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Claims of Himalayan Glacier Disaster Melt Away
Hugh Pickens writes "VOA News reports that leaders of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have apologized for making a 'poorly substantiated' claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Scientists who identified the mistake say the IPCC report relied on news accounts that appear to have misquoted a scientific paper — which estimated that the glaciers could disappear by 2350, not 2035. Jeffrey Kargel, an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona who helped expose the IPCC's errors, said the botched projections were extremely embarrassing and damaging. 'The damage was that IPCC had, or I think still has, such a stellar reputation that people view it as an authority — as indeed they should — and so they see a bullet that says Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035 and they take that as a fact.' Experts who follow climate science and policy say they believe the IPCC should re-examine how it vets information when compiling its reports. 'These errors could have been avoided had the norms of scientific publication including peer review and concentration upon peer-reviewed work, been respected,' write the researchers."
If you think that's bad, for each of these errors that gets publicized, vast swaths of the population lose faith in the mountain of scientific evidence for anything whatsoever, including support for man-made global warming.
stuff |
Gpasp, there was a TYPO in a summary report, and the editing process didn't catch it.
A typo.
In a summary report. Not in an actual scientific paper. Not even in the _science_ summary (which is IPCC working group 1 report, "Physical Science Basis of Climate Change"-- this was the WG-2 report.).
Yes, it's an annoying typo-- 2350 is significantly different from 2035. Nevertheless, note that the error is NOT in any of the science papers-- it was in a summary report. It should have been edited better (especially as, it turns out, one of the reviewers actually pointed out the error, but his correction didn't make it in), but bad editing in the summary says absolutely nothing about the science. And, in fact, the scientists pointed it out and published the correction in a major venue.
The problem is, the deniers believe that even one error in a summary report means that the science is wrong, while the scientists are all aware that, yes, it's a bitch, but indeed, sometimes typos creep through.
All of you who have never had a typo show up uncorrected, feel free to kvetch.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
which estimated that the glaciers could disappear by 2350, not 2035.
Dislexyia... that would be my excuse if I were them... :-)
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
According to the NY Times article, a scientist (Georg Kaser) warned the working group in 2006 that the findings were erroneous. How did it take four years to bubble up?
I'd call that a pretty glacial response time. (rimshot)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
The scientists who caught this error are scientists who support the consensus that global warming is a real problem. The distinction between good science and bad science is the ability to be critical of theories and colleagues that you agree with. In that regard, while this is an embarrassing snafu, it shouldn't alter our overall confidence that anthropogenic global warming is real and a serious threat to both environmental and economic health. I'm tempted to make a comparison to Piltdown man, a fossil hominid which turned out to be a hoax. Creationists like to point to it a lot but ignore that it was scientists who realized that Piltdown man was a hoax, not creationists. I don't think that global warming is in the same category, in that there are good scientists who disagree. But the general consensus is pretty clear. And events like this show that the general scientific community is still doing good, careful science on this matter, and engaging in careful critical analysis of their own claims. This event underscores that claims by global warming denialists that climatology is a cultish echo-chamber are simply without basis.
This is the kind of error that destroys my faith in humanity. Seriously, people. You were writing an important document that you knew would determine policy, one on which the reputation of many scientists would rest, and you were off by an order of magnitude? Nothing about that number raised any red flags for you?
The carelessness and disregard that the writer must have had for this report is truly shocking. One can only hope that this is not representative of the level of care that the UN takes in all its activities. But it probably is.
There is something absolutely wrong with the kind of media coverage. You're telling me that a transposition of digits within a report full of otherwise solid information is "highly damaging"? This is a false sense of even-handedness at best.
How is solid evidence of shrinking polar caps not highly damaging? The hard empirical fact that we've taken the atmospheric CO2 level from ~280 parts per million to over 370? The increasing ocean acidity from absorbing this increased CO2? The fact that widespread deforestation in the midst of de-sequestering carbon locked in oil and carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere on this level has a significant impact?
The question that will matter to all of us in coming years is not whether the IPCC had, in the midst of a large report of substance, accidentally transposed numbers when discussing a real and dangerous trend. It's not about whether or not you like Al Gore. It's not about the way scientists chattered in their emails while creating and testing computer simulations. This coverage of personality cult or anti-cult, the minor gaffes in an overwhelming body of documented evidence being treated even-handedly as if it thwarts all the rest, it is responsible for promoting complacency or belligerency in the face of a severe environmental threat.
Will we come to our senses already, or will it take soaring food prices and flooded cities and islands first?
This is how it works in the specifications I deal with. You start with a set of customer requirements and they go into DOORS which is a crap tool, its just better than all the alternatives. Then from that you generate system specifications which describe your system at a high level and technical specifications which pretty much how it is going to work. At any point you can point and click to trace back to the source of a particular requirement.
Now all of that has nothing to do with climate change (apart from the horrible overhead of those big binary doors files we keep copying around) but the concept is pretty straightforward.
When you write your intermediate and final documents you somehow retain traceability back to the source of the information, so that if one of your conclusions is based on crap assumptions then you can easily identify the problem.
Its not hard. Just takes some experience in fairly professional technical writing. You don't have to use the craptastic tools. I have written doors like functionality into xslt, for example.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
What the UN lies to support global warming hoax? That's strange almost like there is a conspiracy of scientists to trick the 1st world public. Huh. Go figure.
But, I'm sure some East Anglia "scientists" can "prove" that global warming is real.
Oh, what's that? Temps are declining for the past 10 years? INCONCEIVABLE!
But, mod me down you are the one denying the truth.
I would be shocked if this doesn't reach -2.
--------
get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
Are the Himalayan glaciers retreating/losing ice volume? Yes
Is this what the scientific studies on the issue says? Very clearly, yes
What's wrong is the projection quoted in the IPCC report: the exaggerated claim that the rate of retreat means the glaciers could disappear by 2035. Instead the expectation is "only" that they will continue to shrink between now and then, and that their eventual disappearance would only occur if the trend were maintained for a few centuries, which is an awfully long projection.
