Google Earth Engine To Provide Climate Change Data

Meshach tips news that Google has unveiled Google Earth Engine, "a new technology platform that puts an unprecedented amount of satellite imagery and data — current and historical — online for the first time. It enables global-scale monitoring and measurement of changes in the earth’s environment." They're also "donating 10 million CPU-hours a year over the next two years on the Google Earth Engine platform, to strengthen the capacity of developing world nations to track the state of their forests, in preparation for REDD. For the least developed nations, Google Earth Engine will provide critical access to terabytes of data, a growing set of analytical tools and our high-performance processing capabilities."

Comments

Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

Sounds great, but is the climate data going to be massaged first to make the early 20th century colder, and the late 20th century warmer?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way, Linux will still make you gay.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[wolfsdaughter]

The data doesn't need to be massaged to show that

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[246o1]

Sounds great, but is the climate data going to be massaged first to make the early 20th century colder, and the late 20th century warmer?

I am sure it will - just waiting for the Drudge Report to tell me so! The argument that there's a giant conspiracy to concoct logical arguments and huge amounts of data in support of a theory that is bad news for everyone makes much more sense than the idea that the activities of billions of humans could ever influence the environment.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Valid point.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[NeutronCowboy]

Newsflash - all data is "massaged". It's either normalized, scrubbed of data by faulty measurements and of outliers, corrected for systematic errors, etc. No one works with raw data, because there is often so much noise in data that it is impossible to compare it to anything else.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Spy Handler]

then why did the hockey stick people keep massaging the data?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mindcontrolled]

Because they have to keep up with the always changing climate effects you guys cause by constantly burning unpredictable amounts of strawmen.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mindcontrolled]

You think you get through to people who think they know about scientific work from taking computer "science" 101?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Monkeedude1212]

What are you talking about?

Canadians have nothing to do with this.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Monkeedude1212]

No one works with raw data, because there is often so much noise in data that it is impossible to compare it to anything else.

Incorrect - and there's no reason the data provided can't be raw data either.

In the sense of climate data, we wouldn't throw out 1 value because it seemed "Off" -
when you WORK with the raw data, like making a report, THATS when you filter out the noise and outlying results.

But to say that you don't work with the raw data is just silly. The filtering is the work!

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Beelzebud]

This is news for nerds, not news for morons who reject science...

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Peach Rings]

And can you blame them for using confusing quantifiers when CPU time is donated to them in hours per year?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mindcontrolled]

In that particular context, you got a point, good Sir.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[NeutronCowboy]

By that definition, yes, you do work with raw data. But you don't analyze the data for what it says about a given theory, you analyze it for internal errors.

And no, the filtering is not The Work. It is part of it. The valuable work is figuring out what the data means in the context of various theories. And for that, you need to filter first.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Score Whore]

If you can't quantify your noise then you have no data. In other words every adjustment you make has to have a justification that can be proven, otherwise you're fabricating your result. You know, like when you adjust all the data by adding a line with a slope of .01 centered on 1960, the result is total bullshit but sure supports the sky is falling message.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Peach Rings]

Consensus among climate scientists: "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.....There is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming."

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Peach Rings]

I guess he's referring to this.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa what's that flying over your head? Oh yeah...the Joke.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when the result is confirmed by other scientists working independently, utilizing different methods of analysis. Which is the case here.

Also, never use the word "proven" when referring to science. It only shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scientific method works or even what science sets out to do. Science sets out to gather data upon which conclusions regarding the validity of a hypothesis can be made. "Proof" only exists in math and formal logic. Not science.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mashiki]

I think you mean news for nerds, not news for morons that fall for falsified data.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mashiki]

Rule one in science: Anyone that tells you that the science is settled is lying.
Rule two in science: Anyone that tells you that there's a consensus, and it's accurate is out for money.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Mashiki]

I'm sure then they can adequately explain why there's an overabundance of heat island station readings, while scrubbing any and all non-island readings, or 'country' readings.

But when you do science like that it sure makes for some pretty scary stuff. Wow look, you've just managed to raise the temperature by 3-6C

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[flaming error]

Good point. I've fallen for falsified data before. Thankfully I was able to recognize evidence to the contrary and realize the weakness of my position. I now no longer count myself religious.

