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New NASA Data Casts Doubt On Global Warming Models
bonch writes "Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere than is assumed in current models. 'There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,' said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama." Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.
This is just a plot by Bush Cheney & Big Oil to destroy the world!! Now hurry up with the organic hempseed paint so I can finish my sign protesting Nuclear power plants and solar power plants that despoil Nature's beauty and wind turbines that spoil the views of multimillionares in Nantucket!! We won't save the world until China produces everything because there's no pollution in China!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
We should follow wherever the data leads. That's science. Up till now, the data has suggested that global warming is very real.
I'm glad for these kind of alarmist views spurring people to save energy, think cleaner and take responsibility ("carbon footprint" lol).
...is a proponent of intelligent design and rejects evolution.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/roy-spencer-on-intelligent-design/
nuff said
Actually climatological modellers, the only people who can really speak authoritatively on the subject have been conflicted for a while. That's actually the best argument against global warming, but most deniers are so mindnumbingly stupid they miss that. Based on what I've read on the subject I am unconvinced of warming; but the risk is sufficiently high that the relatively low costs and side benefits of moving to alternative fuels and capping emissions is worth it.
...because we've increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over 37% in the last 100 years. That's a substantial amount, so if it has less of an impact, we're all better off. That said, this should not be used as an excused to maintain the unmaintainable status quo.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
I really wish the people at the Heartland Institute are right. I really do. I'd hate to witness major migrations because farming conditions dramatically change across the globe. But I also really, really wish they'd drop the sensational language (alarmist models, etc), because I'd able to actually take them seriously. Not to mention that I also would like to see them actually properly quote the papers they reference. For example, the abstract in this particular paper is actually far less strong than what the venerable James Taylor says.
Abstract:
"The sensitivity of the climate system to an imposed radiative imbalance remains
the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future anthropogenic climate change.
Here we present further evidence that this uncertainty from an observational perspective is
largely due to the masking of the radiative feedback signal by internal radiative forcing,
probably due to natural cloud variations. That these internal radiative forcings exist and
likely corrupt feedback diagnosis is demonstrated with lag regression analysis of satellite
and coupled climate model data, interpreted with a simple forcing-feedback model. While
the satellite-based metrics for the period 2000–2010 depart substantially in the direction of
lower climate sensitivity from those similarly computed from coupled climate models, we
find that, with traditional methods, it is not possible to accurately quantify this discrepancy
in terms of the feedbacks which determine climate sensitivity. It is concluded that
atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due
primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in
satellite radiative budget observations. "
James Taylor: "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism"
Go fuck yourself with a chainsaw, James Taylor.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'll wait for some peer review to decide whether this guy is on to something or whether his findings are nothing but hot air (pun intended).
A few notes about TFA:
1) The data comes from satellites put into space by NASA, but NASA is in no way involved in this study.
2) If this study actually significantly contradicts our knowledge of global heating, why has it been published in Remote Sensing, and not a more reputable journal?
3) They only interviewed the guy from the University of Alabama who lead the study
4) The author works for The Heartland Institute
5) They seem to have replaced the words "accurate" and "accepted by the scientific community" with "alarmist"
6) Source on UN's involvement? Seems like they threw that one in just to go for the "UN = bad" reaction that a lot of people have
If you have the capability of spewing 20tons of waste vs. 40tons of waste (for the same real product output), you should pick the 20ton option -- I believe all true engineers would.
Unfortunately capitalism is rarely ever aligned with "optimization" but rather "viral growth" instead (with the _hope_ that people become informed enough to actual change the growth pattern)... However, engineers also know that _hope_ is not a viable strategy so other options must be used.
Alarmist marklar!
Alarmist alarmist alarmist alarmist, marklar alarmist alarmist alarmist.
Marklar.
Dr Roy Spencer is a creationist. A proponent of intelligent design.
His work has been largely criticized in the peer review literature.
What's the deal with repeating the word "alarmist"?
Was the site hacked or something?
TFA author: "James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News."
The Heart Land Institute (http://www.heartland.org/about/) mission:
"Heartland's mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies." ...not to mention using "alarmist" thirteen times in the article
FTA:
James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
Re. Heartland:
About us:
Heartland's mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Such solutions include parental choice in education, choice and personal responsibility in health care, market-based approaches to environmental protection, privatization of public services, and deregulation in areas where property rights and markets do a better job than government bureaucracies.
In other words, Heartland is a mouthpiece for the Tea Party.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
The guy who wrote this article is a little biased. The original paper is available online for those who want to see what it really has to say.
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf
I haven't looked at the study, which while in a journal about remote sending not climatology that requires the paper's authors to pay for publication does sound reasonable enough from the blurb.
But the continued labelling of what is the mainsteam of climatology as "alarmist" seriously detracts from that article.
It's the sort of argument a 5 year old makes, which doesn't make the actual claims incorrect just much more difficult to see...
Or at least to a different article. The constant use of the word "alarmist" is a bit offputting (in the same way as is the word "denialist").
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute" Oh. Yeah, I figured something like that was coming.
I've given up on Slashdot's comment scores.
Dr. Lindzen of MIT showed through his research of thirty years that carbon dioxide does not retain heat. That report was published two years ago. The idea that carbon dioxide is evil is published and promoted only by those who stand to gain from such lies. Breath the free air, people.
It felt like the word "alarmist" was being pounded into my skull.
How does the new data compare to non-alarmist computer models?
Bah!
we made a brighter future for our children. That alone should be reason enough to fight for renewable energy sources and a world without nuclear reactors.
I mean, c'mon.
As has been beaten to death in other quarters, the real climate is a system of interlocking relationships that is still too complicated for us to get our tiny minds around. We seem to be very good at simplistic bombast and concepts that at their root devolve to 'how can I use this issue to make money...'. Yes, we need to be aware that climate is changing, whether we did it or some other factors came into play. No matter how much we rant and rave the glaciers keep on melting, the sea keeps rising, some areas dry out to the point that they no longer support society as we like to know it. Not burning coal and oil is good because there is a limited supply and we need it for chemical feedstocks. Air pollution is bad, not so much because we are cruding up the planet (although that is happening) but because we breath it... and so forth. And any time some loon gets the idea that we could 'fix' it all by building a gigantic parasol in space or seeding the oceans with megatons of iron, I want to hide at least untill the shakes ease off. There are things that we may glimpse about the world around us, but because we glimpse these relationships does not mean we have God-like powers over them. I, for one, will maintain a state of humble wonder at the world around us.
"The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere is approximately 391 ppm (parts per million) by volume as of 2011.." https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere So does that mean that CO2 is .03% of our atmosphere (That is clost to 4 one-hundredths of one percent.)? While I agree that we should not be dumping crap into the atmosphere I still don't see how "doubling" this particular gas over the medium o long term should have any real noticeable effect on our climate.
This isn't news; the satellite data frequently fail to show the warming trends observed at surface locations. Then someone just recalibrates the satellite data, and everything matches up just fine.
Look more noise from Dr. Roy Spencer intelligent design proponent global warming denier. I would feel guilty if I was using this person's history on the subject and ignore the science but it looks again like he's ignoring the science to push an agenda. Who gave us this wonderful article? Why our own timothy, Slashdot's barely literate "editor". We need to buy him more paste to eat so he'll stop posting this bullshit.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Big surprise, computer models that can't predict the weather accurately 2 weeks into the future fail to accurately predict global temperatures years out.