It's a big mistake, but mistakes happen. There is nothing here that calls the evidence for global warming into question, or even calls into question the evidence that the Himalayan glaciers are retreating. At most, it means the IPCC reports need to be more carefully vetted, and they shouldn't quote questionable sources like newspaper articles rather than the original scientific studies.
I'm sure this won't stop some people from claiming the mistake undermines everything.
Five errors from what I've read. Makes one question it all. As one should.
Global Warming's a sham and does not matter. Pollution matters. Gore and his ilk hurt the issue because they are such big polluters and hypocrites. The biggest thing Gore could do to help is stop breathing.
For the real story, read RealClimate,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-ipcc-is-not-infallible-shock/
Global warming doesn't exist you fucking morons grow some ball
Any correction of error, whether by you or anyone else, is a good thing. It gets you closer to an accurate picture of reality.
I've managed to internalize this viewpoint. It wasn't easy. :) But now, when I make a coding mistake and it's pointed out to me, I actually feel good about it. Getting that way took a lot of practice. :)
My opinion: This is the only section of the IPCC under critical review right now. Do you really think are not "other errors" elsewhere in the report that make "innocent mistakes" that mischaracterize actual observations to the tune of x10-x100 the actual observations that always seem to error on the side of promoting AGW? Billions of dollars of funding are awarded to scientists substantiate the theories that their political check writers want, this is the poison in the science! After all, this error was not until recently 'pointed out' by Prof. Hasnain because he was afraid of the "might of the IPCC". Still think it's not a house of cards? Just wait until public opinion shifts enough for scientists to speak critically of the report without the threat of losing their job and/or funding.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece
JoshuaZ, I agree with much of what you write, but while the science may be good, the evidence points to the IPCC and Pachauri being bad.
The IPCC and Pachauri stated for a long time there were no errors made and the 2035 number was accurate. Even now I've seen apologies that state this simple shift of 300+ years is meaningless and ignorable.
But the kicker is here at climate audit:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/23/pachauri-and-high-noon/
This error was used for fundraising the same as Microsoft uses FUD to keep people from looking into linux. And worse, the funds were funneled into what many are saying seems to be a Rajendra Pachauri laundering scheme. That is, the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri seems to have a terrible conflict of interest. Scare people about glaciers and global warming. Contract out TERI to look into them and fix them. Pachauri collects directly from TERI.
This is not a good background for good science to be proliferating.
Read the story at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-ipcc-is-not-infallible-shock/
Predicting the weather (or climate) 340 years from now, nobody can do that. It's like telling about the economy in 100 years from now. Who can believe someone claiming such thing? Not me at least.
I'm sure this won't stop some people from claiming the mistake undermines everything.
One mistake wouldn't. But the rate at which "mistakes" are piling up is becoming troubling, to say the least.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
I think perhaps you understate the issue, or just don't understand what's going on here. Refer to my post on the 3 million euros given to the guy and organisation who made the claim to study the issue further. I doubt that a 2350 figure would have warranted 3 million euros. It's a happy coincidence for the researchers that this "typo" was made.
What is this global warming that you are talking about? The earth has been cooling over the past 8 years at least. All this is a scam to enforce a world tax and a world gov. Lucky, they FAILED at the last Copenhagen meeting.
You would think before trying to seize $10's of trillions of the world economy that these climate scientists would want backcast their models for as far back as we have meaningful data. You would think. Maybe the chance to become "Lords of the Earth" is a little too seductive a notion for these eggheads. Climate science is a fraud. The US should withhold funds from the IPCC immediately.
an ill wind that blows no good
There is now just NO CHANCE of saving this self serving, lying fiasco.
... the list goes on, and on, and on. The scope of the stupidity never ends from the BBC looking for a new forecaster, since the MET is so bad, (I know I use 'eurometeo.com') to CRU writing and then loosing code that just fudges the data for a pre-wanted conclusion (ClimateGate).
The HAD-CRU (East Anglia) MET (Reading) NASA and NOAA have all been exposed as a bunch of lying, self serving innumerate jerks, whose analysis and data is fatally flawed at so many levels.
The tree-ring scam, disgarding 75% or Russian data, with no reason, the proxies, Ice cores, bad chemistry
Now some of the smarter politicians, starting with Obama, may begin to see the light and back away. What amazes me is that so many were duped for so long.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html
Total con. Invented by the Yanks to try to unify the World to distract everyone from the Vietnam that is Iraq. Pipesmokers.
Please write polar CAP (without S). The south pole ice has been EXPANDING (appart 2 small isolated parts of it).
What's the trend that you are talking about here? The trend for the last decade is a global cooling, and even the IPCC said it. There's no "minor gaffes" but major cover-ups! FACE IT, YOU'VE BEEN FOOLED !
Whoever moderated this as Troll is being disingenuous in the extreme.
/. in the last 5 years or so - seems to be inhabited by
There is absolutely NOTHING troll-worthy in what amiga3D said.
See, this is what I've noticed about
people who can't subscribe to any anti-anthropogenic cuased global warming argument. So, anything
which is said against the AGW argument gets modded down.
FACT : AGW *IS* heavilly politicised.
FACT : anti-AGW arguments and reasoning appear to be met by insult,ridicule, and attempted censorship.
Honestly, people, if you can't simply argue your case for and against, in a reasonable manner, and have to
resort to insults, and censorship, then you have already lost the argument.
HAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAH
YOU LIE!
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Some of those glaciers have retreated more than 16 miles! If you want my opinion, it's very possible some of those glaciers could disappear by 2035.
I went off looking for charts of global temperature and I found this but along the way I discovered a meteorologist called Randy Mann.
So if you trust NASA there has been a steady increase in global temperature from 1900 accelerating in 1920 and about 1965. Must be my fault. I was born in 1965.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Both organizations should be investigated for soliciting international funds under false pretexts. IPCC's Chairman, Pachauri the crook, is known to have received funding from the European Union for his Delhi-based climate organization on the basis of the melting glacier lie/scare.
