Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
I would be shocked if this doesn't reach -2.
Defy the hive-mind that the majority of slashdotters are part of at your own peril my friend! Other ways to get to -2 are to suggest that you believe in God or voted for a Republican at any point in time -- and God help you if they find out that you don't know how to program, don't like Linux, and don't like Firefly....those crimes are punishable by death around here!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
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
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.
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
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.
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.
It's sad that the same people who were so skeptical of the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs" are such strong believers in the "war on climate change".
Guess the Government just needed to find the right buttons to press...
Posting as AC to avoid connecting crimespeak to my read ID.
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!
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.
Like this:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/23/nasa-makes-it-official-2000s-were-the-hottest-decade-on-record-2009-tied-for-second-warmest-year
Completely in agreement with climate models.
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...
Excellent. +5.
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.
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.
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.
The down side of working in climate change is that the only time you ultimately get to see if you are right or wrong is when we become extinct or not. If you have predicted the latter, you have a hard time collecting on those bets (or the free pizza).
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
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.
The down side of working in climate change is that the only time you ultimately get to see if you are right or wrong is when we become extinct or not.
Sure, and the problem is, we could say the same thing about theologians studying the Book of Revelation, or psychics who publicize the warnings of Nostradamus. Extraordinary calls to action require extraordinary credibility.
There are many nerds who believe in God. However, only on slashdot does admitting to that get you modded a troll.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
No No, I'm sure people in real life get crap all the time for having an imaginary friend.
Defy the hive-mind that the majority of slashdotters are part of at your own peril my friend! Other ways to get to -2 are to suggest that you believe in God or voted for a Republican at any point in time -- and God help you if they find out that you don't know how to program, don't like Linux, and don't like Firefly....those crimes are punishable by death around here!
It would seem that you believe in some invisible, sentient being powerful enough to defeat the omniscient Slashdot Hive Mid. You should be modded to death in a public execution to set an example.
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
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?
Yes but we'll need to wait fifty years for that answer.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
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.
I'm sure people in real life get crap all the time for having an imaginary friend.
And believing in God is more ridiculous than the alternative "religions" (they're not officially religions, hence the quotation marks) that nerds subscribe to such as the idea that everything just magically happened by chance (even though a true nerd would realize that it's statistically impossible) - takes a hell of a lot more faith to believe in that my friend.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
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").
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.
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.
/. is anything but a scientific-method minded folks... more like a truthiness-mined folk, and often quite uneducated/ignorant in fields that they comment on. ;)
And what does faith have to do with science anyway? I mean everyone knows we are just in a big simulation run by aliens and we only get to have a sentient existence outside this simulated universe when a large enough number of the simulated sentient forms believe...
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
Good points, but everything has limits, even science.
I dont consider myself a peer of climatologists, i dont consider my opinion to be scientific in nature, im not trying to argue the science, im saying its possible to trust (believe was a bad word to use) people, even scientists.
I dont have to practice or be a part of the the scientific process to trust the scientific process.
In Soviet Russia, Slashdotters make fun of you!
Reading through the replies to your post, I see the same thing happens here as well.
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.
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.
They really haven't done much to earn our trust, now have they?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This is why it's important to actually do science. Your opinion is wrong.
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?
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.
By moron, I assume you mean anti-intelectuals who use thought-terminating cliché's instead of actual evidence. In that case you are quite correct and part of the problem.
The OP was modded down because he is wrong, further more doesn't actually provide evidence.
Here in lies the problem with your argument (and the OP's), instead of attacking science, which you cant you attack the scientists. Ad Hominem attacks and thought-terminating cliché's are not evidence.
Just like when the church locked up Galileo for suggesting people go against the groupthink that the sun revolved around the earth.
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! --