Can we just forget about this global warming nonsense and focus on better managing all of the pollution we create? If we can figure out how to produce all the material goods that make life comfortable without also producing vast tailing ponds of filth and huge clouds of toxic smoke the world will be a better place.
Life is not binary (either on or off, either 1 or 0, or "You're with us or against us) It is shades of grey. People in the know and have some kind of personal gain involved in this (A.G.) have ram rodded this concept down the collective's throat. Not far off from religious fananticism either if you think about it.
Anyone who is inclined to give a lot of weight to this "alarmist" press release should first read this, on a previous paper from Roy Spencer. Note this
what he gets through peer-review is far less threatening to the mainstream picture of anthropogenic global warming than you’d think from the spin he puts on it in press releases, presentations and the blogosphere.
Now, also read the paper, and note this
It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations.
Hmm, doesn't sound like the press release or the Forbes article much, does it ?
Use the above and your judgement to figure out just how much weight to give the above.
Let's be sure to point this out to our less factually inclined friends.
Is there anything whatever here to indicate that CO2 sensitivity is outside the (wide) range that climate scientists have been working with?
Oh, and research the Heartland Institute before deciding whether their interpretation of the paper is the most reliable one. It's also interesting to read about Roy Spencer.
This requires very careful analysis. The timing is dubious. The finding is dubious. And a lot of money and power is riding on finding something like this.
However if it pans out (which I doubt) it would be good news.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The Heartland Institute? Slashdot is now publishing articles from the libertarian Heartland Institute? Or, this just a leak in from your sister website: SlashFox.com?
Is that why 1/3, that's (one third) of the ice down yonder Antarctica way is gone in just 50 years? Does that mean we can increase the carbon footprint and just go on as if nothing's wrong? Thankfully Exxon is on top of it. Thanks for that disinformation, sounds great!
How dare he criticize the world's up and coming new religion? Burn the heretic at the stake!
but you wouldn't want the facts to get in the way now, would you?
The original article has nothing in it to match the claims from that "Dr." from Alabama.
Alabama: thats the state where any change is not possible, the world was created in a static state for us to rape via God, right?
>Forbes
>Heartland institute
I thought according to the Tea Party and the Republicans that NASA was a waste of money and that whatever sats we launch are because it's part of the Government's evil plan to take away of all our rights... ... except when it's not.
I'm going to take the Heartland Institute, TeaTards, Right Wing Pundits of all stripes, together in the name of fairness with Greenpeace (because they haven't been relevant since France stopped nuke testing), and the "Living on Earth" staff from PRI (because they really make me cringe with their unscientific bunk, bad interviews, and fad hopping), tie them together to an old anchor, and push them off the Verrazano bridge. I'll make sure to do an Environmental Impact Statement, first, just to keep things on the up-and-up.
A pox on many houses.
--
BMO
Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.
So why did you post the inflammatory summary, you useless shitbag posing as an editor? Did the creationists promise you hookers and blow?
Of course 37% is a big increase and CO2 and climate may be sensitive to small amount of CO2 but, CO2 is still less than 0.1% by vol (more like 0.04%) so who is being alarmist the big 37% increase or the small 0.04% by vol.
It is just how the numbers are presented and to who but that are political arguments and not scientific ones .... so never mind ... who cares when stuff matters.
It must be the heat from the armies of the Dark Lord Sauron building their underground weapons factories.
Pay no attention to the droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and scorching summers the agency that couldn't plan a new heavy lift rocket program says everything is hinky dinky.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Certain denialist-friendly scientists from Alabama (Christie & Spencer) put out results which appeared to "deny" the mainstream results, claiming that the mismatch indicated that the ground measurements were contaminated by "heat islands".
The scientifically honest community found the problem, it was an error in processing the satellite calibration (orbital parameters), once corrected, the satellite data matched the ground data (which was not especially contaminated, this effect is well known and calibrated by normal scientists).
The same 3 or 4 denialist friendly scientists get more press than the thousands of anonymous and honest scientists whose results in aggregate fully support the fact of significant increase in greenhouse warming from human modification of the atmosphere.
Told ya so! hahahahahahahaha
It is strange that neo-cons are desperate to kill R&D on this, when in reality, most of the climatologist would love to DISPROVE GW. The reason is that they would be a HUGE name .
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I have been saying for years that global warming hysterics are a fraud, and the leftist political cabal that aligned with them. No surprises here. I am owed for hundreds of down mods.
an ill wind that blows no good
Up till now, the data has suggested that global warming is very real.
Data can show anything you want, based on what you want to "prove". This is called Confirmation Bias ("a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true").
It's sorta like the parable about the blind men and the elephant:
More important than interpretation of the data we do have is finding ways to make data out of information that is currently unavailable. To my knowledge, there are currently no efforts being made to measure the cyclical nature of underwater volcanic activity.
How do changes in a subsurface volcanic activity influence temperatures on the surface of the ocean? The El Niño/La Niña temperature swing is currently unexplained ("Mechanisms that cause the oscillation remain under study")... Perhaps it's the volcanoes, but those are hard to measure.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Because global warming is still caused by the SUN!
After reviewing my Global Warming Model I can now predict that NASAs Global Warming Model did show other Global Warming Models inaccuracy is possible.
This might be a new world record for most use of the term "alarmist computer models" in one article.
Evolution is the basis for all modern medical and biological science.
For some "scientist" to claim that Intelligent Design is a science (hint: it cannot be falsified so it is not) does call into question all their other "scientific" claims.
And before anyone goes into "religious beliefs" ... that's irrelevant. Even the Pope and the Catholic Church have accepted the evidence of evolution.
1) The data comes from satellites put into space by NASA, but NASA is in no way involved in this study.
Next you'll tell me that Google isn't a porn company.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
Repeat after me: "Correlation is not Causation"
A lot of thing have increased since 1900. We could pick any one of them and say that it caused global warming.
I'm guessing it ended up on slashdot because climate change deniers, like evolution deniers, throw a royal tantrum when they're "suppressed." Better to put their dribble up for public commentary, where it will take the beating it deserves.
riiight its not a lie its worse
Look closely Slashdot readers - the author of that FORBES article: "James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute. All you have to do is wiki 'The Heartland Institute.' and you'll see what a sham of an organization they are! By no means should this posting on /. give any credence to the debate!
In fact if this kind of posting continues, I'll have to conclude that our beloved /. has been overrun by the well-heeled unqualified purveyors of snake oil typically heard on conservative talk radio.
Now we don't want that to happen....RIGHT?
Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
We should use the term "climate change" instead of "global warming". And I know for fact climate change is REAL by just comparing this year's weather with what was 5 years ago. For example, it never rained in July for San Jose CA for what I could remember, yet we had rain this summer. Also look at all the dramatic weather happening around the world. We absolutely need to do something NOW, otherwise our future is Soyland Green, which is not going to be far away.
This story is showing up everywhere. Lots of positive comments. How long till I'm buried. I give 10 min's.
Given Newton's involvement in alchemy, I'm pretty sure if he were born in the late 20th century he'd be calling up J.Z. Knight and asking her to channel the ancient Atlantean warrior Ramtha to get his advice on things.
Seriously.
Newton was a fine mathematician, a fine physicist, and a grade-A first-class believer in all the woo-woo the 17th century had to offer him.
I have been told repeatedly by "skeptics" that no Climatologist would ever publish a study that does not exaggerate the consequences of Global Climate Change because they would lose their lucrative government research grant money.
