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Atlas Takes Heat For Melting Glacier Claim
dtjohnson writes "The 'Times Atlas of the World' claims, while publicizing its newest edition, that global warming has turned 15 percent of Greenland's former ice-covered land 'green and ice-free.' Now, however, scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute say those figures, based on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are wrong. 'Recent satellite images of Greenland make it clear that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands,' they say in a letter that has been sent to the Times. Others have pointed out that if 15 percent of Greenland ice cover had been lost, then sea levels would have risen by 1 meter... which has not happened. Perhaps yet another climate controversy is brewing."
An update to the Sciencemag.com story pinpoints the probable source of the error: a 2001 map from the NSIDC illustrates Greenland's central ice sheet without showing any of the peripheral glaciers. The Atlas editors may have seen this map and misinterpreted it. Says the article, "Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."
What started out as a well-supported observation that the earth was starting to slowly warm, followed by the suggestion that humans pumping tons of excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere may be at least partly to blame, has turned into a goddamned politicized mess. On one side you have grant-whores and alarmists, who have taken this reasonable observation and hyped it more-and-more over the last fifteen years into some increasingly alarmist Chicken Little hyperbole. On the other side you have a bunch of bible-thumping right-wing corporatists who think that if we just let mega-corporations do whatever the fuck they want (including pumping whatever shit into the air they feel like), then we would all live in some libertarian utopia.
Frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit from both sides. I've got a grant-whore "environmental scientist" (when did that even become a hard science?) screaming in one ear that we're all going to die if we don't go all-solar/all-wind in the next twenty years. In the other ear, I've got Jesusy McAnnRaynd telling me that Exxon only wants to give me love and flowers, and would never, ever hurt me. And frankly, I just want to punch BOTH of them at this point.
Both sides have taken to over-exaggerating and over-hyping every bit of evidence they touch. And I've come to distrust them both.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
False dichotomy. There are definitely reasonable scientists publishing papers ...
sounds like a shrinking field!
As opposed to under-exaggerating?
Hahahaha! It's funny because he said "heat" while we were talking about cold stuff... Hahahaha!
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
What about the stark increase in atmospheric water vapor. Its not all about whats in the oceans, but whats in the soil and air as well.
to peer-reviewed scientific papers? Seriously, what's next -- complaining about an eight-year-old's drawing of Santa at the north pole showing a doubling in the thickness of sea ice?
And yes, I flew over southeast Greenland twice this July, and I can assure you, it's still very much icy ;)
Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
Those lines aren't really there, I checked.
But I digress, my only hope it that these incorrect assumptions of glaciers and ice cover has no impact on my my upcoming trip to that compass shaped island, it is quite close to Antarctica...
See more of this horrible scientific fraud in our 11 o'clock coverage!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I don't see why worrying about it one way or another even matters. If we stopped, right now, all emissions of any kind, we're still in for hundreds of years of "locked-in" feedback effects. And that's if we zeroed it out completely worldwide. We should stop worrying about what will happen when the sea levels rise and the thermohaline circulation stops (causing massive climate changes) -- we should start preparing for how to cope with the effects.
So when it melts wouldnt it take up less space and the sea level would have lowered.
"Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."
They wouldn't have this issue if there wasn't an opposition that will shout it to the heavens every time a mistake or revision is made in relation to global warming but every statement made in support of it is ignored, even if the two are part of the same package. "It's bad, but not as bad as this" will only be interpreted as "they've admitted they're wrong so it's all a hoax!" If we could actually have a clam and reasoned discussion about the issue without people with vested interests in it dominating the debate then this wouldn't be a concern.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Both sides have taken to over-exaggerating and over-hyping every bit of evidence they touch. And I've come to distrust them both.
That's how the rich-ruling-class wing operates, son. The public media through PR can produce bullshit that is 10x misleading and uncorrected than what the science does, but with this reasoning they're all equally bad and you find you distrust both; status quo shit-pumping megacorps win. You're on the side of freedom, son; freedom for them to fuck up the world for your children, your family, our future.
Parent is definitely Insightful Flamebait.
My big bitch is that Jeusuy McAnnRaynd is the last person in the world I'd ever expect to be busy out there *defending* the scientific method. It's like previously KKK Democrats taking credit for the civil rights movement.
It is indeed a cold day in hell.
Except I don't buy that "environmental science" is any more an unbiased field of science than I buy that "ethnic studies" is an unbiased field of history.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error.
How about you just be honest in the first place? If you are right about climate change, you don't need to exaggerate your claims. They should speak for themselves.
There's no such thing as unbiased history. It's more biased than environmental science, even. Just some guy's opinion about stuff that happened long ago.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The rich ruling class are dicks and always have been. But their bullshit doesn't explain the increasingly shrill voices from the pro side of this argument. Fifteen years ago, proponents of global warming were saying this could me a 1 or 2 degree average temperature increase over the next 100 years. Now some of them are blaming localized WEATHER patterns on it.
If there are reasonable voices in this, they're being drowned out at this point. A 1 or 2 degree average temperature increase over the next 100 years is not causing a fucking drought in Texas.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Stop worrying about the politics and just publish correct facts. Nobody should be "worried about understating" if the data doesn't support what you don't want to understate. This and the whole debacle with APS stating that man-made impending doom from rising global temperatures is "incontrovertible" (really? wtf is ever incontrovertible in real science? especially when dealing with such enormous datasets from varied sources over long periods?), make me sad for science. I love science. Science: please try to just be science, and not politics :P
This isn't even true; global temperatures haven't risen since 1998. This contradicts computer simulation--the primary source of current global warming consensus--to such a degree that climate scientists are searching for hypotheses to explain the missing heat. So now people are coming up with explanations for the observations that don't match their predictions. Truly the scientific method at work.
Note that the the research in the article I linked also comes exclusively from a computer simulation; there isn't actually any recorded observation that the "missing heat" is in the oceans. It's just a guess. I suspect many environmentalists are unaware that global warming consensus comes entirely from simulations written by humans and not actual recorded observation.
No, it isn't causing a drought in Texas. There were droughts in Texas at least this bad, long before the argument started.
I for one want absolute accuracy in my coffee-table books. That's why I routinely scan all my books for even the most minor error and write a letter to the Times. Coffee table or not, someone might look in it and make broad assumptions on how the world works incorrectly and then run for office!
Amen. For instance, the fact of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers is just someone's opinion. Actually, many opinions.
There's history, and there's opinion. Knowing the difference is helpful.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
And what is this "environmental science" but some scientists' INTERPRETATION of data? This isn't a field where the experiments can be replicated in some lab in Oslo, only where the interpretations of the data can be debated (and implications considered).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"global temperatures haven't risen since 1998"
There is no point in making this claim. The scientists will refute it with copious data, and the deniers will bring out their own. Then everybody argues over what the data really means.
Lost. We are lost.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ever since Andrew Ryan passed away that Atlas guy keeps insisting we're all gonna end up living underwater.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I was there that day. There are divergences to every story that cannot be documented by unadulterated video. You were saying?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Fucking glibretarians and their false equivalencies. This is why we are where we are, idiots like this can't tell the difference between scientists and hillbillies who know truthiness.
I'm personally not convinced on MMGW. Two well respected smart folks sitting in a room looking at the same raw data (if they are willing to share it, or maybe they just lost it) come up with two different answers. Not discounting it, but just not buying it either. What I have seen with my own little untrained eyes is the before and after pictures of the smog in china around the olympics. Without studies or grants, I know that sucking diesel fumes is mostly likely bad for me and my kids. I'm a huge fan of nuclear/solar. I'm a bigger fan of a gradual approach. Too many times I worry that the cure is worse than the disease. Wrecking the world economy because we "have to do this in the next X years" is just as bad (economy is one steak dinner from a heart attack right now). I'm a huge conservative but I'm all about funding alternative energy research until it becomes a viable free market alternative (no patent for govt. funded research. I'm not about subsidizing AF products that aren't market ready. Would be happy for the GOVT. to put up an X-prize. Solar panel at X cost that generates X power in x number of square feet get's $537 million dollars, not the other way around...
