arrogent enough to believe they can single handedly poke holes in every single theory out there in one go.
And yes, anyone who says "aaaaa it's all wrong!!1!one" is going to be ignored since they bring nothing new to the debate.
There are too many instances of "we can't think of any other reason, so this must be man-made global warming", or "we have never seen this before, and we don't know what's causing it, but we're certain it's human emissions". I'm sorry, but you're just ruining your credibility as a scientist when stating you don't understand it, then in the same sentence claim to be an authority able to state the cause.
Are you talking about science or the popular press. If the former, then [citation needed]. For some reason many non scientists seem to confuse the two.
There are just too many variables. We can barely predict tomorrow's weather with any degree of accuracy (in some areas even that's stretching it), but we are supposed to believe any scientist that claims to have GLOBAL weather licked? I can't help but think those guys got an overdose of arrogance. Yes, they're very different things, but that's still faith, not science.
OK, this is a clear indication that you're a fool and have never bothered to verse yourself in even the basics of the field. Climate is not weather. Read that sentance. Think about it. Can I predict the weather this time next year in London? NO. Can I predict things about the climate (eg it won't be snowing)? Yes I can. That is the difference.
And here you are, blindly dismissing the work of thousands of people and caliming that they, not you are suffering from arrogance. I am frankly suprised that your ego is not so inflated that it has caused you to float off in to the sky.
electric
It will work in reducing emissions provided there is a switch to renewables (USA, Austrailia can manage) and/or nuclear (more densely populated countries). Otherwise, not so much. But see, you are at it again. Vastly over-simplifying EVERY SINGLE POINT.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yup. Same thing that happens to all the poor innocent teachers who try to teach Intelligent Design! I mean, Ben Stein said it was true, so it must be, right?!? I'd love it if you could point out a few examples of these scientists who lost their jobs, and who didn't almost immediately get new jobs at petroleum industry funded think-tanks at several times their original salaries.
I'd also believe you guys more if you could come up with a rational explanation for the massive hoax being perpetrated on the innocent public by the 90% or so of scientist who claim that Global Warming is happening and is caused by man. I've yet to hear anyone come up with a reasonable theory as to why these evil scientists would be doing such a thing. I hear can think of plenty of simple, logical reasons why the oil & coal companies would deny it, though...
There is nothing wrong with questioning the mainstream, but there is a difference between questioning something and having a knee-jerk reaction against it. You seem to be doing the latter. Before you can question something, you need to understand it, and it sounds like you fail pretty badly on that front.
It's not really what I'd call a "debate". Only one side is reading and countering the other side's claims with rational arguments; the other side is simply parroting long-discredited talking points ad nauseam.
The funny thing? Both sides will agree with the above statement, but will disagree on its interpretation.
When it's not "allowed" to point out issues with a theory, any theory, it has become religion, not science.
A fair point, but I've seen more cases of pressure to suppress pro-climate-change evidence, rather than the other way around. It's ironic that TFA is also about the release of relevant data that was withheld apparently for political reasons.
you're just ruining your credibility as a scientist when stating you don't understand it, then in the same sentence claim to be an authority able to state the cause
Just because a scientist doesn't fully understand something doesn't mean he/she can't draw useful conclusions. We don't know why gravity works the way it does, but we can predict its effects pretty well. In this case, the climatologists seem quite convinced, despite what they don't know. Are you more knowledgeable about the data and its uncertainties than they are?
...us all switching to electric cars. That's moving pollution, not reducing it.
Oh, true enough. But it does largely centralise that pollution, which makes it a lot more manageable (through carbon capture, or alternative energy sources like nuclear, wind, solar etc).
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Speaks volumes about how much "climate scientists" believe in their own evidence : Not. At. All. Clearly they believe repression is necessary to sustain the global warming theory (never mind anthropogenic global warming).
It also proves that the grandparent posts were correct in asserting that anyone, no matter how reputable, finding anti-global-warming evidence is attacked. I mean, this guy is right up there with Fermi, Hawking, Feynman and other legends.
Hmmmm lets consider the "for" and "against" lobby's here: For - a majority of the scientific community, most sensible thinkers. Against - A small minority of sceptical scientists who on the whole tend not to be climatologists... and that nutbag down the road who lives in his mother's basement and believes that JFK was assassinated by time travelling Nazi robots sent back by the NWO in league with the communist vampires, controlled by the Zionist overlords.
admit it would suck to blow all the billions and trillions of dollars only to find out there ain't a damned thing you can do
There are many reasons to migrate from fossil fuels, the most compelling being that they're going to run out very soon. The changing climate is also a worry (which we wouldn't want to encourage to change faster than it already is), but it's not the only reason, and the money spent on migrating to alternative energy sources certainly wouldn't be wasted.
And the reason that water pipe seems to be leaking is almost certainly just natural wear and tear, the building has had water leaks in the past, I mean we shouldn't even stop hitting it with that hammer, it's not like we're making any kind of differ-FWOOOOSH!
Errr.. It was also the political establishment and the London corporations who opposed Snow, Since what he proposed cost money and meant disruption to their business. In turn they bolstered the old school scientists (who KNEW miasma was the cause, because it had been believed as fact for hundreds of years) to resist him. They maintained this even as he presented irrefutable evidence he was right. Your analogy was accurate 30 years ago, back then there were a few scientists saying 'we cannot continue consuming resources at this rate, we will disrupt our environment too severely if we do', names you might recognise such as Lovelock, Sagan, etc. And they got treated as 'idiots, idealists, and hippies', back then, by the same talking heads that even now continue to resist anything that hurts their profit and power lust.
So that is an interesting analogy, but like most deniers you deliberately twist it. The reality is that you are essentially one of those old-guard fools arguing well after the fact that Snow was wrong.. and desperately clinging to a miasma theory that flatly contradicts rationality and reality.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
The company I work for has some work in Uzbekistan. Reading up on the CIA page, it says that while there is no official censorship of the media, there is widespread self-censorship. Anyone who does not censor themselves is usually fired or "taken care of." So while there may be no official cabal of Global Warming alarmists, it does not mean there there are no dire consequences for taking a stance against it.
There are many reasons to migrate from fossil fuels, the most compelling being that they're going to run out very soon. The changing climate is also a worry (which we wouldn't want to encourage to change faster than it already is), but it's not the only reason, and the money spent on migrating to alternative energy sources certainly wouldn't be wasted.
Well, the question is, does the increased fuel efficiency actually pay for itself? The thing is, the more efficient you are, the more complex you are. The more complex you are, the more you cost. This relationship between efficiency and cost is exponential due to increased complexity efficiency demands. I put together a simple JavaScript model of this at http://www.treatyist.com/issue1/savetheearth.aspx . Basically, by jiggering the predicted cost of fuel (using gasoline as a baseline), versus, the exponent of increased energy efficiency costs, you can arrive at a number of scenarios where reducing greenhouse gasses actually doesn't pay for itself. If it pays anyone, it also pays the Chinese and the Europeans..
In any case, most models show that even a rather dramatic altering of CO2 emissions will not alter the course of climate change for a minimum of 200 years. Even if we stopped now, the glaciers are still going to melt. The CO2 is already in the air.
This is my sig.
Well, which is it, are fossil fuels going to run out soon, and therefore aren't actually present in sufficient quantities to present much of a threat, or is there way too much carbon locked in fossil fuels for our continued health, and we should get off them before we exhaust the supply?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Of course global warming is a political issue. Any issue which calls for governments to do something is a political issue. Claiming that global warming is not a political issue is about as disingenuous as claiming that intelligent design is not about religion.
Name one global warming activist whom does not think that the solution to the problem is to enact strict world wide government control on first world economies. Name on global warming activist that thinks that the best way to reduce CO2 emissions would be to encourage China, India, and other developing nations to adopt freedom and capitalism, so that their economies can progress as quickly as possible into the green tech era.
Funny. You think some scientists go for the oil and gas money, but the others don't go for government money to fund research?
You need to recognize that BOTH sides do EVERYTHING they do for money.
It amuses the piss out of me how you can point at the other guys and say they are doing it for money but can't think for a second that maybe your team is doing the exact same thing. Ignorance is bliss isn't it?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The word is Skeptic, not Denialist. Denialist is clearly an emotionally loaded word designed to evoke thoughts of Holocaust deniers.
So the flat-worlders are round-world skeptics, huh? When the evidence is overwhelming, that's when a skeptic becomes a denier (or just a nut).
As a practicing scientist, I share your sentiments of confusion about the negative reactions in ths string. I have occasionally come across trained scientists who know better, but it never ceases to amaze me at how unproductive conversations like this one can become.
Western science is built on the concept of adopting the best-known explanation of a phenomena until something better comes along.
If you have somehow come across a better explanation for climate change by googling and reading wikipedia, then out with it. Otherwise, I will stick with the explanations proposed by a large group of trained people collectively spending their lives working on the problem.
They might be wrong. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single case where the scientific community is not wrong to some measureable degree. Stupid Newton somehow thought that F=ma was a useful description of bodies in motion, that doesn't work at high energy or near the speed of light, it's just a crappy approximation for large, slow objects. What an idiot.