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
Made me laugh. Pielke is the guy who argues - essentially - that since the neighborhood is burning and that is a larger problem, you shouldn't do anything about the fact that your house is on fire. http://motherjones.com/environment/2008/10/qa-roger-pielke-sr
Very useful guy if you're making a fortune generating greenhouse gases...you can use him to argue that you should be left alone until such time as slash-and-burn agriculture is outlawed.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The paper doesn't do anything close to what the summary suggests, nor what either story suggests. The submitter is basically trolling it up.
The paper is available for all to read here: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf
Basically, they are talking about lack of model sensitivity for non-radiative feedback, which is something that was already known. The models on a MONTHLY basis don't go high enough on the maximums and don't go low enough on the minimums (and there is a lag). Or in other words, the models get the general predictions right (warmer temperatures) but don't capture shorter term variability as well (heat waves, cold snaps).
Of course, it's already well known that climate models don't capture short term variability very well. However, this paper helps quantify that and provides some insights on how to better improve that aspect of modeling.
Or if you don't want to read the whole paper just skip to the conclusions sections, which mention nothing about invalidating global warming or the science thereof.
How that gets translated into "New Study Trashes Global Warming" is beyond me.
~X~
And I did not say that it did.
Gregor Mendel was a monk in a monastery.
I wouldn't say "reduces".
If a scientist cannot tell that an unfalsifiable claim is not science then he is not to be trusted with any other "scientific claims" he makes.
I'm saying that both should be done.
His "science" should be dismissed because he's demonstrated that he either does not understand it or is willing to sell his "professional" claims.
And there is nothing wrong with any data being reviewed by any scientist at any time.
The problem with dealing with fake science is that it is useless. The practitioners keep "moving the goal posts" and will mis-quote anyone who critiques their work.
The Intelligent Design "debate" is a great example of that.
I thought I'd look into this journal to see its impact factor and other metrics that would let me know if it is a reputable source. It is not indexed by ISI/Web of Science, so it has no published impact factor. Google scholar only picks up a few articles from this journal, most of which have been cited 0 or 1 time only. While this doesn't automatically negate the authors' findings, it says to me that no reputable journal wanted to publish it.
You're all irrational. Try being scientists instead of mush-brained partisans. All of you.
Are racists qualified? All those transistors, maybe there is something wrong with them. Creationism was once even more dominant than racism. Creationism has had more staying power. I don't see any real difference here. I don't know how old Spencer is; but I'm willing to bet he's over 60. You'll probably have a harder time finding creationists in the scientific community as you slide down the age scale.
As any geologist will tell you, the earth has gone though heat and cold cycles for MILLIONS of years. Europe used to be a jungle. Half of the United States used to be covered in ice. There have been hundreds of mass extinctions. Does global warming exist? Yes, of course it does. Global warming is a natural phenomena. Is global warming a problem? No. Not if you can adapt. (and I'm pretty sure us big brained humans can) I for one welcome the "new" warmer climate. I hope my ancestors get to ride giant lizards through great underground cities.
cat
Stephen Jay Gould had a Ph.D. student who disbelieved evolution. Gould was once asked how he could be the doctoral advisor to a biology Ph.D. candidate who didn't believe in evolution. Gould answered that science didn't demand anyone have a particular set of beliefs, only that practitioners understand and can rationally discuss theories — both the prevailing ones and minority ones. So long as this Ph.D. candidate could intelligently discuss evolution, that was all Gould had any right to expect.
I hold Dr. Gould in the utmost respect. I don't hold much respect for people who believe that scientists must always hold the One True Set of beliefs or else they're not scientists at all. Good grief: if we thought like you we wouldn't have Newton or Linus Pauling.
For God's sake, Kary Mullis -- inventor of polymerase DNA replication, recipient of a Nobel Prize, and a world-class biochemist -- is an HIV/AIDS denialist: he openly advocates that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS. So, sure: let's throw PCR replication out the window and all the medical advances that go along with it. Who should believe a biochemist who doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS?
So, sure. Let's discount all the scientists who have wacky ideas. By the time we're done, humanity's progress will be completely stunted, we'll be forever locked into our current level of technology, and we'll never reach the stars. That's the future you're hawking, and I want nothing of it.
If Dr. Spencer is wrong, well, hell, that'd be reason to disregard his opinions. But so far your only argument against him is, "he holds thoroughly silly opinions in another field," which is absolutely true and puts him in excellent company among scientists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley /. complaint) that did not understand his statements.
If so, the problem with that comparison is that Shockley seems to have been mis-represented by the media (another common
Or maybe he really was a racist who wanted to find a biological reason for "inferiority" but never seemed to be able to.
The graph you referred to has been debunked.
There is no greater sign that AGW has passed utterly into the realm of religion than people like you that are willing to believe in it with only trumped-up data and no scientific basis remaining for just HOW we are supposed to be altering natural climatic change from the baseline changes already underway.
So keep on believing that the giant Spaghetti Monster of AGW has his noodly appendages in the cloud retaining the heats. Those of us who ALWAYS demanded to have the science behind this throughly vetted will just shake our heads and pass on by.
As the very least can you admit we don't need to bas as concerned about C02 emissions of everything?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm guessing it ended up on slashdot because climate change deniers, like evolution deniers, throw a royal tantrum when they're "suppressed."
Because it's totally OK to shut up people who have a different religion than you do.
I'm sorry if we don't believe in your mythical God Of Warming, but you have no right to make the rest of us change because your silly god demands human sacrifice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What is this junk doing on Slashdot? Did anyone look at the source of this "information" before posting it? The Heartland Institute? Really?
Here's more: Climate Change Debunked? Not So Fast
Slashdot editors, please try to remember that a single paper normally doesn't overturn scientific understanding, and try to avoid habitual hype sources. Thanks.
mt
Maybe the models didn't took into account the influence of China's coal power plants. But if they ever fix the enviromental impact of those plants, global warming could start to be closer to the models.
Or to put it another way ... how many scientists would the tobacco industry have to hire before you would start to believe that cigarette smoke was not a carcinogen?
Would you have to refute every single one of their "studies"?
And then have to refute the next "study" as well?
When someone is paid to find certain "findings" in a "scientific" fashion ... the onus is on THAT person to demonstrate that they adhered to established "best practices" and rigid scientific methodology.
Seriously. Otherwise all you end up with is one set of paid "scientists" generating "studies" that other scientists have to take the time and effort to refute.
Or you could read the IPCC where an MIT Professor who wrote a chapter or two of said report states that our models for carbon as the cause of warming are probably inaccurate, and that water vapor may be playing a bigger role.
This article really doesn't say anything new that isn't already understood by people who actually read the reports, our models are wrong, but not by much; perhaps too much to justify carbon taxes the way the models are being used, but they are correct enough to know we need to switch to renewables.
You seem to think that it matters to science what beliefs a person holds when presenting experimental data or writing a scientific paper. Well it doesn't. It could be Bugs Bunny or Santa Claus doing it for all it matters to science, as long as appropriate data is being provided. Belief or disbelief in something is not required.
What's important is that the data is public and the work is reproduceable, and the same applies to any analysis presented in a paper. Other teams can then repeat the work and either find agreement or disagreement with the numbers.
The only crime in science is falsifying data, and that is not happening here, unless you have evidence to the contrary.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
It's not JUST the Cardon Dioxide, it's the sheer amount of energy we're turning straight into heat. Think about how much heat a car puts out in an hour, now think about how many cars there are driving around everyday. NOW think about how we heat our homes in the winter and how many homes there are.