Except that 9 of the 10 hottest years in our measurements have been after 1998.
1998 was a statistical fluke, an out-lier, due to a very active El-Nino during that particular year. In 2010, the same temperature was reached under very average circumstances.
This isn't even true; global temperatures haven't risen since 1998.
Facts tend to disagree with your statement.
Wikipedia temperature chart
if we just let mega-corporations do whatever the fuck they want (including pumping whatever shit into the air they feel like), then we would all live in some libertarian utopia.
No, that's the corporatist position. Libertarians tend to be anti-corporate and would advocate for individuals suing those corporations for polluting their property. They favor stronger property rights than is typically* allowed in Western courts.
* sometimes courts do allow this, e.g. MTBE in groundwater, but it's pretty rare.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Well, a few more things it is: COLLECTION or the data, CORRELATION of the data, and CONSOLIDATION of the data with physics.
Seriously, you think these people just kibitz all day like talk-show pundits? I guess it's easy to look down on someone from miles away.
Someone had to do it.
If this so-called "environmental science" were as hard a science as physics or chemistry, you would have a point. And even physics or chemistry aren't completely above being subjected to the games of those willing to cook numbers and grant-whore. And in case you didn't read my post, you would see that I don't trust the hillbillies either.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Are you trolling?!
May be its all a mercator projection distortion?
The totally stereotypical complaint is Greenland always looks as big as all of south america, despite only being about the size of Argentina. Or in the wiki article, looks bigger than Africa but Africa has 14 times the land area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
HTF did this get modded Funny? It succinctly and clearly sums up the position of a lot of people, including myself.
Parent is definitely Insightful Flamebait.
My big bitch is that Jeusuy McAnnRaynd is the last person in the world I'd ever expect to be busy out there *defending* the scientific method. It's like previously KKK Democrats taking credit for the civil rights movement.
It is indeed a cold day in hell.
Parent is definitely Insightful Flamebait.
No. The GP is correct. Good science gets distorted by politics and fashion. The Big Bang theory was initially dismissed by the scientific elite because it was developed by a member of the clergy and "smelled of creationism". Grad students are often told not to pursue an area of interest or curiosity because it is out of fashion or unpopular with those who award grants, and conversely if you submit a grant app in this topic with this goal you will find many more funding opportunities.
Real scientists agree that global climate change is occurring. However the degree of human responsibility is an open question. While it is certainly plausible that humanity has made a significant contribution it is worthwhile to investigate other causes. Good luck getting funding though - some will label you a denier simply for asking if humanity is not the prime cause. Whether human activity, changes in solar activity and other things are minor or significant contributors we should look at them all. Doing so increases our understanding and leads to better predictive models.
I am happy that our improved communications allow this sort of thing to be found and sorted quickly. 100 years ago and you'd just have different people coming to different conclusions based on different base data.
Thermometer readings are not subject to interpretation. The post-processing is, but that part can be replicated in some lab in Oslo.
7 Billion people poluting this planet, it's all comming to end either way!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Inability of people who publish coffee table material to understand the maps you draw hardly constitutes a failure of truth on your part.
Someone had to do it.
. A 1 or 2 degree average temperature increase over the next 100 years
Would that be Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Aerosol can party at my place!
This situation reminds me very much of Kilimanjaro. The loss of snow and ice on Kilimanjaro has oft been cited by warming alarmists as proof of their theories, and in fact a picture of Kilimanjaro featured prominently in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".
However, the inconvenience was ultimately for the alarmists, since it has long been known (well before his movie came out) that the loss of snow and ice on Kilimanjaro is due to deforestation (logging by humans) at lower altitudes, and has little to nothing to do with ambient temperature. Less vegetation means less moisture for the air to pick up at lower altitudes, in turn meaning less precipitation for it to drop on the mountain when the air is blown up to high altitudes and cools down. And with drier air comes sublimation from the constant wind.
I do not claim the globe isn't warming. I'm not even claiming that CO2 isn't part of it... but I doubt it amounts to very much. But it's really kind of hard to tell, when the "authorities" and the media keep spouting such blatant bullshit.
The post-processing is, but that part can be replicated in some lab in Oslo.
That's the "human interpretation of the data" part, subject to the various foibles and subjectivity of the humans doing the interpretation (just as historians interpret historical data and documents). I doubt you can replicate that in a test tube.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Give it another ten years or so and the maps will probably be right on.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
You mean they might nit gave been destroyed?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I remember the 70s and into the 80s when this began, they called global cooling then. Which is the problem some people are having, including myself, believing the current concepts. If it was cooling then, and the data supported it, why is it now warming data? And what happened to the cooling data? Were they wrong, if they were then why not now? How can a group of scientists mistake warming for cooling? If there were trends towards cooling then, where are they on current projections?
global temperatures haven't risen since 1998
I'm not going to talk at you about how to do data analysis and averaging. Picking 1998 as a starting point is a canary for someone who is measuring "increase" as "difference since start of plot" and then cherry-picking a high value as their start point.
Even if you use that highly-deceptive "analysis" technique, though, it's not true:
NASA GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Anomaly
1998: 0.70 C
2010: 0.83 C
2010 is the most recent year for which there is data.
NASA GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index
1998: 0.56 C
2010: 0.63 C
If you look at the tabular data, anyone reasonably familiar with analysis should spot immediately that 1998 is an outlier and that there is an overall positive trend that continues up to 2010.
I'm all out for reducing co2 emissions since that saves fossil fuel. By watching the race between human impact on global warming and human impact on fossil fuel reserves the latter is probably more worrisome. The the cure for both is more or less the same, consume less fossil fuel and develop renewable energy sources. If depleting fossil fuel reserves news were to be mentioned in mainstream media as much as human impact global warming news, it would probably be disastrous for our economy sending oil prices spiking. So in the end exaggerated reports about human impact global warming will probably saves us from the more immediate problem of fossil fuel depletion before alternatives are in place.
Other humans, with different interest, could re-interpret the same data, and publish their findings in a paper. It's a lot of work, but it's not impossible.
Actually, several group of people have done exactly this, and their results are in pretty good agreement.
First one, then the other.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Good on the scientists for noticing the error of the Atlas company and working to publicly correct it. That is certainly above and beyond the call of duty. I'm not sure how that makes them 'grant whores' though. They are not responsible for the misstatement. They are only responsible for publicly correcting it.
Angle.
Um, yeah, that is pretty much how the scientific method works. You make observations, then you come up with ideas about the reasons those things happened, then you work out what would happen if you were correct, then you see if that actually happens, then you refine your ideas about why things happen.
Everybody loves it when we use that method to cure and prevent diseases from killing people, but when we try to use that method to make sure the planet's atmosphere remains habitable for humans all of a sudden nobody likes it.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
I'm in total agreement, except... Ayn Rand was an Atheist.
"Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."
Same thing happens when scientists find health benefits from smoking and alcohol consumption. They always hasten to add, "but it's still not a good idea to smoke/drink".
Same thing with abstinence vs. condoms. Obviously, abstinence is more effective than sex with condoms in preventing unwanted pregnancies/STDs/AIDS. That is truth. But health authorities insist it's better to teach condom use rather abstinence. That's "cathechism".
Set your phasers on "funky"!
...shrug it off...
Your comment failed with "goddamned". I didn't read any further.
Ayn Rand was an Atheist.
Just don't tell the Tea Partiers.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Please do punch them in the face, how else will they learn.
Agreement with what? That the climate warmed over the past century? That's one of the predicates to a statement of CAGW, but hardly a resounding endorsement.
Natural climate change happens and is our default null hypothesis here. What observations of data could convince you that observed climate change is not due to CO2, or not due to humans, or is not going to be catastrophic?
You can't be talking about normal statistical variation, since the temperature over the past century is in a statistically significant upward trend. Since there is an effect, there must be a cause.
So, what is the cause of this "natural climate change" ?
You make many valid points, bravo!