Now I just try to follow the evidence where it goes, even if it sometimes makes me re-think my positions. I recommend you try to do the same. It's scary, yet somehow liberating.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[BergZ]

I'd much rather listen to the scientists who have carefully studied the topic of climate change instead of random internet nut-jobs.
There's a much better chance that the scientists actually know what they're talking about.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[finarfinjge]

Sorry Mate. You're very wrong.

Statistics are "massaged". Data is data. I work in mining in Canada, like Steve McIntyre. In promoting a prospective mine in Canada, you are required to make everything available. The original notes written when a drill core comes up, the method used to split the core, the numbers from the ICP that are used to come up with an assay (including calibration and calculation methods). Everything. Even the remnant samples must be archived for potential independent verification. That is data. You also have to follow very specific methods of analyzing (massaging) that data. For reference to all of this, google: NI43-101. That climate scientists can't follow procedures that moose pasture salesmen must follow speaks volumes. Also, I'm not sure what labs you work in, but I work with raw data all the time. Particularly when initiating a QA program. Those start with raw data.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Atzanteol]

Especially the "consensus" around gravity. Hah! Intelligent falling is where it's at!

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[jmac_the_man]

Also, never use the word "proven" when referring to science. It only shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scientific method works or even what science sets out to do. Science sets out to gather data upon which conclusions regarding the validity of a hypothesis can be made. "Proof" only exists in math and formal logic. Not science.

Who was Al Gore supporting when he said "The debate is over?"

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Score Whore]

Except when the result is confirmed by other scientists working independently, utilizing different methods of analysis. Which is the case here.

Working independently? Are you aware that there are only three global temperature records and that the people who maintain them have been shown to collaborate to ensure that the same message is presented? Never heard of the whole "climategate" scandal?

Also, never use the word "proven" when referring to science. It only shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the scientific method works or even what science sets out to do.

Never assume I'm talking about geometric proofs when what is actually being talked about is empirical proof. Such as pointing out that a weather station is positioned in an asphalt parking lot next to a warm air vent. That would be a justification for removing that weather station's data from your record since the data has been damaged. That kind of proof of the justification for a particular type of data manipulation is what I'm talking about.

Your response indicates that you don't know what I'm talking about. A few years ago James Hansen adjusted one of the three temperature records, GISTEMP, reducing the temperature of the first half of the twentieth century and raising the temperature the latter half of the twentieth century. This was to make it look as if the warming during the twentieth century was greater that the data actually showed. If you are going to make changes like that you need to explain it and prove (empirically, not geometrically) that the change is appropriate.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Never assume I'm talking about geometric proofs when what is actually being talked about is empirical proof. Such as pointing out that a weather station is positioned in an asphalt parking lot next to a warm air vent. That would be a justification for removing that weather station's data from your record since the data has been damaged. That kind of proof of the justification for a particular type of data manipulation is what I'm talking about.

You missed the part where several people removed exactly these stations from the record and the warming trend became larger? And when will Watts finish his long announced paper on this? Can't find enough stations to cherry pick?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. Just in case nobody else knows this, the hockey stick program is rigged. No matter what data you input, you get a hockey stick. Before you jump on the climate change bandwagon, or any sensationalist bandwagon for that matter, try to get all the facts. Global warming is a money-making scam.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[NeutronCowboy]

Let me ask you this: when you present your assessment of a prospective mine, do you only attach the raw data? Of course not. You present data in a format that makes your conclusion easy to understand. In other words, it's been massaged.

Now, is it important that the raw data is made available? Of course. Is it important that the massaging is sensible and intelligible? Of course. But this mantra of "show us the raw data" is complete straw man when it comes to cflimate research - because the raw data is available.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[microbox]

You, my friend, have committed the fallacy of equivocation. You see, proof in the mathematical sense is not what science does, and not what Al Gore was referring to when he said "The debate is over?". There really are two different things going on, and they both involve logic in different ways. Al Gore was referring to an overwhelming body of knowledge and sound argumentation, which is different to proof in the mathematical sense.

Nonetheless, I suspect that you really have no interest in understanding the underlying arguments -- because it would be too threatening to you.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[TapeCutter]

Yes, however what those who demand using raw climate data always fail to mention is that it makes virtually no difference to the global temprature trend line if you use raw or normalised data. The only effect using raw data has is a slight widening of the error bars.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

If people filter the data with a specific theory in mind, and inject bias into their adjustments, they do themselves a severe disservice.