The IPCC should be immediately disbanded and its leadership and members investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Whoever oversees UN ethics and conduct should immediately call for an independent probe of this whole stinking mess?
Rebel Science News
Seems the spectacular Himalayan glacier scientific expedition just vanished Into Thin Air.
It was a summary of the report, but it was issued for the non-scientist movers and shakers who will never read the report. And for them, it wasn't just a typo, it was a major source of FUD based panic. It was issued months before the WG report, and when the error was pointed out to Pachauri and the IPCC, they stood behind it, and denied it was a typo or any sort of mistake.
To make matters worse, the head of the ipcc, Rajendra Pachauri is also the head of a think tank, TERI, that does AGW consulting. Pachauri's think tank, TERI, has made millions and millions based on the UN sanctified IPCC reports.
And who is buying TERI's services?
The movers and shakers who read the executive summary that the UN denied there was any problem with.
The damage was that IPCC had, or I think still has, such a stellar reputation that people view it as an authority -- as indeed they should
Um, no. You get to be viewed as an "authority" when at least some of your predictions come true.
Can anyone name one specific, numerically-quantified prediction made by IPCC researchers that has actually come to pass, by means other than obvious coincidence or luck?
True science is self-correcting. That is, when some scientists came in with claims based not on observation, but rather the need to satisfy certain political and financial agendas, they should have been shut down immediately.
It should never have gotten to the point where it is now, where absolutely pathetic mistakes like this are made.
Then again, science and the UN are complete orthogonal to one another. The UN is the epitome of pure political bullshit, while science should be absolutely apolitical. A body like the UN should never have any involvement with science, because their methods are completely contradictory to those of science.
NASA says it's not C02 causing the Himalayan glaciers to melt:
Stolen from a comment at real climate:
"In fact, the new research, by NASA's William Lau and collaborators, reinforces with detailed numerical analysis what earlier studies suggest: that soot and dust contribute as much (or more) to atmospheric warming in the Himalayas as greenhouse gases."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-warming.html
"Based on the differences it's not difficult to conclude that greenhouse gases are not the sole agents of change in this region. There's a localized phenomenon at play."
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/himalayan-soot.html
"But some scientists claim that glaciers in the Himalayas are not retreating as fast as was believed. Others who have observed nearby mountain ranges even found that glaciers there were advancing."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8355837.stm
"The report, by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, seeks to correct a widely held misimpression based on measurements of a handful of glaciers: that India's 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers are shrinking rapidly in response to climate change. That's not so, Raina says."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/326/5955/924
"The most recent studies by researchers at ETH Zurich show that in the 1940s Swiss glaciers were melting at an even-faster pace than at present."
http://www.ethlife.ethz.ch/archive_articles/091214_gletscherschwund_su/index_EN
TFS is a nice apology for politicaly and economically motivated bureaucrats who are keen to exagerate to sew fear.
The IPCC calling this FUD a "typo" is like Hillary Clinton saying that she "misspoke" when she made up a story about running from sniper fire in Bosnia.
Someone should take back the Nobel prize from Al Gore (he should not be difficult to track down, just look for a big SUV, for a private Jet or for a mansion that needs a dedicated power plant).
lucm, indeed.
There is a big difference between voicing your opinion and stating it as a researched fact in a scientific document
You're saying that it took 2,500 of the best climate scientists of the world (IPCC) close to four years to realize that a mistake of this magnitude is in one of its prime reports and you find this normal? This crap was being talked about in the blogosphere for some time and it's only because of the ugliness of climategate that these so-called "concerned scientists" are no coming out. It's called preemptive damage control. The very climate scientist whose work is at the origin is a friend and employee (at TERI) of Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman. The entire thing stinks something foul and no amount of perfume is going to cover it up. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Climate Science is tainted for a long time, thanks to the greed of a few. Too bad. We don't believe in anything climate scientists have to say anymore because their livelihood is directly tied to how much alarm and hysteria they can whip up. Their noses are too close the grinder, so to speak.
Rebel Science News
What most want to say is that since this one piece of data is flawed the whole theory of global warming is false and the ocean of other data is also false. The problem is it's exactly the same argument Creationist use to disprove Darwinism. One of the fundimental elements of Darwinism is slow gradual change. Darwin was wrong and the truth seems to be sudden changes with long stagnant periods between, thousands or tens of thousands of years instead of millions of years for major changes in species. According to the Creationist since this one part is wrong the whole theory is wrong so obviously God created everything and Darwin was completely wrong. Not true just one part of theory needs revision so you don't throw out the whole theory and go with the one with zero scientific evidence. Melting all the glaciers in 20 years never made sense because the obvious problem of mass. Take a block of ice and hit it with a blow torch. The block of ice doesn't vanish it takes a long time to melt where as an ice cube melts in seconds. Mass is the difference. 300 years is still scary fast. Global warming is based on hundreds of different observation not just glaciers so like Darwinism don't throw out the theory simply because one part of the data was flawed. The north pole is still melting almost completely during the summer and in 300 years most glaciers will be gone. That's less time than the US has been settled and only a little longer than it's been a country. In geological terms it's a sudden event we just don't live long enough to see it for what it is.
Wow. With that level of eloquence and reason, you should be on Fox News
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
As far as I can tell, the typo wasn't in the research paper but in the subsequent re-phrasings by various groups. FTA:
*That* is what is so damning about the entire ordeal. The IPCC republished the figure from an article by the WWF which wrote their piece based on an article in a magazine which was based on a phone conversation with a scientist. It was a shoddy and completely unacceptable comedy of errors by the IPCC. I say this as a pro-AGW scientist myself; they really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Correction of errors is what separates science from religion.
But I wonder if the press will tell people this strengthens the case, not weakens it? (ie. evidence was scrutinized and corrected)
No sig today...
Sorry, what do we have to do to make you look out the window! The chart is wrong.
Average NH temperatures fell 0.6-0.8dC 1998-2007, and will fall more sharply in 2008-2009.