Any research that disagrees with exactly what Al Gore dictates causes a scientist to lose their funding and to "get kicked out of the club". Good luck ever working in your field again if you dissent.
Extra planetary bodies are also heating up. Mars, Venus, some Jovian moons, they're all increasing in temperature meaning humans probably aren't the cause of all of what's happening here at home.
There's tons of profit on exploiting the hype.
I am a hard-core Libertarian, but I do believe some environmental regulation is warranted. I hate the face that the issue even has to be addressed as it is, but it does. Industrial pollution harms the environment, and by extension does harm to another, it is NOT a victimless act. My biggest personal dilemma when it comes to regulation and enforcement is exactly what is the right way to do so (who enforces) and what should the limits be. A polluted waste land is paradise to no-one.
I don't think humans are the main cause of any temperature variances here on earth, but I think "going green" is a good thing. Any capitalist (not in the energy field) should love clean energy. There's no fuel cost (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal). I wish everyone could take a reasonable perspective like you so we could get over the fight and move towards the solutions.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Depends on where the thermometers are located.
If Greenland were to get warm enough to, say, farm wheat, surely we'd be seeing the end of civilization as we know it, right?
Right?
The problem is complicated. Tens of thousands of scientists working in hundreds of different disciplines from experts in plant reproduction to experts in satellite imaging have added pieces to puzzle. Things are accelerating much faster than expected (in most areas and slower than expected in others, remember I said its complicated.) We now have literally more data than we know what to do with, but as we sift through it, the patterns are becoming clearer and clearer.
The polar regions will be hit hardest by warming.
Billions of people worldwide will face water shortages as glaciers vanish and famines when glacier fed waters stop irrigating crops.
Loss of arable land and viable living space will put increasing pressure on growing populations, and fixed national borders will make migration virtually impossible
Changes in ocean chemistry are already causing die offs and increasing blooms of jellyfish, and will probably fuel a mass extinction of key fish populations we rely on today for food.
Forests around the world will experience drought and burn off, resulting in significant loss of plant base carbon sequestration further exacerbating the problem
Increases average temperatures will increase the decomposition of plant matter release increasing amounts of CO2 and methane both greenhouse gases and further exacerbating climate change.
There are thousand of simple facts, including rising sea levels, enhanced storms, enhanced flood/drought occurrence and the spread of tropical diseases. In fact we're seeing all these things right now (check the stats for the last 130 years, its all right there.) Look at trends not instances. The water was muddied by pandering spin doctors working for global fossil fuel interests. There has been an endless campaign of FUD and deception designed to allow billionaires the right to continue pillaging the environment without personal cost. Scientists are primarily interests in exposing the truth. Yes there are exceptions, but I would trust a scientist hands down before I trusted an industrialist. For every point of contention the business folks point at, I'm seeing 10,000 points that nobody can argue with. The bible had a phrase "Straining the gnat and swallowing the camel...".
The fact it has become politicized demands that we get clear that people are willing to continue to block all meaningful action by obfuscation. It it well past time to take meaningful action for cleaning up our mess and preserving a world worth bequeathing to our children.
And yet you took the time to respond.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The NSIDC is desperately trying to throw the atlas publishers under the bus to preserve their credibility. "An update to the Sciencemag.com story pinpoints the probable source of the error: a 2001 map from the NSIDC illustrates Greenland's central ice sheet without showing any of the peripheral glaciers. The Atlas editors may have seen this map and misinterpreted it." The NSIDC wants people to believe that the Atlas publishers took a 2001 map sans glaciers and magicly turned it into a 2011 map showing a shrunken ice sheet. The Atlas publishers say however, that "the data came from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), adding that the 15% retreat since the 10th edition of the atlas was released in 1999 is a result of global warming and "much more accurate data."
You have summed up American politics quite nicely.
So far as I can see, the problem is that what we see on both sides (unless you go out of your way to investigate) are the "talking heads", which are the ones who make ridiculously exaggerated claims. What you should look at instead is scientific data, which is much more boring.
But it seems that, insofar as we have actual data, and proper (i.e. not sensationalist) interpretations thereof, they do support AGW. Just not the kind of pro-AGW claims described in TFA.
Well, the important thing is that you've framed them both as equally bad so that you can feel superior to anyone who cares.
Intellectual honesty isn't about being unbiased. Nobody would be honest because everyone's biased, especially if you define "biased" as "having an opinion".
Intellectual honesty means exposing the basis for your conclusions to criticism; it means doing your best to apply the same criteria to your conclusions and methods that you apply to the people who disagree with you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The point is that climatologists are supposed to document their assumptions when doing that interpretation. Those assumptions can then be verified. They can't just say, "oh let's insert temp*=10; here because God told me it should be so".
We need another decade or two of study before we commit strongly either way. This will allow the science to be improved, and will (hopefully) cause the pop-culture aspect of the controversy to fade. The best thing that could happen for climate science is for both the public and the politicians to STOP CARING about it.
Since when did Libertarians have anything to do with Tea Parties?
And yes, I flew over southeast Greenland twice this July
I definitely wasn't going to ask you that.
No, it isn't causing a drought in Texas. There were droughts in Texas at least this bad, long before the argument started.
Not so. The following graph clearly shows that this year is an extreme outlier: http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/texas-drought-spot-the-outlier/
with photoshop at their disposal and who gains from from the truth? What is it that seems suspicious at anyone's attempt to hornswoggle the masses into believing that its aok to continue down the same path or global warming path? What's going on in Greenland these days?
"Now glaciologists are left trying to figure out how not understate the importance of the extent glacial ice melt, while at the same time correcting the error."
In other words, "how can the glaciologists bullshit us now?"
I read a book when I was in junior high published during the 70's that took place in the 1990's or so. The ice-age was setting in and people were fleeing south. Houston was the capital of the US, Mexico didn't know what to do with their illegal immigrant problem, and the family in the book was tired of the overcrowded South so they decided to rough it and move back north. An interesting read even if I can't remember the title.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
No, so I can *tell* you why moderates like me don't care...because the extremists have become the public face of both sides.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just don't tell the Tea Partiers.
God forbid we grant that somebody in the Tea Party might knowingly agree with something an atheist said. That's as ridiculous as assuming that a liberal might agree with something a Christian said.
Probably since about the time Rand Paul became their golden boy in Kentucky.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Don't forget another aspect of the Jesus freaks...they believe God won't allow pollution/other environmental damage, and that he will create more coal/oil when we run out.
Yay for delusions!
And yeah, both sides are obnoxious.
I remember the 70s and into the 80s when this began, they called global cooling then. Which is the problem some people are having, including myself, believing the current concepts.
Consider that in spite of a then moderate cooling trend, and in spite of natural cycles driving us towards cooling, most papers in the 70's predicted global warming. They were right. They had a physical basis for the prediction. They tested the prediction. They were right.
Well, the important thing is that you've framed both sides as equally bad so that you can feel superior to anyone who cares.
I don't know what your criteria for "grant whore" is; scientists have to put bread on the table like anyone else, and that means they have to submit proposals that are, in the judgment of the reviewers, likely to yield useful results. And after surviving decades of spirited debate, a proposal to overturn decades of climate research in one swell foop is going nowhere because nobody seriously believes you can do it with a single one paper or project.
I watched this whole debate play out *before* it became a political cause celebre because my wife is a geophysicist. The AGW hypothesis really started to heat up in the early 80s, and the scientific critics DID pile on with serious criticisms, and time and time again they bounced. They've looked at the question of whether 18th C Royal Navy water temperature records are to be trusted, or whether trends in remote sensing data are some kind of technological artifact. Lots of sound objections were raised, vigorously debated, then set aside as unfounded or irrelevant.
So does that mean you can't challenge AGW? Of course not. There's lots of places to start undermining it. You just aren't going to get a paper published at this late date that looks at one facet of the data and overturns the whole edifice of scientific consensus.