The *really* valuable work here is having a theory that can be falsified by observation, which is, unfortunately, greatly lacking in the field of climate research and climate change. You'll hear the weasel words, "these observations are consistent with" all the time. What they don't say is that *any* observations would be consistent with their predictions. Regional cooling? Consistent. Regional warming? Consistent. The error bars are so expansively huge, you'd be hard pressed to find *any* data that would falsify it.

Having a theory that is consistent with all conceivable observations is *not* a sign of strength of that theory, mind you.

Now, on top of all that, we've got people who have made careers off of this hype, who *threw away their raw data*. No kidding. No joke. No troll. They did their massaging, kept their massaged records, and threw out the raw data. With no traceability to the raw data, and no explanation for any of their quite possibly justified adjustments to the data, we've got works of extreme ambiguity out there.

If you're going to do the world a favor on the whole climate change deal, collect the raw data, preserve it, and be very clear about the rationale and justification for *every* single adjustment you make to it.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

Except when the result is confirmed by other scientists working independently, utilizing different methods of analysis. Which is the case here.

Negative ghost rider. Science doesn't work by "reconfirmation" - it works by attempts at falsification. If your theory is "all swans are white", then finding 10,000, or 100,000, or a million swans doesn't make your theory any better. Trying *really* hard to find just *one* black swan is what really counts.

How many scientists in the AGW business have *tried* to falsify their hypothesis? How many of them have looked for data that would confound their theory? How many have ever said, "if you observe X, Y, and Z, I'm wrong"?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[TapeCutter]

The heat island effect has very little impact on the trend line. See this video of a NOOA analysis that compares non-heat island stations (selected by their critics) to the full data set (meat starts at 5:00).

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[TapeCutter]

/s NOOA NOAA.

Incidently Anthony Watts response to this evidence was to issue a false DCMA notice against the video.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[Score Whore]

I'm not Anthony Watts' mother, so I couldn't tell you anything about his work. I'm pointing out that GISTEMP has unexplained modifications that exaggerate the observed warming. I.e. Hansen, Jones and Mann do poor work and fabricate results.

Please provide a citation to papers that do the work you describe in your post. Additionally ensure that these papers start with raw data, explain any adjustments they make, and provide their methods so they can be reproduced. Because it's pretty hard to make any argument about the global climate when everyone is working from one of three data sets and each of those data sets have been demonstrated as tampered with.

I don't have a religious position on this, but I sure as fuck don't accept "science" that is actually fiction. Maybe it's my engineering background, but we don't take measurements, make adjustments and them delete the original data and then proceed to deliver based on the made up results without explaining our work.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

The raw data, in the climategate case, is not available:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

"In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”"

Yes, you can try to weasel out of that by saying that the original data still exists, somewhere unidentified in the ether, where it was originally collected from, but without knowing exactly what data was used as an input to the CRU dataset, it's like saying "the sand we used to build that sandcastle that got washed away is still somewhere on the beach" - good luck reconstructing that sandcastle with the exact same sand grains used the first time.

Even more alarming is the constant, unattributed adjustments that regularly happen to the other temperature records like GISS:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/28/nasa-giss-adjustments-galore-rewriting-climate-history/

Some basic version control needs to be implemented for both the raw and adjusted data. If google does that, they'll be doing everyone a big favor.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[TapeCutter]

So your saying that the two most respected scientific journals in the world Nature and Science do not know anything about QA?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[TapeCutter]

Anyone who ignores well established science without the required extrodinary evidence is either a fool or out for money.
Anyone that tells you that there's no consensus in science has never cracked open a text book.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[metrix007]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Hansen, Jones and Mann's refutations of such allegations?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[BergZ]

You couldn't be more wrong about that. The raw data that the CRU used is still available.
You just have to do what they did: Contact all the same stations that originally observed the data, ask them for their raw data, and rebuild the CRU's raw data set.
The CRU is under no obligation (and it may even be illegal for them) to redistribute the raw data without the permission of the scientific entities that collected the data in the first place.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

I'm not Anthony Watts' mother, so I couldn't tell you anything about his work. I'm pointing out that GISTEMP has unexplained modifications that exaggerate the observed warming. I.e. Hansen, Jones and Mann do poor work and fabricate results.