We're not just polluting our planet, we're directly AND indirectly heating it.
We'll see your climate model and raise you one. And while both sides are busy bluffing, maybe an actual useful model can be developed. In the mean time, its all a stalling tactic.
This is a serious issue about which we really haven't got much of a clue. There are those who don't want anything done. There are those who have invested in various investment scams and are waiting for them to begin paying off. And there are those who would like to get something locked down in law and treaty that we'll be stuck with for generations after we realize it was all based on bad, or poorly informed science.
The economic consequences of whatever we do will be major. So the last thing we need is to make irreversible laws based on incomplete science. On the other hand, we can take steps to evaluate some of the possible fixes now, keeping in mind that the work done might have to be thrown out if refined models suggest that we really need to regulate something else.
Have gnu, will travel.
This link and synopsis comes from a completely discredited, oil company backed, leader of the skeptics. It's precicesly because he misinterprets data, and builds his hypothesis on ignorant conjecture, that he is thoroughly debunked. Please update this story to a real science publication, rather than Forbes, that has input from the actual NOAA and NASA scientists involved.
http://www.livescience.com/15293-climate-change-cloud-cover.html
Please, Slashdot, do not fall into this hole again.
I'll wait for Al Gore to chime in. Afterall, he invented the internets. He must be right!
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
How many times can you use "alarmist" in one article?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
too damned funny!
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Higher temperatures cause increased atmospheric CO2.
Higher CO2 concentrations lead to higher temperatures.
These two statements do not contradict each other. It's a self-reinforcing feedback system.
Neither of you pussies knows anything about getting into an online flame war.
WTF is wrong with /. lately. Apologies during a political discussion for fucksake! I call sockpuppet! Which is which.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm not going to throw aside 100% of Nobel Science Prize winners in agreement that global warming is a major threat because industry might have arranged to have some prof. in University of Alabama Huntsville went along with a rushed, less than throughout peer review process in an industry satellite hardware journal.
Thank you.
The oil companies will do anything to change their bad perception on peoples minds. $$$
A few notes about TFA: .....
2) If this study actually significantly contradicts our knowledge of global heating, why has it been published in Remote Sensing, and not a more reputable journal?
Tell me what do you think the phrase "Remote Sensing" refers to?
I'm guessing that you are confusing it with "Remote Viewing."
Given Roy Spencer's history in this debate, there will be scathing rebuttal to this paper that points out elementary mistakes that Spencer never bothers to correct.
This is *exactly* how to spread doubt on the issue.
I too hope that the climate scientists are wrong, but Spencer has little credibility. Be that as it may, his arguments will be analysed, because real scientists examine and assess all arguments -- unlike denialists, who just talk.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Better to put their dribble
it's "drivel". just a friendly fyi.
is that NASA still exists. I thought the U.S. Government was on a crusade to cut all useful programs?
If you look critically [wordpress.com], you'll find that CO2 increases trail temperature increases.
The temp-leads-co2 canard has been answered decades ago. It is not surprising that denialists keep bringing it up, because they never bother to learn what they are talking about.
You can learn why the graphs are the way they are here.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
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You are correct, there is only a tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. What is important is how much that CO2 warms the atmosphere. This is the sensitivity question, which is much discussed in literature.
Not every gas or molecule is the same. For example, you can inject teaspoon of water into your blood just fine, but a tiny fraction of that of most neuro-toxins will kill you.
You can learn more about it here.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"You know Roy Spencer, don’t you? He’s an unabashed creationist and a fellow at the Heartland Institute, which is funded by ExxonMobil to promote 'free market ideas.' He’s 'The Official Climatologist of the Rush Limbaugh Show' and he says he gets his views on science from the bible. And every few years, he issues a fatwa another paper or book 'debunking' the myth of global warming.
Then, inevitably, three things happen: 1) there’s a huge celebration in Wingnuttia; 2) actual scientists examine said study; — and then, 3) they promptly smack down Spencer..."
http://firedoglake.com/2011/07/28/professional-climate-change-denialist-issues-climate-change-denying-study-wingnuts-rejoice/
(Almost) every time someone complains about articles posted on Slashdot having some form of suspected unimportance to the community here or 'uninformedness' in general, I find that it's useful to read the article and subsequent comments and ideological warfare in order to prepare for when those real-life ideological zealots present their arguments in this kind of upon-a-pedestal fashion: be informed against the deluge!
Leela: "Is all the work done by children?" Alien: "No, not the whipping."
Dr. Roy Spencer is a professional Denialist, who has been putting out junk "science" like this for years now: /. ? An expose of last year's headlines from snopes.com?
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/roy_spencer/
What's next for
This is simply not true.
It is obvious
Did Roy Spencer get no funding? Christie? Soon and Baloonis?
It is easier to get funding if you are against the consensus on climate change, because institutions like the heartland institute will throw money at the most remotely implausible weak arguments of the aforementioned published authors.
If there was a grain of truth in what these guys said, then they would be rock stars in the scientific community. But science relies on cogent arguments, and not political sides.
What you said is self-evidently not true.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I don't trust either side on the science
There is only one side to the science. The other side talk and don't listen. They are not scientists, except for a handful such as Roy Spencer. You can count them on one hand, and they publish peer reviewed work, and what they publish really has nothing to do with the spin that is put on it.
You can read about it in this book if you are really interested.
As for the paranoid/cynical content of your post -- go take some political studies courses at university. It is fascinating stuff, and the world is far more interesting then we could ever fantasize about. Nothing is what it seems in politics, but at a certain level, everything is as it seems. Politics is really complex and very interesting.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
All the article says is that the future most likely will not be as bad as the predictions based on current models. It does not say anything about invalidity of global warming, which is a fact based not on predictions but observations of a global average temperature, which is rising
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
Wait -- our leaders are taking the problem of global warming seriously and are tackling solving the problem?
Could have fooled me. I thought they were ignoring global warming and arguing about an arbitrary self-imposed debt limit in an attempt to gain political points while not actually addressing the root issue in any meaningful way.
After writing State of Fear, one of the last books before he died, Michael Crichton was heavily criticized and mocked for his views against global warming and the alarmism associated with it..but he held his ground until the day he died. Wouldn't it be interesting if he was right all along...
when the press release would have done quite nicely.
That is the problem with climate "journalism", the truth is not enough, it has to be tweaked by an agenda, just a little. Then the next "Journalist" picks up the story, and tweaks it a little more. In the end it's picked up by a Murdoch paper in an illegal phone tab, and once it hits Fox news, it's a whole new story.
No one bothers to go back and check the sources any more.
It is sad that truth have to take a back seat to sensationalism. If the truth is even allowed in at all.
The press release boils down to an analysis that the atmosphere is more efficient at shucking off heat than current models account for. Conclusion: ramp up the output. We can bust this sucker yet!
It seems he's a member of the Heartland Institute, founded and funded by Exxon Mobile. http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=19
This is awful. The Forbes article, and the University of Alabama press release, say exactly the opposite of what the scientific article in Remote Sensing is claiming. From the Remote Sensing article's abstract:
To summarize: the satellite observations of climate sensitivity disagree with the models because the observations include extra factors which throw off the analysis. This implies that the satellite observations should be doubted.
But the summaries linked here say that the mismatch implies that the *models* should be doubted -- just the opposite!