You do know BBC is looking to ditch UK-MET since their forcasts are so bad, they use computer models and their competitors look out the window from visable and IR sats.
While I agree that pollution is bad, and that if we keep on burning up tons of fossil fuels with no regard to the environment something terrible is bound to happen... I still think scientist don't have a fucking clue when it comes to the climate and everything I've ever seen in regards to global warming has been complete bullshit when you even make a cursory review of what the supposed science is based on. It's just another excuse for hippies to try and stop progress because they think we'd all be better off living like little house on the prairie and dieing from cholera when you're 9 because vaccines might cause cancer when you're 90.
I know I'll be safely dead by the time the glaciers disappear then.
Predicting the weather (or climate) 340 years from now, nobody can do that. It's like telling about the economy in 100 years from now. Who can believe someone claiming such thing? Not me at least.
Well, this is the sort of thing the manmade global warming deniers say. And it's a very stupid argument. It's very well possible to say what will happen on a larger scale/timeframe. More energy in the atmosphere means it's getting hotter on average and the weather will become more extreme.
Here's an example to give you an idea of why this is possible to predict, for those of you who are not too well trained in scientific thought: If someone rides his car with 300 km/h (almost 200 mph for no-SI lovers) into a solid wall, I will predict he's dead after that crash. What I cannot predict however, is precisely what damage is sustained to what parts of his body and/or in how many parts his body lies scattered around!
How is solid evidence of shrinking polar caps not highly damaging? ...
It's rather cyclical and more likely caused by the sun than by humans.
As a resident of Nepal, I can tell you we don't believe these reports anyway. In a city where there are more NGOs per captia then people (a slight exaggeration), it's easy to see what the business is all about anyway. For example, why has WWF Nepal gone from protecting Rhinos and Dolphins to protecting the "climate"? Follow the money trail...
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
I don't need eloquence or reason, they have stipulated they lied; and no it wasn't a typo it was FUD
Wake up
warming is bullshit for years now. Glad to see more and more stories vindicating me with each passing day. Nice scientific method you guys have over there at East Anglia University and the IPCC. I'll say it again: man-made global warming is the worst hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, because it seeks to return mankind to the dark ages of serfdom. You will be forced (economically encouraged) to move into densely-packed cities to live like rats, while your overlords enjoy the newly-vacated lands they now own. You will be told what car to drive, if you can afford a car at all. You will be told what kinds of food you may eat (goodbye red meat), and how many children you may have. You have all been sold a bill of goods. The UN is a parasite organization run by petty banana republic dictators hell-bent on sapping the economic power of the west, especially America.
I'm sure this won't stop some people from claiming the mistake undermines everything.
One mistake wouldn't. But the rate at which "mistakes" are piling up is becoming troubling, to say the least.
Again, this isn't a error in the science-- it isn't even in the basic science report, the Working Group One report. It is an error in a report summarizing the predictions.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Wow. With that level of eloquence and reason, you should be on Fox News
MSNBC: Yes, Fox News is biased and lacks reasoning, unlike us here at MSNBC.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Is there any reason we should want your opinion more than that of the scientists studying them, who say that there is no way they will disappear by 2035? I mean, if you have some real evidence, a real reason to think that those scientists are wrong, bring your evidence. But saying "wow, that picture changed!" isn't enough. The scientists know how much the glaciers have retreated.
Qxe4
If you're going to reference another post, you ought to at least link to it.
And while you're linking, you might as well post a link to some of the guy's conflicts of interest. He also shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore.
Qxe4
Fox News is full of liars and MSNBC is full of children.
Honestly, it's no wonder that the Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is the most trusted newscaster in America...
Should a scientist, such as yourself, be "pro" anything other than pro-scientific method and perhaps peer review? If you're pro something that means you're for it - how does that potentially impact your ability to be unbiased and truly scientific?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
We don't want your opinion. It's worthless. Sorry.
I am curious how and by whom you think actually discovered the flaw in the IPCC's claims.
Well actually anyone questioning these claims when first produced were called "crackpot" by the IPCC. So in fact there were other groups that pointed it out, but as is par for the course with AGW any questioning, no matter how scientific, is treated as heresy and ridiculed. Which leads to to wonder what other views currently being labeled as "crackpot" are actually just as valid.
Just how and why do you think the IPCC admitted to this error? It's not because they did any research into the claim themselves beyond the initial production, they had to be shown the door and then led through it. It was only when the embarrassment could not be contained further they were forced to make a statement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There were a number of people who caught the error and questioned the figure as obviously false (anyone who knew anything about glaciers would know it could not possibly be true). It was the flood of reports like this one that led them to look into where the source originally came from.
But again, the scientists that caught the error were absolutely not the IPCC and many of them do not support AGW. Indeed, the IPCC was all to happy to initially label anyone questioning the figure as a "crackpot" regardless of scientific background.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While peer review is better than unquestioned authority, it does have a remarkable blind side. The adage of mutual back-scratching and the fox guarding the hen house is all too appropriate.
The problem is that genuinely independent review of science is hard to come by. Consider for example how science treats dissenters such as Michael Behe. When a scientist points out valid problems in papers discussing evolution, he's villified as a creationist. And the interesting part is that his objections are entirely scientific, which incenses the Darwinists even more. Instead of pointing out that his critical analysis makes evolutionary biology a better, more rigorous discipline, his university publishes a disclaimer against him.
The IPCC scandal and Behe controversies have illustrated quite clearly that modern science is more about consensus than critical thought. While I agree that science *can* provide us with solutions to environmental problems of today and tomorrow, I'm wise enough to realize that it *often* fails to do so for reasons which have nothing to do with science.
People are starting to realize that calling something "science" doesn't make it true, nor does it make it science.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Hey everybody! Some random guy on Slashdot looked at some pictures! His opinion on this topic is of great importance!
Kinda like the claims of "Hope" and "Change" and "New Climate in Washington" and "Bipartisanship" and "No Lobbyists" and "Transparency" and..