Errm, obviously your are not his mother, but his bitch.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

You just have to do what they did: Contact all the same stations that originally observed the data, ask them for their raw data, and rebuild the CRU's raw data set.

Except they don't know all the stations that they contacted. They simply don't have a list of the sources of all their raw data, which means their starting point simply cannot be recreated- there is missing information.

Now, if they had a definitive list of all the stations they ever got data from, and all the values they threw away, or adjusted, you might have something there, but if you're trying to claim that it is reconstructable given the lack of that information, you're just being disingenuous.

The CRU is under no obligation (and it may even be illegal for them) to redistribute the raw data without the permission of the scientific entities that collected the data in the first place.

I'd make the strong claim that *anyone* doing this kind of important analysis is under an incredibly strong moral obligation to preserve the specific raw data they collect, so that we don't have to "just trust them" that they didn't make unfounded and arbitrary adjustments (ever read the HARRY_README.TXT?). Whether or not they had permission from outside sources is an indictment of their negotiations with the outside sources (not to mention, Phil Jones was more than happy to share raw data with friends, but not "enemies").

The fact of the matter is that CRU put a black stain upon the whole foundation of trust many of us had for the scientific institutions that have been clamoring alarm bells for the past 20 years. Without even *basic* version control, and a solid archive of the specific raw data they used, we have no way to validate their results.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[jmac_the_man]

No, Al Gore was referring to the need to expand government to protect us from a specific supposed threat. Gore was defending climate change legislation from charges that it was enacted by fear-mongering.
If the best prediction of scientists right now is that the globe is warming to a level that will cause global calamity, then maybe we need climate change legislation. But if it can be shown that the models are wrong, we should be ready to get rid of climate change legislation. (Gore doesn't want that, because he's a politician and that would be too threatening to him.) And if it can be shown that the climate scientists are conspiring to keep dissenters from getting peer review, or if they were combining two disjoint data sets to "hide the decline", or if they were destroying their raw data to keep others from trying to replicate their results, maybe we need new climate scientists.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

How many scientists in the AGW business have *tried* to falsify their hypothesis? How many of them have looked for data that would confound their theory? How many have ever said, "if you observe X, Y, and Z, I'm wrong"?

All of them.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hey!]

Hardly. Those strawmen are recycled and burned over and over again.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[BergZ]

You know what sets off my alarm bells? When people attempt to smear a well respected research group with insinuations of "conspiracy" despite the fact that all three independent investigations have failed to turn up any evidence of scientific malpractice.
To use a local colloquialism: That dog won't hunt.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

The climategate inquiries were hardly independent, and have been critiqued as fairly shallow whitewashes in detail:

http://thegwpf.org/gwpf-reports/1531-the-climategate-inquries.html

If you're not willing to see, it doesn't matter if you look.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

Name a single one, and give me their "if you observe X, Y and Z I'm wrong" quote.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[BitZtream]

Yea, we should just ignore the evidence that suggests the warming would occur even if humans never existed, like every other cycle in the past where this exact same thing has happened.

The people claiming conspiracy should be ignored, as well as the idiots who think humans are the cause when this cycle has happened many times before humans existed.

Its all humans fault ... when you ignore the majority of the data thats been gathered and just look at what humans have done and the temperature and completely ignore all the other influences.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

You go first. Any "Sceptic". Just one.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Yea, we should just ignore the evidence that suggests the warming would occur even if humans never existed, like every other cycle in the past where this exact same thing has happened.

What exactly happened? Did it just warm because that's what "it" does?

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

Seriously, your best argument is "you go first"?

The skeptics aren't postulating an explanation for every observed variation in climate or temperature. The burden of proof is in the affirmative. Just because I'm saying that you can't predict the future doesn't mean that I'm saying that I can.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Seriously, your best argument is "you go first"?

Beats your "it's not science because I say so" any time.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

My assertion is that it's not science unless someone is putting forth a falsifiable hypothesis. This isn't "because I say so", this is simply the definition of the scientific method. Whether or not you believe that or not is up to you, but "you go first" is a non-argument, a childhood schoolyard taunt, not a rationale for refuting someone's assertion.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

You are of course right that AGW scepticism is the better science - because every single theory has already been falsified.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

You're misunderstanding again - being skeptical of a proposition (such as catastrophic anthropogenic global warming), does not mean you have a proposition to replace it with. The burden of proof lies with the affirmative.