The denialist culture is strong especially in America, and it's support here on Slashdot is impressive because I imagine that the geek culture would actually actively discourage this denialist behavior, but I've read studies that suggest that denialism is not a choice.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
NASA or the Syfy channel?
So, a dude who is affiliated with Exxon-front-group the Heartland Institute, believes in Intelligent Design, and has made a nice cushy career out of this kind of "skepticism" makes front page news at slashdot, while the hundreds of studies published each month which state the contrary, and are published in reputable journals, by reputable scientists (not funded or affiliated with oil companies), never make slashdot's front page. Things that make you say, "hmm"?
The CO2-is-blocking-heat mantra has been repeated so often that almost no one even questions the underlying physics...which don't support CO2 gas as 'greenhouse glass' but more like 'greenhouse fine-weave window screen.' Now finally comes some actual data which, not surprisingly, supports the basic physics and shows that CO2 has nowhere near the ability to block heat that the AGW proponents would give it.
The global warming alarmists are out in full force, posting anonymously, of course. They can't actually refute the data in the study, so their goal now is to cast vague doubts like, "It comes from NASA data, but NASA wasn't involved in the study, so therefore the study is invalid!" They absolutely can't let go of their religious belief in the evils of man's existence on the planet, even though there has been no rise in the global temperature record since 1998.
So where's the beating? I haven't yet seen a refutation of the data in the study. Just a bunch of lame terminology like "climate change deniers."
There are tons of flaws in today's global warming models, which is obvious if you actually read the reports. Several scientists even admit they are inaccurate. Unfortunately, tons of urban hippies have hijacked the movement and turned it into the same old religious belief that seems to be ingrained in human beings--a pristine Eden (nature) that was corrupted by sin (technology) which must be purged 'lest we face a Judgement Day (global warming and all the kooky things it's claimed to cause by outspoken liberals, from poverty to racism to wars). If it's not Christianity, it's environmentalism.
Roy Spencer is not a legitimate climate scientist. He is not following scientific methodology.
Your statement to the contrary undermines your credibility far more than it enhances his.
It doesn't matter. We will have a massive human die off way before global warming can do any real damage. Unless. Unless we start, NOW, to build and build and build. Build what? Thousands of nuclear power plants. Thousands of solar plants. Thousands of wind and tide plants. Any of it. More importantly, ALL of it. Fossil fuels are a death trap, not because of global warming, but because they are only going to get more expensive year after year. Right now they are still cheap enough that we can afford to build all the replacement infrastructure, if we don't do anything stupid like tax fossil fuels. If we wait, we won't be able to afford building the replacements. We will be struggling just to survive, and then it'll get worse... Help yourself to another cheeseburger while you think about it.
BTW for the free market priesthood: this is a perfect example of how blind adherence to the free market religion can lead you into a catastrophe.
Social Credit would solve everything...
The global warming movement has been based on models making predictions far into the future. It is about time some people look at the assumptions and try to falsify them.
I predict more whining than a stuck pig.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Why refer to some right wing kook to get reaction about a new climate study? James R. Taylor has no credibility and this story is bunk. Forbes is sketchy as well (I invite you to choose a story at random from Forbes.com and fact check it, and get back to me with what you find.) How did this get in here?
What do you think the logic of those models is based on?
Laws, theories, hypothesis, assumptions and/or guesswork. Equations developed to fit historical data are generally at the assumptions/guesswork end of the list and not the laws/theories end of the list. Also Statistics 101 teaches that when an equation is developed to fit data, say a linear regression, one can not make predictions beyond the range of inputs used for the regression. And of course the equations are only as good as the correctness and completeness of the data, and when interpreted correctly. Others posters have been referring to GIGO (garbage in garbage out), there is a reason this has been a well known acronym in the scientific community for decades.
The article in Forbes is written by a fellow for the Heartland Institute, one of the numerous front organizations for the coal and oil industries alongside other such groups as "CO2 is Green". The study is not peer reviewed, it has been published *for* peer review, there is a dramatic difference between the two. Beyond that, you have the issue that the study argues 180 degrees opposite to the articles claims. In short, the article is complete bunk, written by a fraud with an attempt to reinforce the positions of those who wish to kill scientific progress and research.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Some of the responses here are memorable.
For example, we learn:
A person can't be trusted if they appear to be wrong about other stuff ("I ain't using IPv6, one of its early contributors thinks Ewoks are awesome.")
Newton was some kind of religious social butterfly that would believe anything popular in his day ("If Yoda was alive today he would have realized that hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for blasters.")
Warming up is worse than cooling down ("This situation has become much more complicated")
Hurricanes, disease, floods, famine, and drought are on the rise (never mind that fewer people die from these events than before)
Evolution, and not the search for truth and knowledge, is the foundation of all science ("physics, computer science, and engineering need not apply for NSF grants")
It is obvious that warming is man-made, because there are more of us humans polluting, and temperatures are going up. Can't you see the correlation? ("Trust me, the 387 coefficients in the atmospheric models can be simplified down to one semi-causal relationship.")
Data should only be put in the hands of the people who will use it to support my universal understanding. (says the book burner)
Even though I am not an expert, I read a Wiki page about stratospheric wicking, and I feel confident in saying that he is an idiot. (You can get the same affect from staying in a Holiday Inn last night)
Although the subject of AGW is still in dispute, and the level of change due to AGW is very much up for argument (is it 1 degree or 7 degrees rise in the next hundred years, for example), the globe should launch headfirst into forced, socialized change that will hurt every economy, retard the progress ofthe poorest nations, and basically take away many human freedoms. ("It's alright, trust me.")
Yeah, the guy could be full of it, but the responses here are laughable. Nerds are not supposed to have so much emotion; not supposed to be so quick to socially interact until we have every duck in a row; not supposed to be sure of themselves based on other people's data. Arrogance - a flaw more and more common among some Slash-Daughters.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
If you are really interested in the technical details and the academic debate, please visit his site and communicate directly with him instead of arguing here.
Check out the history of quantum physics, e.g., Planck's experiments. Single experiments and single papers describing them have overturned venerable scientific understandings and in fact entire theories.
Creationist are not qualified to be scientists. Dr Roy Spencer is a creationist.
So was Isaac Newton. Is he qualified to be a scientist? :-)
Confirmation Bias is when you do it by accident, when you do it on purpose we call it something else.
the disappearance of the glaciers.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Give it more than a few hours. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time. And yes, the author of this study is a well-known denialist who has, in the past, put out quite a bit of just plain wrong stuff. For example:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/review-of-spencers-great-global-warming-blunder/
So I would recommend a little bit of patience. Given past experience, my bet is that this study will be thoroughly taken apart by scientists who actually know what they are doing.
Yes, and the first thing I do when I see a study about something as controversial as global warming is to check on the author:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer
Strangely enough, all those scientists who doubts the global warming seem to have some connections with oil companies...
But even if you don't think rising temperatures are a concern, the acidification of the oceans should amply serve that destroying forests and burning massive amounts of previously sequestered fossil fuel is a bad thing. If you feel up to living to see a sixth mass extinction including many shellfish, we're all set.
http://www.ocean-acidification.net/FAQacidity.html
Genda is guilty of cherry picking him(her?)self. First we hear "A a single large volcanic eruption (like Mt. Pinatubo) can emit enough SO2 to completely skew the results for any specific decade." then the contradictory " That's why you need to look at long term trends over decades and centuries to see where the planet is heading." Well, guess what? We don't have all the temperature records we need from 5 million years ago, or even from 100,000 years ago, to know that the baseline is X so that we can see what the trend is in relation to X. Wouldn't the logical climate reference point, or control group, whatever - be an identical Earth with no humans on it? And at what point do we say, over 10 million years, this and this are trends, but that and the other are not? Who gets to decide what those are?