"It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. I move for a mistrial." -Bananas - Woody Allen
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I am pro-AGW in the same manner as I am pro-evolutionary biology, pro-heliocentric theory and pro-general/special relativity. The evidence that we have very strongly supports these scientific theories.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
is that Investors Business Daily is a notorious source of misinformation.
I agree with all your other points, but whenever I see the IBD, I think Bat Boy.
If you can sort of wade through the homophobia and hatred of former American colonies, he's right: you will soon be charged the full price for your lifestyle. You're going to live in a smaller dwelling and I doubt everyone will be driving a 6 liter V8. Red meat will be very expensive because it uses an enormous amount of water and staple crops to generate, which will really get expensive once it's not legal to pollute local waterways to the point where they create thousands of square miles of deadzones in the ocean. There will probably be an international treaty on overpopulation, since that's the number one threat to long term human survival.
If this sounds like hell to you, hop in your El Camino, crank up the Metallica, and head to McBurgerndy's-Fil-A-Bell. Buy three triple whopper chicken bacon cheese towers, a SuperJumbo Coke, a sixty ounce curly mayonnaise french fry bucket, and of course thirty dozen cinnamon twisters. (Don't forget your blood sugar! Your kidney dialysis isn't until next week.) Stuff two of the burgers into your mouth, gorge on the fries and the cinnamon treats until you feel like you're about to vomit, and what the hell, pour half the soda all over your head to soak in the corn syrup and caffeine. Hit the highway at rush our, breathe in the smog, gaze in awe of the faint outline of bank and insurance buildings, and while you sit thinking about how awesome Lars Ulrich is and how they can't ever top Unforgiven: The Threequel, spike the last burger on your erection for the God Damn American Way of Life. Take a good look in the mirror. As a single tear unsuccessfully tries to crest your fat cheek, remember this moment for the poor future generations who will never have it this good.
It's funny you say that. I'm 27 and the only news show I watch is The Daily Show, mostly because it has no spin compared to Fox or MSNBC.
Unlike the first, all of the other theories have stood the test of time and are backed up by unimpeachable evidence. The evidence for AGW is very much a faith issue where the actual data has been confabulated to produce a particular result.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Weekly weather is in NO WAY the same as long term global average trends! That is an extremely simplistic statement to make.
The BEST we can do is the IPCC and we work from the best available information we have.... except that is an ideal - in reality we don't like to go with the best answers because we have political biases and selfishness to deal with (humans.) Sure, one can complain how pathetic it is that the best we can do is the IPCC which I think also reflects how pathetic the judgment of some people is.
It is just like a common Sci-Fi plot: the scientist is correct and only gets support when all hell brakes loose and people are desperate enough to need expert opinion (often with a plot twist of again ignoring the expert and causing some more trouble.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Nevermind there are numerous smaller glaciers and icefields around the world that are just completely gone.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Did you know the moon landings are FAKE!! I know because they can't make me understand all the rocket science, electronics, radio, telescopes and physics that were used to "prove" we landed on the moon. I'm supposed to trust the Russians saying the USA did land on the moon? ;-)
Scientists should have to prove to the consumer everything they discover or otherwise its all just BS to get more research grants!
If you are not smart enough to learn the science so can evaluate the discoveries then science should STOP PROGRESSING! Furthermore, we need to stop specialization in society! We can't have these elite "experts" telling us crap that we don't know is true or false!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Chacaltaya glacier in La Paz, Bolivia is gone:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/must-31/
"100s of feet thick" they say. 2035 may be a made up number, but I really don't see how it isn't plausible speculation, even thought it'd be the ultimate worst case scenario.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
This is for the Libertarians who make up such a substantial portion of both Slashdot readers and climate change denialist/skeptics.
Just assuming for a moment that the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change is correct, how could Libertarianism -- as a philosophy -- actually deal with the problem? Likewise, how would a theoretical Libertarian government have dealt differently with issues of DDT, dioxins and CFCs? Obviously I am posing a leading question, but the best answers I've been able to find amount to a lukewarm defense of cap and trade schemes (treating the right to pollute as a tradeable form of "property").
I know enough about science to give scientists the benefit of the doubt, i believe them unless i have a reason not to.
I would like to politely point out that what you're doing is the opposite of what science and the scientific method is all about.
If you say you know enough about science to give scientists the benefit of the doubt then what you are actually saying is that you know nothing about science. If you say you believe in "them" unless you have a reason not to then you are practicing the faith of "scientism" which has at its core the fallacy of assumed validity by authority. All you are really saying is that you yourself don't need to do anything but assume whatever takes your fancy or as expedient to you. That's fine, everybody does that all the time, but don't mistakenly think doing so has anything to do with science and don't try to use it as any kind of argument.
And no there is nothing wrong with being "skeptical and ignorant" because that is in fact the very prerequisites for good science: one is skeptical towards existing knowledge and seeks to find better knowledge because one deems oneself (and everybody else) ignorant of such better knowledge. The longer one does this and the more successful one is at it the more convinced one will become that one should be even more skeptical and that one is even more ignorant than ever before: yes one knows more, perhaps even much more, and one knows it better, yet one also knows enough to start to realize how little one actually knows.
Any person professing to be a scientist ought to be able to not only admit to the above but also refrain from belittling it with such nonsensical truly irrelevant political claims such as "the science is settled" as if any of our current knowledge has an infinite expiry date and are locked down forever more. And yes that even applies to general relativity etc.: scientific theories do not define reality and there is absolutely no guarantee of any kind that they couldn't be completely wrong despite being however useful and practical.
From one who was agnostic on human caused global warming (AGW) until Climategate, many hours of searching show that AGW is a total fraud. Check out these two reports:
1) Hurricane expert resigns from IPCC in 2005 because the science is ignored for a global warming causes hurricanes agenda (2009 had virtually no hurricanes):
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-09-01/paul.htm
2) The glaciergate was NOT an accident:
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0dUoPiTkG
3) The head of the IPCC is a crook (no other terms to describe it). The Doctor who made the glacier claim works for Pachauri, whose TERI group has received E10M+ to "investigate" the melting of the glaciers in India:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7062667/Pachauri-the-real-story-behind-the-Glaciergate-scandal.html
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=CAP/2010/01/22&PageLabel=14&ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar01405&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T
Do some digging and leave the Church of Global Warming alone while you do your internet search.