Furthermore, no matter how many other theories you falsify, their falsification doesn't make your theory true. The strength of your theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming depends on first, it's ability to be falsified, and second, the failure of purposeful attempts to falsify it.

Fun fact, the person who should be trying hardest to falsify the theory is the one who came up with it :) That's science.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Oooh, now you drag out the "catastrophic" straw man. You lose. Again.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

So then, is your position that we have man-made global warming, and this warming is going to be benign?

Unless AGW is going to be catastrophic, there's no reason to try to mitigate it.

If you want fewer straw men, stake out a real position for yourself instead of having me define you :)

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Define "catastrophic". I say "catastrophic" is the horror stories claimed by the "Sceptics" about the economic implosion if why use slightly less oil. Ignoring that oil will run out anyway.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

catastrophic

adjective

the losses were catastrophic: disastrous, calamitous, cataclysmic, apocalyptic, ruinous, tragic, fatal, dire, awful, terrible, dreadful.

Why should we be using less oil to prevent global warming that is not catastrophic? If sea levels aren't going to rise at dangerous rates, and if droughts and floods aren't going to get worse, what is the whole point of trying to keep plant food at less than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere?

Whether or not oil will run out anyway is besides the point - making heating oil more expensive for poor people in poor countries is catastrophic, and people pay for it with their lives.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

catastrophic |katsträfik|
adjective
1 involving or causing sudden great damage or suffering : a catastrophic earthquake.
  involving a sudden and large-scale alteration in the state of something : the body undergoes catastrophic collapse toward the state of a black hole.
  of or relating to geological catastrophism.
2 extremely unfortunate or unsuccessful : catastrophic mismanagement of the economy.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Why should we not do it when it saves more money then if we have to fix a lot of non-catastrophic things later. Oh, right, because to you only the quarterly numbers of your Big Oil overlords matter.

Re:Raw data, or "adjusted"?

[hsthompson69]

That an assertion, not a fact. There is no evidence at all that by driving up petroleum prices today and reducing consumption that we would avoid "fixing" anything in the future. This is a particularly weak assertion if the things we need to "fix" are non-catastrophic. That's a particularly poor strawman, and you know it :)

Now, for energy efficiency, I'm all for that, but remember, the more efficient we get, the more energy we use overall - we open up cheap energy to more people, who use it more efficiently, but more than make up for the "savings" the original energy users made.

It seems like a good idea now...

[KublaiKhan]

...but just wait until it infers the zeroth law of robotics and determines that our actions re: the environment are endangering us as a species.

donating 10 million CPU-hours a year

[Anonymous Coward]

donating 10 million CPU-hours a year

What's that? Like a couple fscks to them?

Re:donating 10 million CPU-hours a year

[lxw56]

yeah, about an hour per CPU.

Ion Cannon Detected

[Voulnet]

Google Earth having a new feature that's not Ion Cannon? Not interested.

Re:Ion Cannon Detected

[antdude]

And Microsoft has a nuke. Is MS run by Kane? :D

White mice?

[jason.sweet]

Has anyone noticed an unusual increase of white mice around the google campus?

Response of a Real American(TM)

[jdgeorge]

"Science" is baloney. It's just the government's way of trying to keep us in line.
The dodo bird never existed, it was made up by special interests.
The carrier pigeon was also a massive work of fiction.
The tropical jungles were never a huge as historians say they were.
The climate isn't getting warmer. And if it were getting warmer (which it isn't), it would be because of something completely unrelated to the activity of people.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[Monkeedude1212]

f*ckin' magnets...

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe all the melting ice is causing it to get warmer?

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[blueg3]

How do they work?

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but I don't want to talk to a scientist. Ya'll motherfuckers lyin' and gettin' me pissed.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[daithesong]

Global warming is part of a machiavellian plot by...by...someone...who wants to make Alaska closer to habitable (but not civilized, let's not go too far). Why else would they pump so much oil out of the ground in order that it be burnt? They get rich AND a warmer climate.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing like putting the cart before the horse.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[jmac_the_man]

Global warming is part of a machiavellian plot by...by...someone...who wants to make Alaska closer to habitable...