Let me guess... the deciders are only the advocates of "the sky is falling" who say we need another 500 million in federal grants to study the problem long-term, along with those who want private automobile ownership outlawed and heavy carbon taxes on those 'polluters' who dare emit carbon dioxide. Right?
BTW, Brown University presented results a few years back showing that the mean temperature FELL from 77 to 73 degrees Fahrenheit in the area they studied (off some subSaharan equatorial whatchamacallit region) based on studying chemicals in fossils in deep ocean core mud samples. Funny how that didn't get much media attention, ain't it...
That's me!
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Roy Spencer seems to be the source of hype, both both as a denier of climate change as well as a proponent of so called 'creation science'.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Roy-Spencers-Great-Blunder-Part-1.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-2.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-3.html
As another poster said a single paper doesn't overturn scientific understanding.
A true sceptic should treat Spencer's paper with at least as much scepticism as they hold for established science.
We should follow wherever the data leads.
This is what Science, as opposed to Snake Oil Marketing is all about.
Follow Popper and Kuhn, not the idiotic, Post Modernist, Deconstructionalist rubbish of Derrida and Foucalt.
Use Computer Models at your peril and understand Chaos/Game/Operations theory if you do.
The Warmists now have NOTHING. AGW is exposed at the biggest Scientific Hoax since Piltdown man!
What they think is sadly irrelevent - what they publicise depends not on what they think but what they are paid to do.
They are a PR group mostly infamous for lying about tobacco in the 1990s. IMHO they are nothing but confidence tricksters.
The real issue at hand here is that the earth's environment is changing into a less hospitable space for humans and we don't know for certain how to change that. There are many, many, many systems at work which are affecting the global climate and venting heat into space is only a small portion of one system.
The REASON we have too much heat is at the core issue. If the production and retention of CO2, Methane, Nitrous Oxide and other greenhouse gasses (GHG) is not curbed, it will not matter how much heat is lost or retained because the systems producing the GHGs are still in place.
TFA is focusing on the flame when the candle is the problem. Besides that, even without seeing any numbers, I would bet our GHG production has already exceeded the rate at which the heat it produces is lost to space. (were making more heat than what can be vented to space anyway)
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Don't need satellites to tell me that.
You can figure it all for yourself
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Can use 'evolution' interchangeably with 'climate change/global warming' in your post...
there is a University of Alabama
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
that many are pushing a solution that is NOT going to happen in the USA. It does not solve the issue which is that ALL major nations are major polluters. Until a different solution is put forward, then nothing will change.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But there isn't a scientific consensus.
There is agreement that _something_ is going on.
There is agreement that pollution is bad.
The problem with computer models is that they're just a model that someone made up. People make up good models and bad models.
I think the important thing is to realize that the global warming industry gets paid for alarmism.
(Sure the Oil & Gas industry gets "paid" to minimize it)
But there really is a HUGE conflict of interest.
If climate change scientists started saying "looks like it will be another few hundred years before the tipping point, if it ever happens", they will have to look for a new career.
But if you spout crap from flawed models saying "the end is nigh" you can get all sorts of publicity and money and prestige. Then, years later, when it becomes obvious the model was flawed, you just apologize and say "I guess we overestimated/underestimated something".
Also, anyone who was actually around the planet, and watched the shit melt more and more, every fuckin' year... watched the weather get more storms and more shit every fuckin' year... met people who, actually, *right now*, were affected by it and e.g. their businesses fell apart because of it... watched the types of animals who dominate the ocean change because the oceans got hotter... ...THE FUCK??
Whatever that is -- and I don't fuckin' care who made it, what it is, and how it happened -- we got to stop it, or we're fucked in the long run.
And I don't even care anymore, if I have to punch someone in the nose until he looks at actual reality out there, and sees the trend... obvious at hell.
P.S.: The problem is delusional people / religious nutjobs. Because they stopped observing reality around them to reach conclusions. Instead they went with the schizophrenic model, where you make shit up like you like it, and then try to explain the observed based on that shit.... mainly so you justify ignoring it. It's a mental illness. Stop "respecting" religion. Treat it!
A little shocked such an anti-alarmist piece made it into here. I started thinking when I read thisgreat! I hope this is new data that suggests we have nothing to fear. Then I read the word “alarmist” 14 times.
So, all the models that worked so far, and got most of the current mess right. And, all the geological confirmation amassed worldwide were wrong? Really? How curious! Maybe it's the volcanoes. They've been very quiet recently. Or else, the radiation if - or suolar flares - are futzing the data a bit? Sure!
I'm just glad that sometimes conflicting data is presented. There's no excuse for the way dissenting opinion is pilloried on slashdot sometimes. "Climate change deniers," Creationists and ID'ers are labeled and dismissed as anti-science no-minds, with a bigoted fervor that would make the Spanish Inquisition proud. But we're all people and we all have reasons for our ideas and opinions. Sometimes the data takes a turn we might not have guessed. For the record, I would put myself in all three of the aforementioned pariah camps. Denier, because I've lived long enough to disbelieve anything governments, scientists and news media unite to get their knickers in a knot about. It just has the odor of social manipulation towards an end goal. Someones attempt at psycho-history or sim-earth. Seen it before, figure there must be someone at the back of it raking in the dough from the hysteria. Creationist because someone who has experienced God as I have can't really be anything else -- even though the data I'm privy to is not acceptable to someone on the other side of the debate, I must accept it. ID'er because there's just so much ordered complexity obvious to those who have an open mind to see it. Also for the record, I applaud the effort and technology that conserves energy and protects the environment, for the reason that this world is given to us to steward well, not to rape.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
I see a lot of comments here on the person reporting the data and various conspiracy theories, but no actual analysis of the data. From that I deduce that the commenters are at least as biased as the reporter. With less data of course.
Making more and more sense, huh?
Why is this claptrap from a creationist, which is not published in a climatology journal but one about remote sensing technology, being treated like it was actual climate science?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The language in the piece is misleading. There is no transiencce there are no events. The cloud feedback is one of the tentative points, but otherwise the relation is solid. "What piece of the climate is due to warming"? It's a BS piece that can't compete with the consensus.
Remember for decades we thought the earth was cooling because remote sensing equipment did not incalculate the slow decent of the sattelite while in orbit. Space jockeys NASA are the arch enemies of climate action, they have known exactly how things are for much longer than we think..
I'm trained in specific technical fields. I am *not* trained as a climatologist, statistician, biologist, geologist, chemist, or oceanographer. Therefore I don't have the training to look objectively at the evidence.
In the absence of the ability to personally investigate all the data, the smart money is on the consensus. And this applies to every field, not just climate change.
"Requires" a global government? You sound like a LaRouchie.
What it actually requires is the major industrialized nations (most significantly the US, China and India, with others of secondary importance in this context) agreeing to put a lid on carbon emissions. It doesn't require a NEW WORLD ORDER or the Borg.
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
I suspect this post will be lost amidst the Saffirâ"Simpson in a teapot.
Another way to look at this debate is to imagine we had figured out that the fate of humanity hinged on raising average terrestrial surface temperature by two degrees over a century, starting at 1950. We fund a Manhattan project and determine that we need to burn 2 trillion barrels of oil to accomplish global salvation. Oil is extracted and funnelled into the clouds on a scale that even the wildest optimist could not have predicted. The fate of humanity now rests on the correctness of our atmospheric hypothesis: would our audacious and daring attempt to tip the earth's climate pan out and save the day?