Finally, Slashdotters will appreciate that "peer reviewed science" is being replaced by "peer to peer reviewed science"!!!!
Whoooooooosh!
The glacier wind is really strong around here.
I do not agree that this was more than a dyslexic typo that went unchallenged for far too long.
It's a good thing the correlation between global warming and extreme weather disasters like hurricanes and floods in the same report is still on a sound foundation then. Oh, wait...
When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."
Ouch.
The climate is warming. The climate has been warming from 10,000-15,000 years, and we should be glad of that. It's hard to grow crops on a glacier. 15,000 years ago much of the US was under immense glaciers, as was much of Europe. Now they are not in our current Holocene epoch, which is why this is called an "inter-glacial period." There's are various natural cycles going on here, with spans of twenty and eighty thousand years roughly. My minivan's emissions did not cause the end of the Wisconsin Glacial epoch. After a few more thousand years the cycle will once again reverse - and the glaciers will return. When they do we're all going to have to try to fit into North Africa, Eastern China, and equatorial South America. I suspect the locals will have a problem with that when the time comes. And yeah, I know you know all this.
I am also aware that nobody has a good understanding of the dynamics of large chunks of melting ice, this is obvious if you look at how woefully the 2007 IPCC reports underestimated the loss of Artic sea ice .
I'm pretty sure that the dynamics of melting ice in large chunks and small are that if the ice gets too warm, it melts. The loss of arctic ice is attributed by NASA not to warming but to winds pushing the ice onto currents that conveyed it out of the arctic.
Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.
Quit scaring people with your pseudo-scientific dendro-science. We're on to your game. The sky is not falling. Well, the sky is falling, but it's falling far more slowly than you say it is, and in the opposite direction. Let us sit under the magic warm-monger tree and contemplate understanding natural cycles a bit more thoroughly before we deliberately attempt to manipulate them.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
That's why WSJ's article on the IE exploit patch was titled "Microsoft Makes Web Browser More Secure."
It's all in how you tell the story.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm guessing you're not in Canada.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
LOL. Your sig puts your comments in context. Do you think Obama is a Communist?
Social Justice: A right-winger being forced to read a book.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Insightful and Informative (but politically incorrect). Sorry I have no mod points of my own.
Man-made CO2 emissions aren't really man-made. You see, there was CO2 in the air, and plants used solar energy to convert that CO2 to sugars and hydrocarbons, trapping the carbon with the hydrogen from water and discarding the oxygen from the water and the CO2. The plants lived and died and then were sequestered for a long time, until brought out by humans who set the CO2 free again.
Lots of other methods of sequestration occur - in limestone for example, where we're a lot less likely to release the CO2 unless we're heating it to make mortar or cement. So over time the processes of life sequester CO2 as part of their energy cycle, much of which is deposited on the floor of the oceans where we'll never get at it.
But the CO2 was in the air before, and putting it back into the air won't make the Earth any worse off than it was when that same CO2 was in the air before. Increasing partial pressures of CO2 improve the effectiveness of photosynthesis - it's like airborne fertilizer.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Oh my Science!
If the global temperatures of the year 1890 continue to cool at the current rate, our forebears soon will have all frozen to death before our grandparents could be conceived, and we'll disappear in a poof of paradox.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The sources of some of the glaciers are around 6500m high. So to get the melting point from currently around 3500m to 6500m the temperature should increase at least 15C (0.5C/100m at least). Sure the glaciers will get a lot smaller, but completely melt? no way. And if the temperature rises by 15C, we have other problems than some glaciers, like where to grow food and what to drink.
Scientists are made of flesh and blood and make errors? NOOOOO!
Transposed digits errors happen. A math error just as bad crashed a Mars probe. Generally, scientists check each other's work, though, and a scientist found the error and reported it.
What scientists did not do was urinate away trillions of dollars claiming house prices would never ever ever drop That's what the bankers managed to do. Marched in lockstep over a cliff together never ever questioning whether it was a sound idea to bet the entire economic system on the idea that housing prices went up 100% of the time.
For one thing, it was a scientist using the scientific method that found the error, not a minister praying for wisdom
That's part of the Scientific Method
* Ask a Question
* Do Background Research
* Construct a Hypothesis
* Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
* Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
* Communicate Your Results
Test and verify is science, not religion.
We're tired of people's opinions, so no, we don't want yours. But thanks for asking.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Some of those glaciers have retreated more than 16 miles! If you want my opinion, it's very possible some of those glaciers could disappear by 2035.
The Baltic Sea level has gone down 1 meter in four months where I live. It's very possible the Baltic Sea could dry completely by 2028.
1/the greenhouse effect warms the earth. (it would be around 15-20C colder.)
2/we spew the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (see : amount of coal and oil burned, we can quantify that)
3/somehow more greenhouse gases don't increase the temperature further ??? that needs extraordinary evidence.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Everything else was spot on.
There are anthropogenic global warming skeptics, and there are also deniers.
Skeptics say while there is non-trivial linkage of CO2 to warming, and increased CO2 is being caused by humans, and the current trend of climate data shows a warming, there is unlikely to be catastrophic change in climate, and efforts to prevent a catastrophic change are likely not well spent for their own sake.
Deniers claim the science is wrong and there is a conspiracy among climate scientists/the left/whoever else they think is involved. They use one way hash arguments like "cherry picking data" that sound correct, but are misleading to the point of being wrong.
Also, please reconsider posting Costella's "work". He's a physics PHD who seems to like feeding conspiracy theorists, usually of the JFK variety. Don't mistake his work for scientifically reviewed papers.