Now like everything else, most science is mediocre. It's conservative, unimaginative, and safe. But what everyone really wants to see is a big shift in scientific consensus. That's exciting and it brings new grant money in. But nobody's betting on an overnight overturning of the global warming consensus, frustrating as that is to some people who'd like to see that. You don't think that a credible line of research that was heading to the conclusion "use as much coal as you want" wouldn't find funding? The problem is that nobody who's actually followed the debate in the decades up to the big political snit is going to expect quick and dramatic results from such a line of research. You've got to start with establishing, "maybe coal isn't such a big concern" then work your way up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Really? You use Wikipedia to dispute one of the most politicized controversies of the century?
Way to not get it, guy.
If your model says one thing and observation says something else you may need to refine your model. Unless you can't because your model has become dogma.
Sounds like everyone needs a blowjob worse than anything else. Hey, don't look at me.. I'm just stating the obvious.
you find you distrust both
No that only works on morons. Granted there are a lot of morons in the world, and each one of their votes has the same weight as yours or mine, but propaganda will never work against intelligent people. If we are to talk of propaganda I may as well invoke Godwin and cite the experts: even Herr Hitler knew this and wrote about it in his book. He also said that intelligent people were too few and too removed from politics to be of any significance, they were too busy in their ivory towers.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Yes, it means that you refine your model. That would have been step 5, had I numbered the steps. Note that it does not mean that you decide that you were completely wrong and throw the whole model out the window.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
I'm tired of gross over-generalizations and stereotypes of people based on what you see in the media. The problem is as much the media polarizing people and labeling everyone. Then people have to look at what category they appear to fit in and assume that they have to agree with the popular opinions of "their group". The media states that everyone who disagrees with the conclusion of global warming must be for big corporation and a Christian. So then people like you continue the stereotype. Thanks for the vote of prejudice. You should do some research on all the scientists that are not Christian and don't believe in climate change. There are lots!
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
The people who have a vested interest in badmouthing carbon e.g. petroleum companies vs. coal companies (case and point Al Gore who is sponsored by Occidental Petroleum) or those who make carbon trading systems e.g. the fraudulent Enron have a vested interest in lying to support their claims, and then claiming that the "science is settled" to deter other scientists from investigating and uncovering their fraud, and finally discrediting the skeptical by equating them with Holocaust "deniers". So what they do is as follows. They take satellite photos of the north pole say in Feb of 2009 when the ice is near its maximum. Then they take another photo around July/August 2010 when it's near its annual minimum. Then they label the photos as "2009" and "2010" without overtly saying that these were in different months, leading the uninformed reader to believe that the ice quantity is relatively stable (though dwindling) throughout the year. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you take the photo in the same months across a large number of years, you will see approximately the same amount of ice each year.
It's as if I released a photo of my lawn covered in snow in the winter in 2009 and then dried out and browned by heat in August in 2010 and claimed that this "proved" global warming year over year. It's COMPLETELY ignoring the regular cyclical effects. Al Gore is a crock. He also claims that CO_2 causes heat to rise, when in fact all studies show that the heat rises first, followed by CO_2 production. He is not an idiot and he knows very well that CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSALITY. He is not just WRONG, he is LYING! Don't be deceived!
The graph comes from NASA, if you look at the source cited on the Wikipedia page. You can also see it on NASA's site if you click the link from Wikipedia.
So there is nothing wrong with using that as a source in this context.
Thermometer readings are not subject to interpretation.
Thermometer readings are subject to all kinds of errors and probelms. Painting the box they are mounted in the wrong color, mounting the box in an asphalt parking lot. No louvers on the box. One of the columnists for Analog did an article talking about how NOAA had messed up the installations of many of their sites.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Thermometers are not involved in the vast majority of temperature readings today. Most are satellite based. It wasn't but a dozen years ago I remember seeing a peer-reviewed article talking about the MIScalibration of the satellite temperature measurements and what the new, correct algorithm ought to be. Temps went up a few degrees overnight, as I recall.
And, of course, thermometers were involved in NONE of the temperature "measurements" prior to their invention, which was, globally speaking, very recent. From this:
"What can be considered the first modern thermometer, the mercury thermometer with a standardized scale, was invented by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1714."
And before that, the earliest thermoscope with any calibration was just 1612:
"In 1612, the Italian inventor Santorio Santorio became the first inventor to put a numerical scale on his thermoscope. It was perhaps the first crude clinical thermometer, as it was designed to be place in a patient's mouth for temperature taking. "
Anything that talks about temperatures prior to 1700 in any objective way is using some proxy measurement. You certainly didn't think that someone who says he knows what the temperature of the planet was 10,000 years ago was actually quoting a NOAA measurement, did you?
Rand Paul is not a Libertarian... his dad may be, though I'd consider him more of a Constitutionalist. Back when the tea party started, there were a lot of Libertarians attached to the project, mostly those disillusioned with no progress, but most of those who would consider themselves hard core Libertarians have since left it to the religious nuts (while still reserving the right to agree with some of what they are against in economic matters)
Temperature graph for the last 55 years at South Pole:
http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/amundsen-scott.ann.trend.pdf
Just a single station, conveniently sited at the place where day/night temp variation noise is minimal and free of UHI effect. Remarkably flat.
And there is famous 1978 paper "West AntarctIc Ice sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect: a threat of" by Mercer predicting 5K temperature raise in the next 50 years below antarctic circle. Therefore, in just 17 years would certain people admit their pet theory being wrong, or still be giving excuses?
Natural climate change is the null hypothesis. Climate has always changed in the past, long before humanity ever existed, so we can safely assume that *any* observed change before humanity existed had a non-human cause. Since climate was more than able to change in the past because of non-human causes, we start with the null hypothesis that says that any observation even after the rise of humanity can similarly be explained. It then becomes incumbent on the affirmative, who want to assert that climate after the rise of humanity, or after the industrial age, or whatever marker you choose, is controlled by humanity.
Now climate changes in pre-humanity times have had both statistically significant upward and downward trends, so the mere existence of a statistically significant trend doesn't serve to implicate humanity.
If you really want to play the science game, though, I invite you to make a clear falsifiable hypothesis statement, specifically identifying what observations would invalidate your hypothesis.
Tea Partiers co-opted Libertarianism to maintain the status-quo of wealthy people controlling the poor. Then slap religion on top and you have control over the not-poor as well.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
If you think *any* field of history is an "unbiased" field, I think you should look again at history and any social science-type field.
And if you're in a history class and the teacher (prof, etc) is telling you that a certain viewpoint is unbiased, get out quick...
How many hundred year droughts can you spot in that chart?
lol
If this so-called "environmental science" were as hard a science as physics or chemistry, you would have a point.
Dude. Climate science is built on physics and chemistry. The notion that CO2 could act as a greenhouse gas was first dreamt up by a physical chemist. Not just any P. Chem, either, Arrhenius. You know, the guy with important equations named after him. He came up with the idea in 1896 , and no, I did not reverse the 8 and the 9 -- Arrhenius died in the 1920s. No development in physics or chemistry in the 115 years since he published that idea has proved it wrong. If anything, just the opposite. It's pretty solid science. About as hard as it can get, really.
And even physics or chemistry aren't completely above being subjected to the games of those willing to cook numbers and grant-whore. And in case you didn't read my post, you would see that I don't trust the hillbillies either.
It's pretty clear that you haven't any sort of clue whatsoever, as you're willing to spew ignorant bullshit like the above.
Blame it on the Titans.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why didn't you list any of the good things that will happen if the globe warms?
Concern troll is concerned.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Ayn Rand was an Atheist.
Just don't tell the Tea Partiers.
The Tea Partiers know it, thanks. I don't know how it works on the left, but on the right, we recognize that just because you're right about one thing doesn't mean that you're right about everything, or that just because you came up with a really good idea, it doesn't mean that I have to agree with all your ideas.
I mean, really, do you agree with everything Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore says? Why do you expect us to be any different?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
propaganda will never work against intelligent people.
You say that even as you mention Hitler? There were no shortage of intellectuals and academics that embraced Nazi propaganda. Another example of gullible intelligentsia would be Communism in the early and mid 20th century.