Pessimists and worry warts gather anxious to example the recent global temperature record. This is small cause for optimism in the collapse of a few arctic ice shelves. But this doesn't really prove anything unless the glaciers themselves accelerate their melt cycle. Some believe this is happening, others are less sure.
Apart from the ice melt, there's hardly any cause for optimism. A tiny hopeful upward tick has been detected since the year 2000, more than halfway to the deadline. It's very sensitive to the analysis model. Hardly what you'd want to pin the survival of humanity upon.
Many doubters have called the whole program into question. A cadre of optimists have reassured the public with confidence bordering on stridency, "don't worry, that tiny tick is the certain beginning of a sustained upward trend".
Reverse the scenario, we'd about ready to lynch the people who suggested that burning 2 trillion barrels of oil was certain salvation.
The article was written by James M. Taylor. At the bottom of the article it says, "James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News."
From wikipedia:
The Heartland Institute is a libertarian[2][3][4] American public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois which advocates free market policies. The Institute is designated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and advised by a 15 member board of directors, which meets quarterly. As of 2008, it has a full-time staff of 30, including editors and senior fellows.[2] The Institute was founded in 1984 and conducts research and advocacy work on issues including government spending, taxation, healthcare, tobacco policy, global warming, information technology and free-market environmentalism.
The author of the article also writes for Environment and Climate News (which is part of the aforementioned Heartland Institute.) The E&CN also contains articles such as "Low Level Radiation Is Good For Human Health" and "God Wants You to Fight Global Warming "
Now the actual study in question is much less stark about it's conclusions.
Abstract: The sensitivity of the climate system to an imposed radiative imbalance remains the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future anthropogenic climate change. Here we present further evidence that this uncertainty from an observational perspective is largely due to the masking of the radiative feedback signal by internal radiative forcing, probably due to natural cloud variations. That these internal radiative forcings exist and likely corrupt feedback diagnosis is demonstrated with lag regression analysis of satellite and coupled climate model data, interpreted with a simple forcing-feedback model. While the satellite-based metrics for the period 2000–2010 depart substantially in the direction of lower climate sensitivity from those similarly computed from coupled climate models, we find that, with traditional methods, it is not possible to accurately quantify this discrepancy in terms of the feedbacks which determine climate sensitivity. It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations.
-- QED
A few notes about Copernicus:
1) His data comes from primitive instruments modeled on ancient ones—the quadrant, triquetrum, armillary sphere, so the church is in no way involved in this study.
2) If this study actually significantly contradicts our knowledge of Heliocentrism, why has it been published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, and not a more catholic journal?
3) They only interviewed the guy from Frombork who lead (sic) the study
4) The author works for Duke Albert of Königsberg, (who is a known Lutheran).
5) They seem to have replaced the words "epicycles, deferents and equants" and "accepted by the church community" with "heliocentric"
6) Source on church's involvement? Seems like they threw that one in just to go for the "church = bad" reaction that a lot of people have
(Still, he did screw up the ellipse thing, didn't he? Nevertheless, as they say, 'it moves.')
A) James Taylor wrote the article. He is a hard core anti global warming person who has made up and misrepresents information many times in his career. He pretty much write articles so Rush Limbaugh can quote a 'journalist' so as to not look like he is just making things up.
B) The scare and panic words used in the article, or any article' casts serious doubts on the validity of the article. (Blow a gaping hole', alarmist, and so on.
C) It's one data point, in one part of a complex model. It's doesn't blow a gap in the theory.
D) His interpretation is in no way supported by the paper.
So it's basically a worthless article. And that would apply regardless of the view of the article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why would the facts get in the way ? We're talking computer models here - they will say exactly what was programmed into them. Anyone who's worked at a university knows perfectly well. You program a model for some way-too-complex dataset. You can do it automatically these days. It's got hundreds or thousands of variables, you modify them until the outcome "seems reasonable".
Yes you test against past data, but anyone who knows the basics of statistics knows how past data and chaotic systems work : you can explain the past to any desired level of accuracy and still make the prediction say whatever you want it to say. The (statistical) proof of this is so obvious it's almost absurd to write it down, and boils down to this simple sentence : just take the past as a given, add any random future, there's your prediction function. Because the law of large numbers doesn't apply, this function can be trivially shown to be the best possible estimator of the system's behavior (but is obviously not unique, it is only the best estimator because every estimator has the same chance of success). Done/done.
But the most convincing argument is to simply check past predictions ... ... idem ... and turns out to be wrong (google "solar cycle 24").
IPCC AR1 : prediction failed. We're currently outside of their 95% interval (below it if you must know)
IPCC AR2 : prediction failed. We're currently outside of their 95% interval (idem)
IPCC AR3 : prediction failed
IPCC AR4 : prediction succeeded, as of August 2010. However we're at the very bottom of their 95% confidence interval and dropping.
IPCC AR5 : doesn't actually make a temperature prediction anymore about temperature. It does however make a prediction about solar output that seemed very safe at the time
Let's contrast that with this story. I know it's apples and oranges but still. The measurement data from LHC for the Higgs Boson was rejected for being inconclusive because the confidence was only 3 sigma, where 5 are required. For non statisticians 3 sigma means their confidence interval was "only" 99.73% (one mistake in 400).
So physicists reject a measurement because one out of every 400 experiments fails to produce the expected result ... and climate warning hinge on theories that failed to predict the outcome of 4 out of 5 experiments are flat out wrong and the 5th is so very close to failing that it's not even funny anymore, and moving in the wrong direction. I mean astrology has a better track record.
Let's please accept the obvious here : these are VERY different sciences indeed.
The entire global warming theory is based on the theoretical effect of CO2 on light/heat passing through the atmosphere. The paper in remote sensing says in a polite scientific way that the models (theory writ in code) are completely wrong compared to measured light/heat passing through the atmosphere. If the models were completely wrong over the last 10 years, then summing these wrong numbers over 100 years is going to be completely wrong X 10.
Carl Sagan's rules for detecting baloney.
Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
Quantify, wherever possible.
If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.
"Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.
Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?
Gee really? I mean the fact that we can go outside in the summer, we are not under water and the only reason oil prices are high is because of greed kind of tells me that a lot of people got a lot of thinks wrong. Hell, in the early 90's some wanted us all to believe we would all be dead. Nothing is ever accomplished using the Henny Penny method of FUD to try and change people. Truth is worth more in changing peoples minds.
There are tons of flaws in today's global warming models, which is obvious if you actually read the reports. Several scientists even admit they are inaccurate. Unfortunately, tons of urban hippies have hijacked the movement and turned it into the same old religious belief that seems to be ingrained in human being
I've not found the reports that I've read to be obviously flawed. "Several scientists" questioning something is also what scientists are supposed to do, and is not a sign that something is flawed. Several scientists, including some nobel prize winners, question the link between HIV and AIDS.
Hippies and environmental nutters are off topic at best. The number of idiots endorsing an idea says nothing about how good or bad that idea is. Whether global warming is or is not happening has nothing to do with how dogmatic their beliefs are, nor should distain for such people enter the question of whether we should do anything about it. It's kind of like how there are greedy bastards who are for smaller government and lower taxes. The fact that they're greedy and calling for cuts in government spending doesn't mean that cutting government spending is an inherently bad idea.