Finally I fail to see the point of you mentioning you're a liberal, you're ideology should have nothing to do with the science. This coupled with phrases like "faith", "junk science", and "neo-creationists" sounds like you're just using buzzwords to support your argument without actually understanding what you're railing against.
I think that we need to take a step back and take a good look at one of the fundamental properties of science: that it's based on the fact that humans make mistakes. Think about it:
1. Observe something.
2. Formulate a hypothesis that explains what you observe.
3. Conduct an experiment to test your hypothesis.
4. Observe your experiment.
5. Modify your hypothesis to match your observations (and not the other way around).
6. Go back to step 3.
For those of you that are scientifically challenged, this is known as the scientific method. It is based on the fact that we don't know everything and that we will make mistakes in our observations. Yes, there are controls in place to minimize mistakes, but it's still based on our tendency to make mistakes. It's an endless process that continually perfects our knowledge.
Now, this is a moot issue if, indeed, it was something like the Ferris Beuller quote: "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with this girl who saw ..."
That's not too scientific.
"One mistake wouldn't. But the rate at which "mistakes" are piling up is becoming troubling, to say the least."
Then people have no concept of the norm in science or in reporting of science. Scientists aren't infallible, and I don't seen anything particularly anomalous for a report comprising hundreds of pages written by many, many authors and passing through uncountable draft versions and drawing from hundreds of sources. Heck, I can find errors in my reports that are that long -- usually after the report has been printed and bound (sigh). It's inevitable. That's what errata are for. It doesn't undermine the main point of this report or the main conclusions of all the climate research of the last 50 years or so. If you are "troubled" by the level of mistakes observed in this or any other scientific work, I suggest religion or politics as an alternative, where some people do purport to be nearly infallible. Scientists try their best, but they *know* mistakes will creep in. They try to check each other's work, but I'm sure if you asked any of the authors of the IPCC report if they thought it was impossible for mistakes to be in the report, I'm sure they would laugh.
All I see is that after years of scrutinizing climate research and making lots of noise, some people who hope the results to date are spectacularly wrong have found some press-worthy mistakes that don't change the overall results one iota. Big deal. It's press and politics spinning this into something significant. It's not some fundamental change in the scientific understanding.
One cannot appeal to scientific authority and utilize the label of denier for their opponents simultaneously. To label as a denier your opponent casts yourself as a believer. Belief is religion and it is not science.
As all the shrill AGW voices have managed to use that term in one way or another, I categorically cast them as believers, and their claimed science is tainted beyond recovery by their religion and its biases.
What is left is the logic of the rational mind which considers the great ball of fire in the sky and wonders what all the fuss about a degree or two global change in a enormously huge and complex system that nobody comes even close to understanding. The logical conclusion lies in the old saw. "Follow the money".
The science is not science and the claimed scientist are all frauds and scamsters along with the global voices championing life style changes for the masses while living high on the hog. Let them move into a cave first.
Richard Stallman is my model for the modern prophet in the wilderness. He talked the talk AND he walked the walk. Which of the AGW prophets is doing that?
As long as the IPCC are not having their research peer reviewed I would be careful to call it science at all. Peer review is an important part of science and any scientist will tell you this, including the many names who quit IPCC because of this very issue.
This is why it's important to actually do science. Your opinion is wrong.
Ok but in the same article we have another fraud exposed.
------
Pielke said his concern is heightened because he believes Working Group II also misrepresented his research about the link between climate change and monetary damages of natural disasters, highlighting a white paper produced for a conference he organized -- when ultimately, attendees at the conference "came up with a contrary conclusion to what the background paper said."
------
Here we go again where the findings don't support the agenda. In this case these weren't thrown out as seems often to be the normal approach but rather the conclusion was a 'contrary' conclusion.
Once again the big question is how many does it take before the whole process and the derived conclusions get called into question. There seems to be every few months some major fraud is committed and the same defense is purported. It's only one small error... only one scientist running amok... this doesn't affect the overal conclusions. At what point is there an effect???
the year of Linux on the desktop
After the IPCC climate gate emails, most Americans see the IPCC as a corrupt extreme left ideological organization.
I think that as long as this sort of thing keeps happening, people are going to question global warming. It's exactly like someone said about the Piltdown Man. It turned out to be a hoax, so instead of helping the evolutionary theory, it hurt it. Now, personally, I'm a creationist, but I don't think that the theory of evolution should be scrapped or discounted or anything like that. It's a valuable theory that houses a lot of valuable archaelogical data, and the two points of view (at least, in my opinion) are not irreconcilable. If you disagree, fine. We'll agree to disagree. Let's not turn this into an evolution versus creation debate.
My point is that problems like this cast a lot of skepticism on something that could be perfectly legitimate. People try to "help out" by inventing "facts" that aren't there.
Truth doesn't need help. Facts - real facts - speak for themselves.
I agree we should continue to trust the reports from the IPCC, regardless of whether the data they use is made up or not. It's not the facts that matter but their intent. As long as we believe it's all man made is all that matters. It doesn't matter that their climate models can't even predict the weather accurately a week in advance, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean we all know the climate is changing, today it is raining, yesterday it wasn't, today it is cold, yesterday it wasn't. It's all our fault. If humans weren't on the earth then every day would be perfect, no hot, no cold, no droughts, no floods, no ice ages, no warm periods. The weather is all our fault! We must stop the weather or we will all die! So pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Listen to what the IPCC says. I mean when has the U.N. ever been wrong?
he says what they're thinking, they might as well read it
I am a person who believes in anthropogenic global warming. I am often called a "denier" even though the people who call me that are unable to specify what it is that I deny. I understand very well the common meaning of the term "denier": it is one who dares to challenge the propriety of ANYTHING that supports AGW theory; it has nothing to do with denial. It is a term used as such by the uninformed throngs, and by IPCC Chairman Pachauri. It is a despicable method by which to vilify critical thinkers, to dismiss their critical questions, and to thereby erode the scientific basis of the public debate.
Correction of errors is what separates science from religion.