There was a study, and I don't recall enough info about it to cite, that found that belief in ridiculous crap (UFO's, spiritualism, etc.) was MORE common as education levels and intelligence rose... although it dropped off again at the very high end of both.
This isn't even true; global temperatures haven't risen since 1998.
Ocean cycles were responsible for the record temperatures in 1998.
So... take a single outlier, run your data from the present to that outlier, and claim that temperatures haven't risen.
What about the decade averages? Mmm?? Doesn't support your talking point? Your argument would be dishonest; however, that implies that you actually understand the issues.
Here is a short video on the subject.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
No, so I can *tell* you why moderates like me don't care.
You misspelled "apathetic cynic".
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Wow... this is just.. never mind. Okay for those of you for whom science wasn't your primary interest, a quick refresher. First there's a phenomenon. You observe it. Then you come up with a theory to explain it. Next you create an experiment to test your theory. You collect data. You compare the resulting data with the prediction(s) your theory makes, and you determine whether or not your theory accurately describes the phenomenon. Rinse and Repeat several billions of times until you've pretty much explained most of the universe we currently live in.
A scientist isn't just a geek sitting around hoarding his data like King Croesus did gold and they don't just pull interpretations out of their rear ends. Look above. They make theories first, and then test them against data. Clearly you have a poor grasp of what scientist do or why their work is more inherently valid from a purely physical reference than let's say the work of Pat Robertson or Orin Hatch or the CEO of Exxon/Mobil.
See science isn't (or at least shouldn't be) just a collection of beliefs or opinions, and when it is, it is by definition, bad science. There is rigor to the method, and the goal is to achieve truth even if and when it crushes your theory, in fact especially when it crushes your theory. By the way, folks at least bother to google or wikipedia just a little bit. It would be nice to see posts that weren't just impromptu brain farts, like, I don't know, and informed opinion. If the environmental scientists were the only ones talking, it would be significant, but scientist from virtually every field of scientist are making contributions to the larger conversation of global climate change and now doctors, economists, geologist, meteorologists, chemists, biologists, sociologist, ecologists and computer scientists are saying important things about climate change as each adds new pieces to the puzzle. This is not a conversation anyone with an IQ over 80 can ignore anymore. To do so flies in the face of both common sense, and any serious grounding in reality. No matter how much you believe your warm and fuzzy lord will protect you from climate change, I'm here to let you know as kindly as I can, you're gonna sweat just like the rest.
I'm actually quite shocked that you put the words natural climate change into quotes. There are decadal, multi-decadal, centennial, multi-centennial, millennial and longer cycles in climate, as the following graph of ice-core data from Greenland demonstrates:
Greenland GISP2.
Here's the Vostok core:
Vostok.
Good luck ever working in your field again if you dissent.
If I gave you the names of climate scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on AGW, and are nonetheless employed at universities and are well funded -- then would that change your mind on the conspiracy theory?
Nah... wouldn't make a snot of difference, would it.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
But the entire comment is rendered moot if you look back far enough in time:
GISP2.
Actually, if you look at the data the trend may still be rising but much more slowly then "the experts" ever predicted. The current rate for the last 10 years appears to be less than 0.1 degrees C. The two decades before were also lower than predicted and in the range of 0.2 to 0.25 degrees C. The rate of rise is just as critical to global planning as the fact that the temperature is actually rising. I don't hold out much hope for the models ever being able to predict the temperature to 4 significant figures but that is what "the experts" claim they can do. When they have a model that starts in 1980 and currently predicts through 2010, I will listen.
If someone had a line of evidence that essentially concluded "burn all the coal you want", then politicians and oil conglomerates world-wide would be jumping over each other to give that scientist money.
Any climate scientist who wants to put bread on the table merely needs to buck the consensus with some vacuous argument, and get a hand-out from Exxon-Mobile via one of their shells, such as the Heartland or Marshall Institute.
There is so much evidence for this type of political manipulation in the debate; however, evidence of being wrong is too confronting for typical people.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
When you say you "refine the model", in reality this involves a curve-fitting exercise, so that your model matches past data, and there follows more future predictions that are no more likely to be correct than the last prediction you made that caused you to fiddle with your model parameters in the first place. In short: folly.
Yep, all the climate scientists are biased. It is true.
/anything/ to know that you know better.
Therefore, you don't need to know
Good for you.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yes. It is solid science. As solid science it says that doubling CO2 will increase the temperature by between 0.6K and 1K. I'm not sure if that is significant. Well actually I'm pretty sure it isn't.
Here I was thinking that /. was a site filled with intelligent people...
It (should) not be just a curve-fitting exercise, there will of course need to be some refinement of the constants used to make the model usable. Most of the time, however, the data not fitting the model is due to some effect that was not taken into account in the original model, in which case you would come up with a model for those effects, and incorporate them into your existing model. Do a little curve-fitting, play with your constants a bit, then if it still doesn't fit, look for something else that you're not taking into account.
Again, this is the way science has worked for a long time. Our modern existence is as a result of this model. Why has the scientific method come under this attack?
Is 1563649 a prime number?
You seem convinced that it's very slow warming we can safely ignore in the short term, despite a reported shift in the message. Is it possible you stick to the reports about "We have a hundred years before we have to do anything about it" because that was much easier, and/or because we tend to stubbornly cling to the first message we hear despite indications the situation has changed?
I used to have low blood pressure. In recent years it has risen. Until recently, I had much the same reaction: "Bah, that must be wrong. I have low blood pressure. It can't be high now! And I know it because it was low years ago, plus I don't want to have to change my diet."
The scientific method has not, because in Climate Science the Scientific Method is not in use. The Scientific Method requires a falsifiable hypothesis (for starters). The scientific method requires real-world experiments (not really possible in this field).
Models are conceptual representations of reality. They are not reality itself. A model is a useful tool for playing with scenarios, but that is all. These days the model is everything. If the real-world doesn't match the model, the real world is assumed to be `wrong'. Many papers are published on the results of model runs, that are then picked up in the press (via. helpful press releases) as actual fact. In the end this will all come tumbling down of course, and leave the scientific method (which both you and I care about) somewhat lacking in public trust.
... Are you my long-lost twin?
The ballpark observed and predicted warming rate is actually about 1 degree Celcius per century.
Experts don't claim four-figure accuracy on temperature prediction. They don't even claim accurate temperature prediction over short time scales, which is not surprising, given the difficulty of modeling short-term behaviors of chaotic systems.
Fortunately, science and the world at large probably don't give a shit about whether you will listen or your arbitrary requirements.
You don't even have you history right. It started far earlier with predictions that the earth would warm due to CO2. And it has. And the rate of warming is accelerating as predicted. And revised predictions say it's going to get warmer. And your claims of grant whoring have never borne out.
But we recognize your name. You're here to sow your usual FUD.
The mods who modded you insightful should lose all of their karma.
Okay for those of you for whom science wasn't your primary interest, a quick refresher. First there's a phenomenon. You observe it. Then you come up with a theory to explain it. Next you create an experiment to test your theory. You collect data.
If the environmental scientists were the only ones talking, it would be significant, but scientist from virtually every field of scientist are making contributions to the larger conversation of global climate change and now doctors, economists, geologist, meteorologists, chemists, biologists, sociologist, ecologists and computer scientists are saying important things about climate change as each adds new pieces to the puzzle.
When did "conversation" replace "experiment" in science? Exactly what experiments did the economists bring to the table?
There were droughts in Texas at least this bad, long before the argument started.
Name one.
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Except I don't buy that "environmental science" is any more an unbiased field of science than I buy that "ethnic studies" is an unbiased field of history.
That's because you are a moron. What is your evidence that "environmental science" is biased? Because you don't like its results? The proof that these "environmental scientists" biasing their results? Let me guess: lots of unproven accusations of fraud. Or will it just be an "I don't like algore"? I've peer reviewed a lot of your posts in the past and found nearly all of them to be lacking. I guess that means I'm not in your peer group. The fact that you're marked insightful is proof that every moron gets to moderate here.