You're making a bogus argument. You know perfectly well renewable energy is not being used by the private sector for power generation, and your question only makes sense if that were the case. So the answers are very simple :
If "it takes more energy to produce and ship wind turbines than they will produce in the first 10 years"
That's the really bad part : the 10 year figure is based on theoretically optimal performance (wind blowing at exactly the optimal speed for 10 years). It also completely ignores maintenance : these things contain lots and lots of mechanically rotating parts that need to be oiled, checked and cleaned regularly. Because otherwise (in this case, the brakes failed)
, why would anyone install them?
Here's the first reason. In reality most (> 60%) wind power is not bought by choice. Solar power is even worse. See how effective politics can be ? Right now one of the arguments being raised in Germany for renewable power subsidies is that not providing these subsidies would crash the market.
And as for private turbines, the few that exist. First most power companies are government monopolies, and thus buy what the government tells them to, without regard for cost and/or efficiency, so there's really only very, very few of them. Why do people buy yachts ? Why do women buy 10 different facial creams with identical ingredients, each one more expensive than the next ? Why do men (try to) buy ferrari's ? To become popular.
Have you been watching the news and read a few magazines in the last 10 years ? "Green power" gets more commercials than Verizon. Mostly paid for by the government.
Additionally, by moving production to China, the real cost of producing these things is externalized, and moved to cheap China. China burns coal, dumping the waste in rivers, to end up in the Pacific ocean. Just to give you an idea : that waste is more radioactive than nuclear waste, and more toxic than sewage. And the miners are basically slaves.
Wind power is not actually cheap, even with the government subsidies applied, but having resources dug up by slave labor, burned in substandard equipment, the waste simply dumped into nature makes a Chinese 10-year energy supply for 5-10 homes just a little bit more expensive than regulated nuclear power in the states, isolated and secured, with the waste properly disposed of (again that's only a 10-year energy supply assuming theoretically optimal performance, disregarding maintenance, and once it becomes clear you get 20% performance at best, you understand why you will find most private wind generators abandoned).
It's a fake feel-good idea, with horrible consequences for invisible people, like most popular intellectual ideas. Like how Obama claims to "better the lives of people everywhere" while holding a blackberry, and surrounded by aides mostly carrying iphones, shouting about bettering the lives of the little guy, to deafening applause. Like how Al Gore, fresh out of his private jet, taking not one, but three limousines to a stage where he declares how "everybody needs to do their part to lower CO2 output" under lights powered by trucked in petroleum generators.
Why ? We all know why. Saying you're "green" is popular, and fantastic, extremely widely considered a good idea. Just like smoking filtered tobacco is considered a bad idea, and breathing in hand-rolled burning hemp leaves without filter, bringing actually burning fibers straight into your lungs is considered to do no harm, despite hundreds of studies claiming the opposite. Why ? You tell me why. It's popular. That excuses everything in our society.
Really, do you ever bother thinking before you post?
Yes. Do you ? Why do you think Google makes 2.5 billion per quarter for text-only commercials ? Bec
How about another headline: "8 Trillion Dollar Global Fossil Fuels Industry Cast Doubt on Global Warming Models." Disinterestedly, of course.
Go to Dr. Spencer's blog and search for "downward radiation" to find the amusing schism between Roy and his mouth-breathing acolytes.
If it was peer reviewed then what is the problem? Thank God it is not one of those Pal Reviewed stuff. Remember from Climategate all those other Journals you wish to be used have gatekeepers and they only accept Pal Reviewed papers for publication. Yes the Hockey Team
So where's the beating? I haven't yet seen a refutation of the data in the study. Just a bunch of lame terminology like "climate change deniers."
This guy did a pretty good job. (Follow his links, they are important).
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Happens all the time.
I'm a follow the facts and let the truth speak for itself.
So far the truth says, "Global climate change is real and it is caused by man."
I'm a critical analyst, having studied the climate and other global processes for over 20 years, and I am interested in only the truth because we owe this to our children. I am leaving them a website for understanding where they live and what is happening to nature, one that is entirely reliable. In it you will find my climate chapter that mops all science together in a way that most willing people can understand. So spend some of your energy here for a full understanding of Earth's atmosphere and climate. Then you can draw your own conclusions and tell others: http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate.htm
We have been on this path for over a decade, worrying about the Earth being destroyed by human activity just because some scientists were trying to get laid by models!?!
God Dammit!
You're just pissed that the scientists figured out how to get models before we dumb programmers did...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The /. summarry has this comment appended:
It is hard to see how the the summary is more "over the top" when it is a quote from the "less over the top" press release. In fact the quoted section seems to be quite middle of the road. People should read the Press Release itself.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/new-paper-on-the-misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedbacks-from-variations-in-earth%E2%80%99s-radiant-energy-balance-by-spencer-and-braswell-2011/
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Watch out for the ox blood!
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Because we only have a few hundred years of weather data.
I'm not a dendochronologist, paleoecolgoist, nor even a glaciologist, but I am certain we have more than a "few hundred years" worth of weather data. In fact, I would go so far as to say we have roughly 4.5B years worth of data...
I've been trying to keep up with all the studies related to global warming and climate change, and in the past couple of months, only this one has been on the optimistic side in any sense. I'm happy for any good news, but in context with other studies, this one only gives me a little hope that the warming might not happen quite as quickly as some predicted.
Another recent study that covered the same time period said the slowdown in warming was caused by pollution from Chinese coal plants. Just because we have had less warming over a short period doesn't mean that CO2 warms the atmosphere less than scientists thought. That conclusion ignores known factors like sulphur dioxide, which cools things down. The Chinese have just started to put scrubbers in their coal plants, and the rate of warming has recently gone up. Could be just a coincidence, but exactly the same thing happened when the U.S. implemented measures to fight acid rain. Global warming had stagnated for a couple of decades, and when we cleaned up our emissions, the warming increased again. It only slowed down when China built hundreds of dirty coal power plants. CO2 stays in the atmosphere way, way longer than sulphur dioxide, so whether we reduce emissions or make them cleaner, the world will get a lot warmer before it gets cooler.
I trust paleoclimatic studies more than models, because what happened in the past included all the factors, known and unknown, by default. Several recent, independent studies all say that the last time CO2 levels were approximately as high as they are now for an extended period, the temperature was several degrees hotter and sea level was several feet higher. I don't know of one that doesn't say this. Judging by what happened in the past, CO2 actually warms the planet much MORE than the factor used in the models. The reason is that the models don't include many of the longer-term positive feedbacks (even the known ones because they don't know how to quantify them). They also probably underestimate the cooling power of SO2. It may take many decades or even hundreds of years for the warming to catch up with CO2 levels, but eventually it will. And keep in mind that many of the effects from the little warming we have had so far have been much worse than predicted.
Before you jump to conclusions based on one study, take a look at the other studies that are coming out. If you do, you'll quickly see that the "alarmists" are alarmed for very good reason. Anyone who is not extremely worried right now does not have a good understanding of the science and has not been keeping up with the latest studies. The current picture looks much, much worse than the 2007 IPCC report. Everyone who cares about the future should learn more about climate science and keep up with the latest studies. And for God's sake don't go to denier sites like the Heartland Institute or Fox News or the Wall Street Journal opinion pages to get your information. They are full of biased junky pseudo-science. Really, I've looked at a bunch of it, and without exception it has been full of huge problems. Get your science from the real scientists, not the hacks.