The founders of each religion said the same thing about the 'proof' and the 'authentic' experience they had with their savior. Clearly the truth, separating them from the old order. Christ > Roman gods, Buddha > Hindu gods, &c. Yet somehow, these revolutions ended up being co-opted by/as power and control structures. Christ > [Vatican, Anglican Church, Pentecostal, Mormons, take your pick]. Buddha > [Tibetan Buddhism/Dali-Lama/CIA, Chinese Buddhism (you bet it still exists), Japanese, Southeast Asian, Western/Shambala/Tricycle Magazine/Any watered down new ageism dribble in general all the way the "The Secret"/Oprah Winfrey, take your pick], &c.
Today we have (had) a legitimate conversationalist / ecological preservation movement with legitimate concerns about polluting our environment. What's happened? Again, we have seen that initiative hijacked by a global political organization. They have created the new earth worshiping (gaia) religion with the goal of creating a global government with themselves in charge. They will enslave the entire population, having the masses accept the concepts that they (the masses) are killing the planet and need to cull themselves (population reduction/control), they should feel guilty about their consumption and each exhalation they make is poison. They use everything from slick politicians to high budgeted brilliant propaganda via television and Hollywood (Avatar, &c.)
The IPCC are the self-declared high priests of the new one world/love/ peace one day / global village religion. But they are a political body with an agenda (like any political body) and should correctly be viewed with the highest discrimination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
not but a few years ago i was arguing simple skepticisms against the believed infallibility of the IPCC report. even simple things like if the report's short term predictions turn out wrong, as they were (significantly overshot or under, regardless), what does this say of the scientists' understanding of the data, or even the integrity of the data itself?
shouldnt take much imagination to guess what i was met with. im not looking for pity, im just glad things are more balanced these days. men agreeing is but men agreeing, and science has little worth for that. it shouldnt matter if youre a climatologist expert or a 7 yr old. finding an error is finding an error. it shouldnt matter the title of who found it.
which brings me to my last point. when i was arguing skepticisms regarding the IPCC report, i purposely made myself sound quasi-retarded while properly making legitimate arguments (to greater fuel the then mega-anti-denier mentality...for fun), and what was the result?
PEOPLE CARED MORE ABOUT HOW I WAS SAYING THINGS RATHER THAN WHAT I WAS ACTUALLY SAYING. id misspell words, use run-on sentences and ridiculous metaphors, usually involving various degrees of racism and sexism. and, under it all, were legitimate points.
less than 1% of people sided with me in my skepticism, and over 75% of those people sided with me only because my style of writing was complementary to their own.
so, if anything, if youre an insecure cunt criticizing someone for their grammar or spelling rather than what theyre actually saying (or trying to say), stop failing at life.
now im just glad to see the IPCC doesnt go unquestioned, and skepticism has found itself some proper footing.
Simply read http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/the-ipcc-is-not-infallible-shock/ Read the referenced paper there by Karkel et al. The link is at the end of the blog post. In general, the deniers have good PR. They are funded by the fossil fuel industry to disseminate their propaganda and destroy the confidence in science. Slashdot is technology and scientific method. We should not fall for that crap.
Hi Mikael,
You might be interested to know that this theorizing
is at least as old as 1896. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius
paragraph "Greenhouse Effect", and footnote 3.
All REAL science is about prediction, this is your GOLD STANDARD, you develop a theory, construct a mathematical model and predict the future, or unknown observations or improve existing predictions,
... , but this is NOT science, it is populist politics.
This is why they say "Nature howls NO, but whispers YES", if your prediction is RIGHT you get a small incremental credibility, if it is wrong, go back to the drawing board.
So the Michaelson-Morley experiment abolished the ether, and with Lorenz-Fitzgerald created Special Relativity, old theory refuted.
Mann predicted the Hockey-Stick, it hasn't happened, in fact the reverse has. Game Over.
Now I know that the actual fate will be re-based, massaged, spun
LOTS of us can tell the difference, and as I said many, including many legislators around the world have now wised up,
the SCAM is OVER. The US congress will never have a super-majority for this now.
NT
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It used to be that the big error of many scientists was to make studies of studies. Now, it appears that studies of news reports of studies are becoming acceptable. Are climate scientists the mysterious "they" that they're always talkiing about?
So if half the glaciers which feed the seven great rivers of Asia are gone in 2030, who is to say which half of Asia's billions will be receiving half the water they once received or none? The trickle some might get in 2050 is irrelevant. Shortages are already apparent on the subcontinent. Asia is already facing an rolling disaster as the source is not replenished and each year experiences less flow from less ice until it's gone. The IPCC suffers from consensus building watering down its analysis which has put it behind the curve.
1/from the wikipedia article : "greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system" that's proven; and more CO2 is more heat trapped, it's as simple as that.
2/CO2 concentration Changes through humans, the CO2 produced by burning oil and coal doesn't magically disappear.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
1. Increased greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere increases heat retention.
2. we won't do anything about it.
Gaming out likely scenarios, it is a self correcting problem. I'm not at all certain, but there is a very strong chance that population pressure will cause most of the world to starve to death before GW fully develops.
Ive completely given up on the idea of people actually doing anything about GW. I think that most humans are not as a rule sufficiently evolved enough to grasp concepts like long term averages, and trends. When I discuss GW with a denier during the winter, they almost always make a remark like "It's in the low 20's today - so much for your global warming!" And they are dead serious. You can't fight that reasoning
It wasn't until the Cuyahoga river caught fire several times that kind of spurred people in the US to do anything about water pollution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River
GW just doesn't have a sucker punch like that to get people interested.
Why is this even on SlashDot?... Why is this even on Slashdot?...Why is this even on Slashdot?
All that I know is, when they ran the Olympic Torch across Canada just recently, that Trail, BC, in Rocky Mountain chain, had no snow on the ground when I and all my high school classmates grew up with 6-10 feet of snow (2-3 metres) during the month of January.
Pretend global warming is not happening all you want, but the oscillating dramatic changes are happening worldwide faster and faster.
And no amount of revision will change that basic fact.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --