Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says

BergZ writes "Scientists from around the world are providing even more evidence of global warming. 'A comprehensive review of key climate indicators confirms the world is warming and the past decade was the warmest on record,' the annual State of the Climate report declares. Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada, the report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its analysis of 10 indicators that are 'clearly and directly related to surface temperatures, all tell the same story: Global warming is undeniable.'"

Comments

More Info & Dashboard

[eldavojohn]

There's a really neat prototype dashboard that presents data surrounding climate change in an intuitive way. And the report is here (from the second link in the summary). And I submitted a story that got rejected a few weeks ago about NOAA's announcement:

So far, it's been a scorcher for folks all around the world. So it might come as no surprise that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a report revealing 2010 having the record for warmest June, warmest April to June and warmest year to date. The announcement said 'Each of the 10 warmest average global temperatures recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last fifteen years. The warmest year-to-date on record, through June, was 1998, and 2010 is warmer so far.' So far we are even surpassing 1998's records which held the warmest year (despite directly contradicting reports). It certainly seems the scads of winter precipitation we enjoyed were no indication of how we would swelter through our summer this year. Will 2010 turn it around or are we set to break more records?

Aside from that, I'm not really interested in making comments on this anymore because I'm so sick and tired of the armchair idiocy that follows (and somehow gets moderated up). Prediction: Not even 300 scientists from 48 countries and NOAA are going to convince everyone that global warming is real. At this point, I think it's just going to get worse.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[_bug_]

When do we move on from whether or not the planet is warming up to why it's warming up?

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[_bug_]

When there stops being data to the contrary, I guess.

Care to share the contrary data?

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[eldavojohn]

I don't think there is much doubt that global warming is real. The Earth has experienced both global warming and global cooling many times in its past.

Okay and from the expert:

'greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious explanation' for 0.56C (1F) warming over the last 50 years.

Tell me, Mr. Arm Chair Expert I Referred to in My First Post, where in this 'long history of global warming and global cooling' did the average temperature rise 0.56C (1F) a degree in 50 years?

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[Nursie]

False dichotomy.

There's no need to go back to an agrarian society, as much as it's a right wing fantasy that the global warming hippies want everyone to live in a mud hut and eat grass it's not true. Green technologies are coming along nicely, if slowly and on a smaller scale than is desirable.

We want people to stop denying the scientific evidence and start collaborating on a solution, rather than being obstructive.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[characterZer0]

"Cap and trade" may be stupid, but it is not drastic.

"Cap" would be drastic, and probably a lot less stupid.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[eldavojohn]

And yet you managed to get in so early too.

Yeah, turns out if you chuck $5 at Slashdot you can see the stories 30 minutes before they pop. Big secret nobody knows about because nobody subscribes except those of us who appreciate Slashdot.

And despite trying to hold my tongue on opinion and just refer the reader the NOAA, that post is already moderated as Troll. Slashdot has gotten to the point where you can't even refer to the people that devote their lives to the study of climatology across the world without being called a Troll. And the real awesome thing is that I see people who haven't even read the report in question being moderated up up up up. People who have never studied climatology are deriving their own reason to disbelieve what's in this report. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[SpryGuy]

So basically, you admit to being living proof of Upton Sinclair's famous quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

So you're essentially admitting to refusing to believe something with overwhelming scientific evidence, because believing it would affect your business model? You really think that's the rational response?

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[blueg3]

Correct me if my back-of-the-envelope estimate here is wrong.

Just looking at some readily-available graphs of recent temperature averages, it looks like there's a change of 0.8 C in somewhere between 100 and 150 years. That's about 0.005 C/yr (using 150 years). (NOAA claims the rate for the past 50 years is 0.013 C/yr.)

The graph you link notes two areas of interest: a time period with 41 kyr cycles and a time period with 100 kyr cycles. The maximum oscillations during the former appear to be about 5-6 C; during the latter, about 8 C. Using 6 C for the shorter cycle and approximating a "cycle" as taking one-half the period (20 kyr and 50 kyr) to vary between the maximum and minimum, I get temperature change rates of 0.0003 C/yr and 0.0002 C/yr. That's a solid order of magnitude lower rate than the effect that is described as "global warming".

It seems very reasonable to estimate that the decidedly natural effect(s) responsible for the periodic temperature change in the graph you link to account for no more the 5-10% of the temperature change referred to as "global warming".

Sometimes a little quantification is useful.

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[Count Fenring]

Dude - if your business model is a primary grounds for your acceptance or rejection of a theory, you have a serious fscking problem with your logic skills.

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[Surt]

Adapt or die! Every other animal or plant on this planet has to do this so why do we think we are special?

Animals and plants adapt via evolution. Most people are opposed to this strategy for adaptation, since it will mean, literally, billions of people dying of causes other than old age, and likely the downfall of our current civilization.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[Count Fenring]

It may take a climate scientist to do the original research, and to collect those results into a valid analysis - but it's certainly possible to condense and explain the broad results to lay people. That's, in fact, a large part of the rationale behind having these analyses - people who aren't specialists need to make decisions that cover specialist fields all the time. And wildly differing specialist fields interact on a regular basis - that climate scientist might be on a committee with an agriculturalist, and they may both be making decisions and assumptions based on data outside of their fields. It's not perfect, but it's functional.

The issue is that people who aren't even informed second-hand are continually taking one side or the other because of political, religious, or other rationales.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[SleazyRidr]

Global cooling:

In the olden days, we used to do things that would release oxides of sulphur (SOx) into the air. Having these in the air creates some nasty side effects, one of the most dramatic of which is acid rain. Another less drastic side effect is that the SOx in the atmosphere reflects the heat from the sun back out into space, with global cooling as a potential consequence.

Due to the serious nature of acid rain, and the comparative ease of not emitting SOx into the atmosphere (a cheap scrubber on your exhaust) legislation to limit the discharge of SOx met little resistance. Thus, we were able to keep the levels of SOx in the atmosphere at a low level.

Small soot particles in the atmosphere may also contribute to global cooling (through global 'dimming') but regulations to reduce this met little resistance, similar to the SOx example.

Global warming, however, is caused by oxides of carbon (COx) which is not simple to remove from an exhaust stream (as it is the major component.) Thus efforts to reduce the amount of COx going into the atmosphere meet significant resistance as it would necessitate a far greater upheaval than either SOx or soot.

That was a science history update, brought to you by a concerned citizen. We now return to to your regularly scheduled flamewar.

Re:More Info & Dashboard

[EQ]

Here's the main point. Unless you're a climate scientist, you're not qualified in any way to engage in a "fact based debate." There's too much data here and it requires specialists to see all of it as a homogeneous whole and draw conclusions.

Complete and utter bullshit. Your statement is typical of cargo-cultists. No poll of scientists, nor self-selected signing onto an opinion about interpretation of data has anything to do with science. Science is not a democratic process! Try Feynman instead:

scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition. In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

As a great man once said

[Pojut]

"The planet is fine...the people are fucked."

Of course it's deniable

[amstrad]

All sorts of facts are denied by those who refuse to change their positions. See cognitive dissonance

Re:Two Different Thoughts

[easterberry]

"well the basement is flooding but it's already STARTED flooding so why should we bother going down and turning off the tap? My pants would get wet and it's already a bit wet down there anyways. What do you mean 'structural damage if it gets worse?' That doesn't make any sense to me."

Re:"Undeniable"

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There isn't an intelligent person the planet who denies that global warming is real. The debate is all about causation.

The deniers set up multiple goalposts. There are the ones who deny it's happening at all (a favorite tactic of this group is to start their time series with 1998, which was an unusally warm year, to insist that there's been no warming trend in the last 10^H^H11^H^H12 years) and then the "reasonable" ones who say it's happening but that human activity plays no part. This mirrors the pseudo-split between young earth creationists and "intelligent design" proponents almost exactly, and it's no surprise that there's a lot of crossover between the groups.

Re:It sure is undeniable.

[H0p313ss]

He appears to be trying to argue that since the last major climate change was clearly not caused by humans that the current one must not be.

While not without some merit, this is logically akin to arguing that I didn't get killed driving home last night therefore it would be impossible for me to be killed driving home tonight.

Convincing the deniers is like arguing religion with a believer since their beliefs are not founded in fact, measurable science or sound theory.

One of the problems with the whole debate is that by the time we have definitive proof CO2 emissions are causing global warming it will be far, far too late. At some point I'd like to actually hear a coherent argument about why it could possibly be good to actively modify our atmosphere from the deniers, so far all I've heard is rote-repetition of nonsense arguments.

Re:no global warming != no MAN MADE global warming

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

First line of defence there is no warming

Second line of defence the warming is not manmade

Third line of defence I didnt cause the warning so I wont change my way.

Fourth line of defence come closer or I blow your head off.

Fifth line of defence praying will save the world - all stop working and pray with me.

Welcome to the second line.

Does it matter?

[dachshund]

I had an eye-opening experience the other day over at the Oil Drum, a blog run by folks associated with the industry. Not people you'd exactly think of as being against the consumption of fossil fuels. But the gist of this posting (which had nothing to do with climate change, and received a lot of favorable commentary) was that we're deeply, deeply fucked if we think we're going to continue burning fossil fuels into our old age. The argument was specifically related to the increasing cost of extraction. (In a nutshell, there's a reason we're now getting our oil from wells a mile underwater).

Now, the conclusion of that poster was pretty depressing, though I don't think he covered all of the options. But what struck me is that if you believe his arguments, it doesn't really matter whether you believe that humans are causing global warming. The actions we need to take now to ensure a reasonable standard of living in 40 years are exactly the same actions we need to take in order to deal with the global warming problem. Above all, to place a tax on fossil fuel consumption (and CO2 taxes do this pretty well) as a means to encourage the market to do something reasonable about the problem. The fact that we couldn't even pass the tiny little tax proposed in the recently defeated Waxman-Markey bill tells us something deeply frightening about our chances.

What kills me about the anti-global-warming argument is that its opponents think that it really matters whether AGW exists. It doesn't matter. For either reason we need to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel consumption and develop alternative sources (efficient, cost-effective nuclear, wind, solar, etc._ just to ensure that we and our children have a chance at living a decent life in the future. There's nothing in the universe that guarantees we won't face terrible consequences for our bad decisions, just because we've had a pretty good run for the past few decades.

Re:no global warming != no MAN MADE global warming

[RichMan]

> who are we to think we have that much power over the entire planet?

Ozone hole. Acid rain. Plastic Gyre. Rain Fores destruction. Species extinction. Desertification of large areas by agricultural practices.

We have done it many times.

Re:This research is FALSE!

[spun]

You don't understand the difference between weather and climate? Really? That's been a huge part of the debate for decades now, because every moron out there thought he could debunk climate research with weather anecdotes, and so other people have had to explain the difference, again, for decades now. So I'm surprised you have not had this explained to you before now.

Take a pot of water. Put it on a hot stove. Given that you know the temperature of the stove, the water, the air, the material of the pan, the humidity, and the altitude, you can predict exactly when the pan will boil (climate) but you will not be able to predict the location of the first bubble to break the surface (weather).

If that explanation helps, please take some of the burden off the rest of us and pass it on the next time you hear someone saying "But we can't predict the weather." Thanks.