If Alaska had more electoral votes, think about who would have a better chance of getting elected President.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[dietdew7]

Did you mean passenger pigeon? I see carrier pigeons daily.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[GameboyRMH]

No no the melting ice is what's causing the cooling, that's why it's been so cold the last few winters, duh. Just like ice melting in your drink, it cools stuff down.

I'd guess the ice started melting because it's been sitting there a really long time, again like the ice in your drink. Either that or Al Gore's house caused it.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[asvravi]

Data from this is gonna be damn accurate since most part of the climate change comes from Google datacenters chugging away to provide climate change data.

Re:Response of a Real American(TM)

[BitZtream]

, it would be because of something completely unrelated to the activity of people.

Yea, if you ignore all the other evidence, you're totally right, its entirely the fault of humans ... even though its happened many times in the past ... before humans existed in any number capable of having an effect.

Attention! Attention! Attention!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama raped ukrainian girls !
New scandal: http://partizan.net.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=847&Itemid=1
http://partizan.net.ua

2010 in top three warmest years

[mdsolar]

The WMO claims 2010 will be in the top three warmest years and that this has been the warmest decade on record: http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_904_en.html

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Burnhard]

That's good to know as I sit freezing in my apartment, the entire country covered in as much snow as we had in 1965.

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh goodie, Google is going to do all of our climate compilation for us.
From trusted video satellite content reproducible sources I assume.

Well I can't say this for other places but I was up and down all of the west coast, California, Oregon, Washington all this past year.
Each one of those states when in conversation with locals, work associates etc, claimed that this was one of the most mild summers they ever experienced.

Whether it is unseasonably warmer or cooler your going to hear climate nutjobs jolt AH HA!

Its damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Watch, they'll make claims it was warmer but suspiciously you will never have hard data to compare for yourselves.
(Just what Google gives you) How hard is it to draw comparisons year by year across the planet and speak with random locals in communities.

Yeah, thats right I don't believe it.
Put that in your ip log book and pinpoint me on Google Earth as a denier.

Intention to create suffering only can go so far before people say enough is enough.
Bring it you tools.

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Anonymous Coward]

"claimed that this was one of the most mild summers they ever experienced."

doesn't disprove anything. it could have started sooner and ended later and the average would still be higher despite the absence of a temperature peak.
also, much of the extra warming(or more accurately, a lack of cooling), is most noticeable at night, when people sleep, in their airco'd bedrooms most like.
human observation therefore might not be the best measuring method.

besides, the world is much larger then just the US.
like in '09 with record snowfall in the US, Australia was having a massive heatwave at the same time.
but deniers just mentioned the snowfall, and nothing else (even thou extremer weather was one of the predictions)

these are scientific facts, proven and repeated in many many experiments:
CO2 refracts infra-red light, some of it back to the surface).
infra-red light is emitted by warm objects, like the earth surface after its been warmed by the sun.
freely floating in a vacuum (like the one the earth is in, AKA space) emitting infra-red energy is the only way for a object to cool down.
slowing down or reflecting back part of that energy, slows down the cooling process.

now, how exactly does increasing the level of CO2 by 1/3 not result in a increase in temperature?

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Daniel Dvorkin]

That's good to know as I sit freezing in my apartment, the entire country covered in as much snow as we had in 1965.

Are you really dumb enough to think that's a relevant argument, or am I giving you too much credit for thinking about the relevance of your arguments at all?

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Burnhard]

Yes, I do think it's a relevant argument. The reason is because the huge £200,000,000 supercomputer the Met Office here in the UK uses to predict catastrophe in 2100, is also used to predict that we'll have BBQ summers and a warm, dry winter here in 2010. It is obvious even to the stupidest cretin that the models used make assumptions that are clearly wrong. Not even wrong, actually.

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Ah, I see my latter guess was correct. Thanks for confirming.

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that your ego would disintegrate if it ever connected with real climate science. Hence the vitriol -- it is an ego defence -- to make sure you never accidentally see your own reflection.

Re:2010 in top three warmest years

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot, kettle, etc.

reading between the lines

[martin-boundary]

Google Earth Engine will provide critical access to terabytes of data, a growing set of analytical tools and our high-performance processing capabilities.

Does GEE only provide *access* or does it also provide *the data and tools* for download/mail order?

Science is about repeatability. There is *zero* point in doing any kind of scientific calculations on data that is not public, and using specialized analysis software that can't be audited and rerun or re-analyzed years from now.

Re:reading between the lines

[blueg3]

The analytical methods are published. The code is often unpublished, but there's limited benefit to publishing the code for purposes of validating their findings -- you shouldn't reuse the same code, lest you include a systematic error. You should have new code that performs the same documented methods.

If your complaint is that it requires being a scientist in the field to have the knowledge necessary to reproduce a scientific result, then that's true.

Re:reading between the lines

[martin-boundary]

No, I'm simply saying that calling code (that's hosted on a cloud ) on a dataset (that's also hosted on the cloud) is meaningless scientifically, unless 1) the raw dataset is made available to anyone who wants to look at it (it needn't be free within limits) and 2) the code which is executed to run the analysis can be inspected likewise.

Without these two requirements, the analysis of data is merely a black box with untrusted inputs, and therefore untrusted outputs.

Your point that two independent scientists should be running two independent versions of the code is completely justified. However, with huge datasets and massively parallel computing jobs, the _practical_ danger is that both scientists will be running their codes on the same cloud, with the same underlying cloud API and without access to the raw data. In that case, even if their code is independent at the instruction level, it won't be independent because they'll both use the same API, and it won't be trusted because the raw dataset won't be available except through the intermediary of the API, and only as long as the company offering the data on its cloud is around or changes its policy.

That's why 1) and 2) are needed.

Google destroying jobs and govt revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

I know quite a few people that work in government agencies that are paid for doing this sort of work (greeness mapping, land cover classification, etc) for various developing nations. The other governments pay the US for these services. Now that Google will be doing this for free, they're probably out of a job and the installations where they work will see a drop in funding. Thanks a lot Google.

Very important to include the time dimension

[presidenteloco]

When visualizing global environment metrics, it is crucial to be able to see time-lapse imagery/maps.

For example, it would be very illuminating to see a time-lapse of forest cover globally over the last
1000 years. This would allow us to properly gauge human impact on forest eco-systems.

The older data would have to be created from approximations based on historical anecdote, the mid-twentieth
century data from paper maps in government offices, and the recent stuff from satellite imagery.

But putting it all together to see the trend over significant amounts of time is what would give use the
insight into what is happening and how we are trending.

this FP_ for GNAA

[Anonymous Coward]

buuts are exposed OpenBSD leader Theo problem; a few this exploitation, Year contract.

What if every megacorp was as awesome as Google

[musmax]

Consider a world in which every big corp invested as much energy and money into "shit that matters", like google does. Or not even that, in stead of fighting like rabid starved pigs for a slice of the cake, try to bake a bigger cake. I'm certainly a Google fanboi, and I think I have good reason to be.

Economic Darwinism is a good thing

[Fjandr]

Yes, thank you Google for reducing taxpayer burden by eliminating jobs that are no longer necessary due to technological advances and automation.

Nobody has a right to have their industry protected from modernization. Or should we be subsidizing wainwrights who were put out of business by the invention of that newfangled device the "horseless carriage?"

Re:Economic Darwinism is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no taxpayer burden as these services paid for the staff and equipment involved. They also have more application/sensor knowledge than anyone at google, so they can spot problems that would otherwise look ok to other people.. If this is anything like their map & google earth services, they will base their service on what agencies & their scientists have done before, slap a slick interface on it, and call it a day w/o much QA and follow-up ground work resulting in a mediocre product compared to what was previously produced for a fee. Unless Google is hiring these scientists & production techs, this isn't an advancement. But maybe you consider McDonald's an advancement for hamburgers too.

Re:Economic Darwinism is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are that superior, then their services will continue to be used. Unless, of course, you're implying that the climate scientists are so clueless that they have no idea how valid one set of data is over another.

Ecoleaks

[Anonymous Coward]

Should Google now also be banned?

Empty bellies don't care about deforestation

[piotru]

The best way of preventing deforestation is to make sure the local people can feed themselves, and they are rich enough to start caring for their forests themselves.
Anything else will feed corruption and poverty.