Besides, I don't think the term "environmental science" is what you're looking for. Better terms might be "Climatology", "Atmospheric science", "Geophysics", or "Planetary Science". Your use of the word "environmental" is just so you can bring up the spectre of "goofy environmentalists."
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How many hundred year droughts can you spot in that chart? lol
Well, since it only goes back 100 years I guess the answer must be 1. The droughts prior to 2011 are clearly not 100 year droughts because they have precedents within the century.
The world will rise in temperature 2-3 degrees centigrade by the time I die. Sorry for fucking up the planet, kids, but driving that stretch hummer was a hell of a lot of fun!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You can't replicate the gravitational field of Jupiter or the interior of Sirius in a lab, either. Does that mean that everything we know about stars and planets should be discarded because it just interpretation? Let me guess you're an "evolution is a theory" nutjob.
Informative? Are we giving mod points to second graders?
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That's the "human interpretation of the data" part, subject to the various foibles and subjectivity of the humans doing the interpretation.
Same as when we measure the gravitational acceleration on the surface of the earth. Yet we biased scientists manage to get the same answer time and time again. Your big problem is when you don't like the answer.
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More bullshit claims about bias from one of the most biased posters here: Pino Grigio. Who can't even spell Pinot Grigio.
If the dropped stations had been kept, the temperature determinations would have been higher, not lower
You really have to start picking claims that aren't so trivially refuted.
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I remember the 70s and into the 80s when this began, they called global cooling then.
I remember the 70s and 80s, too. Nobody believed in global cooling in the scientific community. The prediction of global warming was 80 years old in 1980, and that's what everyone in the scientific community was worried about. We just didn't have computers that could do detailed climate models at the time.
The idea that we were worried about global cooling is a common denialist tactic. By 1980 we knew that any cooling effect of aerosols was going away due to cleaner air, and that it had probably been masking effects of global warming.
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Yes, because "environmental scientists" write the "TIME Atlas of the World" rather than moronic reporters who can't even figure out how to use a spell checker.
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Wow, that is the most obviously-bad curve fitting I have ever seen.
Well, second most. The most obviously bad graphed observed temperatures from 1998 to 2008 and showed a "trend" by drawing a line between the 1998 measurement and the 2008 measurement.
"The fact it has become politicized demands that we get clear that people are willing to continue to block all meaningful action by obfuscation."
You realize that pretty much describes your screed?
You say that even as you mention Hitler?
Why, does one exclude the other? Shall we pretend he didn't exist? Do you react the same way if I say "Napoleon"? Clearly there is some propaganda at work here. Before you reject something offhand you must first know what you are rejecting. The man was evil and did unspeakable things, but he sure knew how to manipulate and even wrote about it. The knowledge is there and quite insightful, a few grains of truth scattered between ramblings. Don't be afraid, they are only words.
I believe that most intellectuals at the time embraced continuing to live rather than a bullet in the head, in both Germany and the Soviet Union.
The very high end is what I am talking about here. Perhaps my definition of moron is somewhat broader than yours, which makes me less tolerant than you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Now lets see if you can figure out why they are different.
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First of all that's K, so we're talking about 1F to 2F. Temperature distribution is chaotic with a tremendous concentration of heat going to the highest and lowest latitudes. The temperature change there could be 4F to 6F. That is sufficient to finish off the polar caps and the permafrost releasing countless billions of tons of methane into the atmosphere and remember that as greenhouse gases go, methane though shorter lived than CO2 is about 20 times more efficient as a greenhouse gas. The point here, is that this system has abundant feedback loops and is self regulating... until you exceed its capacity. Then you break and all bets are off. Screwing with the one and only life support system you have trying to see how far you can screw with it it tantamount to the thought experiment of removing rivets from a plane in flight to find out at what point the plane falls out of the sky.
Only we're doing it for real and if we succeed in crashing it, we all die and take out virtually all higher vertebrates while we're at it. What possible gain can you imagine that would justify that kind of downside. I'm sorry this is the worst possible mix of hubris, arrogance and self serving stupidity. I simply don't get it. We went to moon on a friggin' dare. Are so spineless and without moral fortitude that we are unwilling or incapable of cleaning up our mess, implementing a long term workable solution, and enjoying the good life as we pursue what's next?
You'd have to be.... well... you... to think that a ice core from a single glacier near a strong warm ocean current somehow represents global temperatures.
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It is no above and beyond the call of duty, it IS the call of duty: a scientist's duty is to not be wrong, and to do everything in their power to make sure others are not wrong.
That means publicizing the fact of global warming by every means possible, and that also means making sure people know that 15% of Greenland's ice hasn't melted yet.
don't hold out much hope for the models ever being able to predict the temperature to 4 significant figures but that is what "the experts" claim they can do. When they have a model that starts in 1980 and currently predicts through 2010, I will listen.
Nobody ever claimed a 4 significant figure temperature. Unless you're talking Kelvin. Here's the old 2000 IPCC ensemble compared with the record. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/01/2010-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/ It's seems like starting in 1980, the ensemble average is within 0.1C of all of the data sets. IPCC does underpredict sea level rise. It also overpredicts sea ice.
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Funny how scientists have had to "throw out the whole model" more than once in recorded history on a variety of incredibly important subjects. People get attached to models sometimes, and the longer they exist, the more solidly the "scientific community" sometimes clings to them. Then along comes some upstart with a totally new model and, guess what? The "scientific community" derides, minimalizes, and shuns this fellow. They claim he's a denier, or impugn his credentials, ignore him, or accuse him of heresy. There was a time when even Einstein was considered a fool by the "scientific community." They were just as sure *then* about his theories being wrong as you are today about AGW being *right*. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it sure as hell doesn't mean you're right either.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This. Mod parent up. GP: if you truly care about the issue as you pretend to, why don't you go beyond the "distrust them both" angle and find out what the truth is for yourself. If you're unwilling to do that, positioning yourself as superior to both these sides is useless as fuck for you and for everybody else. So stop yelling that from rooftops just to make yourself look good.
The idea that we were worried about global cooling is a common denialist tactic.
Yes, that's the problem with all these denialists: they keep citing the unquestionable correctness promulgated by the previous scientific consensus. You know, the one where all the scientists were absolutely sure we were headed for another ice age and anyone who thought otherwise was in denial. But *today* we're sure we're right. This time. For sure. Really. We mean it. Not like the last time when we said we were sure. This time we *are* sure, even if we sound exactly the same as we did the last time we said we were totally sure. And if you don't agree, you're an idiot, so go away. Can I have some more grant money, please?
There's a parable about crying wolf in here somewhere, but I just can't bring myself to point it out. Nope, not gonna do it.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If I gave you the names of climate scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on AGW, and are nonetheless employed at universities and are well funded -- then would that change your mind on the conspiracy theory?
You can't possibly provide anyone with any such names because the scientific community is unified in their belief in AGW. After all, the party line is that anyone who questions AGW is an idiot or a corporate shill and therefore is not to be treated as a valid scientist.
Or are you admitting there are reputable, employed, funded scientists who even now dare to oppose the "settled question" of AGW? Kinda punctures the whole "settled" part of the question don't you think?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
So we've burned about half the fossil fuel by now, meaning we've already emitted half the CO2 we're ever going to emit.
This has increased the CO2 concentration 22% since 1960.
Now, temperature has supposedly increased by 0.6C in that time (0.6/300K = 0.2%). Hmm, not much of an effect. Don't even know how they picked that signal out of the noise, natural variation, El Nino/La Nina, etc etc
So then, what temperature rise would be expected when we burn the second half of the fossil fuel deposits? The problem is self-limiting.
Consider also that nearly all the re-radiated IR light emitted by the earth has already been absorbed- ie the CO2 has already absorbed nearly all the heat it can. Yep, the first 100ppm absorbs by far most of the IR at the absorption wavelengths. Additional CO2 has an ever diminishing effect in a decaying logarithmic relationship.
An examination of the temperature signal over the last 500K years shows regular dips and peaks larger than this one. this peak is occurring exactly where you would expect it to, it's standard inter-glacial behavior.
Temperature is hopelessly variable. El Nino/La Nina, weather events, the gulf stream, all play a part in the Temperature.
Best thing to do is look at the long term trend- the REALLY long term trend, eg the 500,000 year trend. When you do, you'll see this warm period is nothing special, and is in fact lower than previous periods, with the timing coinciding with previous interglacial periods.
IR absorption by CO2 is pretty much already saturated. Adding more CO2 does not have anywhere near the effect, as all the relevant IR wavelengths have been absorbed almost to extinction, no matter what the spin from the the green-climate-neocommunist lobby is.
I remember this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTjQO163P2E#t=33s Greenhouse Effect - everything is heating up.
Fandroids hate facts.
So basically, because we can never be absolutely certain we're right, we should never trust the results? Good plan, stick to it next time you need some medicine, after all, it's only science that says it'll cure you and not kill you.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Yes, I am implying that there are employed, funded scientists. One of them is even reputable.
Let's see how this works... if there were no such scientists, then AGW is false because of some conspiracy.
But if there is just one such scientist, then AGW is false, because at least one person who studies the issues disagrees with the consensus of many thousands of scientists.
Have I got that correct?
Are you ready to know who these scientists are?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Frankly, I'm sick of all the bullshit from both sides. I've got a grant-whore "environmental scientist" (when did that even become a hard science?) screaming in one ear that we're all going to die if we don't go all-solar/all-wind in the next twenty years. In the other ear, I've got Jesusy McAnnRaynd telling me that Exxon only wants to give me love and flowers, and would never, ever hurt me. And frankly, I just want to punch BOTH of them at this point. Both sides have taken to over-exaggerating and over-hyping every bit of evidence they touch. And I've come to distrust them both.
@elrous
So you're saying if my policies cause major social problems that harm everyone, and everyone is pissed off at me, then all I have to do to get everyone to stop caring about what I did is to overly politicize it? Make it look like a highly partisan issue with bad-guys on both sides? Get people to say "hey, I hate both parties, I trust neither side," and turn away in disgust? That's all I have to do? Really? Then you'll stop paying attention? Cool!!!
You have just guaranteed nothing will ever change for the better, and I can get away with murder if I want to. And if anything, now I want to spend even more money on political propaganda, making absolutely EVERY issue highly politicized so no one will ever again notice anything that the wealthy and powerful do to screw ordinary people.
This completely explains the state of affairs we have right now in government and politics. Thanks for being an ignorant retard, jackoff.
I guess it all depends on who you listen to. I choose to listen to actual scientists, who change and refine their models to suit the observed data. You should stop listening to the alarmists, we're giving them far too much air time.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Wikipedia is liberally biased. Find some proof on a more fair and balanced site and then we'll talk.
Now that's a nasty little bit of propaganda that's wedged itself in there.
Don't people understand that there's a vast amount more money in corn subsidies than in all of those grants put together?
The teachers at your local school are probably making more money than the "grant-whore" strawmen.
It's yet another example of kicking the cat - blaming things on those that really do not have the influence to be causing any of your problems.
And then there are several thousand weather stations that the Russians abandoned in and around Siberia when their govt went bankrupt in the early 1990s and could no longer afford to keep them open. Data has not been collected at those points and said missing data is what gives that nice hockey stick appearance in the derp graph... amazing what kind of increase on global temperature we can manufacture when we stop monitoring large swaths of cold regions.
http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/russia/all.html
propaganda will never work against intelligent people.
What's your next guess?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This atlas is published by a limb of the Rupert Murdoch media empire. I have trouble believing that they put all this effort into making a great atlas and only looked at a single satellite image of Greenland. This is a perfect hit piece. "Scientists Exaggerate Extent of Greenland Ice Loss, film at 11." Then the respectable scientists all chiming in saying that the Atlas is wrong, and the deniers get to say "you alarmists can't even agree among yourselves!" and the fox news blowhards can rant about "another global warming exaggeration." The propaganda value of this is amazing. They're gonna get more mileage out of this than they did with the Al Gore claimed to invent internet meme.
-- QED
Climate science is most certainly a cross-discipline hard science dealing with topics from atmospheric dynamics to hydrology. Unless you think advanced mathematics and computational fluid dynamics are "light", I suggest you read up a bit about what climate science entails before casually waving away over a century worth of research and a significantly longer period of data.
Here's what's been happening in the scientific community:
1. Scientists have been conducting research and gathering data on the greenhouse effect that keeps our planet from turning into a snowball since the late 1800s.
2. The research and data show that our planet has been warming at rapid rate, especially since the middle of the last century.
3. Paleoclimate and climate studies demonstrate that rapid changes in global temperature destabilize existing climate conditions.
4. Climate research, models, and experiments show that the bulk of the warming has come from human activities.
5. Scientists recommend that we take steps to mitigate and/or prepare for the changes a warming planet will have.
Here's what's been happening for the rest of us:
1. The media exaggerates, distorts, misinterprets, and or outright lies about what the science concludes, attempting to turn everything into "OMGZ!!!11! DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!1!"
2. Corporations and industry who stand to lose profit margins frantically begin large-scale PR FUD campaigns and ramping up donations and favors to their favorite politicians.
3. The combined noise of idiotic talking heads and political vitriol drowns out any logical discussion about the science itself.
4. The populace gets fed up, ceases to care or listen, and/or becomes "deniers".
That remains the case until:
1. Shit gets so bad and/or obvious that anyone not suffering from psychotic issues finally accepts the science and demand that something be done about it.
And you fell for it. Don't feel bad though. You aren't the first and you certainly won't be the last. If you think this is the first time something like this has happened, you're wrong. In fact, some of the same PR FUD companies from back in the '50's are the same ones that are being used now, and for very similar purposes. Smoking, asbestos, ozone depletion, leaded gasoline and paints, and acid rain are all examples of what happens when science collides with those with money and power threatened by said science. They will fight tooth and nail to prevent any actions being taken. They'll tie it up in courts. They'll attack the science. They'll attack the scientists. They will delay for as long as they can, and bend every rule they can.
Science eventually wins in the end, but usually at a price. It will be interesting to see what straw will finally break the camels back in the case of climate change.
~X~
OK I don't know what Environmental Sciences mean in the US, but in Sweden you spend your time learning Biology, Echology (yeah I know it's a field of Biology), Chemistry, Physics, Law (environmental), Economics and other subjects.
What many people here seems to be describing is called environmental studies in Sweden. You can't compare environmental sciences to ethnics studies, environmental sciences base thier knowledge in research and small scale experiments. You wouldn't knock a astrophysicist for having a hard time to definately prove what the gravitational body that nobody can see is.
Uh, no. From the stand point of trying to set policy, your position is ridiculous. Disregarding that, it's bad science. The first scientific question isn't whether humans are causing the warming or not, it's "What is the proximate cause of the warming?" As far as I know, several possibilities have been looked at: Solar output fluctuations, variations in cosmic rays, increased GHG. Each one gets a Null Hypothesis of "It's not the cause."
Once you're convinced that GHGs are the primary cause, then the next question becomes, "Why are GHGs increasing?" and so on.
Play Command HQ online
Here is my theory. Make that a hypothesis. Okay! I admit it! Here is my >**wacky daydream**: what they were really up to was an attempt, based upon various predictions by some scientists, to print a book that won't be obsolete in 5 years.
A-mommy-ness
"but propaganda will never work against intelligent people
That belief is exactly why propaganda DOES work on intelligent people. Skepticisim is an important tool for spotting propaganda and pseudo-scientific claims, self-skepticisim is an essential tool.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
would TIME make such a huge mistake? It couldn't possibly be doomsdayism about AGW, well, because IT'S TRUE, WE ARE WRECKING THE PLANET WITH CO2!!!
Don't worry, in 30 years nobody's going to mind or remember much about your "activist days".
--
On one side you have grant-whores and alarmists, who have taken this reasonable observation and hyped it more-and-more over the last fifteen years into some increasingly alarmist Chicken Little hyperbole. On the other side you have a bunch of bible-thumping right-wing corporatists who think that if we just let mega-corporations do whatever the fuck they want (including pumping whatever shit into the air they feel like), then we would all live in some libertarian utopia.
You sound like a disillusioned liberal sheep that's trying to come to terms with reality while still clutching onto the propaganda you've been fed since elementary school. Maybe you should check out who's actually on the right and what we actually believe rather than sticking to stereotypes that lead you to join the left in the first place. If you want a simple place to start, read Atlas Shrugged - all our ideals are there (without the liberal bias of what those ideals *really* are).
The very high end is what I am talking about here. Perhaps my definition of moron is somewhat broader than yours, which makes me less tolerant than you.
There's no point to the distinction. No one is that smart in every facet of life and every endeavor. The propagandists of the 20th Century didn't catch just "morons" in their net, but a lot of high end intellectuals as well.
Except that 9 of the 10 hottest years in our measurements have been after 1998.
1998 was a statistical fluke, an out-lier, due to a very active El-Nino during that particular year. In 2010, the same temperature was reached under very average circumstances.
Perhaps everything is just within the realm of long term statistics. Last winter was the 9th coldest on record. In our S New Mexico desert we had to cut down 8 tall Italian cypress trees that had been fine since planted in 1984; they froze in record -12 degree cold.
Self-skepticism is difficult. At lest to do objectively.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
They'd simply start growing grapes and such, right?
About the time you could grow wheat in Greenland, you could grow Grapes in England.
It might seem odd, but look at maps of the world - warmer temperatures actually increase viable cropland, there's lots and lots of land in Siberia, Canada, and Alaska that could be farmed if temperatures were a bit warmer. Growing seasons would increase for states like North Dakota, and even in Florida the orange belt would widen a bit.
Does that even out the loss of coastal areas due to the rise of ocean level? Probably not. We have plenty of farm land as is.
My personal solution ties neatly with other issues - I hate the pollution of coal plants, so I'd be replacing them with other power sources such as nuclear.
I don't read AC A human right
It is very difficult in science to get published with a different outcome to previously published results regardless of thoroughness. And by previously published I really mean "established" bias. History of science is rife with many examples of ideas that where blocked at the post as it where only to be found out they were right all a long years later.
/. seem to think we are. In fact those scientists only exist in movies.
Scientist are *just* like everyone else. We have agendas, we not objective (this author never does anything worth while: reject without reading), we are unscientific (just find a "significant difference", i need that professorship), we are seriously stuck in our dogma (I know that is wrong). I could go on. But you get the idea.
We are *not* this group of objectively minded "for the science" folk who are all for the pure pursuit of knowledge that many here in
"In God we trust, the rest of you show me the data", is a nice ideal, but the reality is that if you don't write up your results in a politically correct enough manner it will difficult to even get reviewed let alone accepted. If you write politically enough, data is optional. (Nature even published a paper on Homeopathy!--yea real credible and prestigious)
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Perhaps my definition of moron is somewhat broader than yours, which makes me less tolerant than you.
It seems you define moron as "someone who disagrees with me".
This brings to mind a great tactic that could be used undermine climate change research:
Scientist 1 publishes a grim study with inflated numbers.
Scientist 2 reveals that Scientist 1 is wrong.
Incident is used to discredit all climate studies.
Look! It's not about global warming at all! The noise is deliberately promoted to cover the truth: if we don't start, very fucking soon!, to build every conceivable form of non-carbon fuel energy production, in other words, nuclear, solar, and wind power plants, and in a very big way, we are headed into a very grim future. Mass starvation, followed by world war like nothing this planet has ever seen. This "energy crunch" will happen way before our carbon forcing has any effect. Clue up people!!!
And for you worshipers of the "free market" this situation is a perfect example of how blind allegiance to the invisible hand can lead you into a very dead end. Our only hope is that the govt. for once does the right thing and forces us to spend the money to build these plants despite the fact that they will never compete with fossil fuel energy. Once they are built, though, eventually the marginal cost of their energy will be thousands of times less then that of fossil fuels. On the other hand, if we wait until that situation obtains *before* commencing their construction, it will be way too late. Way too late.
Social Credit would solve everything...
"global temperatures haven't risen since 1998"
There is no point in making this claim. The scientists will refute it with copious data, and the deniers will bring out their own.
Half right.
The deniers will not bring any data, because they don't have any.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Ayn Rand was an Atheist.
Just don't tell the Tea Partiers.
The Tea Partiers know it, thanks. I don't know how it works on the left, but on the right, we recognize that just because you're right about one thing doesn't mean that you're right about everything, or that just because you came up with a really good idea, it doesn't mean that I have to agree with all your ideas.
The trouble is, you Tea Partiers agree with the things Ayn Rand was horribly, awfully wrong about, and disagree with just about the only sensible thing she ever said, which is that religion is bullshit.
If you want a simple place to start, read Atlas Shrugged - all our ideals are there (without the liberal bias of what those ideals *really* are).
So your ideals are that a handful of ultra-capable ubermenschen are the Real True Heroes and all society should be subordinate to them? That everything will collapse if they decide to run away in a fit of pique because their egos aren't getting stroked enough? That seems to be the most central message of Atlas Shrugged, after all.
They might actually notice that the URL says that this really is the "TimeS Atlas".
OK, maybe some of the recent publicity for Rupert's media outlets hasn't exactly been 100% positive, but at least this'll sell some books.
Agreed, and if you argue with yourself too loudly you may find yourself sitting next to Tyler Durden on plane.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You've got it almost right.
Except for one thing. Corporatism, Crony Capitalism and Rent Seeking are not a problem more on the right than the left. The right (neocon conservative) embrace it, the left denies that when they are in charge that it's a problem, or simply explain that it can be "fixed" when they get into power (which is a bunch of crap, they can't fix it).
Getting raw data from climatologists or researchers is impossible. In some infamous cases, the raw data was destroyed. In virtually every other case the requests for data are ignore or refused.
That argument is singularly disingenuous.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The guys from the Times Atlas of the World made a fucking mistake. It's just a fucking mistake!
Of course, since it involves polar ice melting, all the global warming deniers have an excuse for screaming "OMG! Climate alarmism! We're all going to diiiiiie!". And yet another futile argument about the whole thing begins, with the deniers using every piece of biased, partial or out-of-context data, every strawman, every logical pitfall, or straight out lying.
Why is this on Slashdot, anyway? Is it "stuff that matters"?
Both sides have taken to over-exaggerating and over-hyping every bit of evidence they touch. And I've come to distrust them both.
Congratulations, you've become like the big-oil corporations want you. Paralysed and numb. Don't do anything, the Invisible Hand of the Free Markets will make problems fix themselves.
Informative? Are we giving mod points to second graders?
This is the new Slashdot. the categories have no meaning. The new categories might as well be +1 "I agree" or -1 "I hate you".
"One of them is even reputable"
Did the others lose their reputation for agreeing with the token "ok to disagree" guy?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Global warmin is either correct, or it is not. I don't see how you can be agnostic about it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The data wasn't destroyed, you bloody moron. The researchers in question didn't keep their redundant paper copy because they could just go and get it again from the original sources in a digital format and they were going to have to pay to have it moved, then pay to have it verified and refiled out of a budget that had been cut by political opponents who didn't even want the subject studied.
Getting raw data from climatologists or researchers is impossible. In some infamous cases, the raw data was destroyed. In virtually every other case the requests for data are ignore or refused.
That argument is singularly disingenuous.
This is a lie.
Type "raw climate data" into google.
The first link is http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
Have an apropriate amount of fun.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
There was a study, and I don't recall enough info about it to cite, that found that belief in ridiculous crap (UFO's, spiritualism, etc.) was MORE common as education levels and intelligence rose... although it dropped off again at the very high end of both.
That's simply because you need some level of intelligence to be capable of interest in anything as relatively abstract as those. Truly stupid people can't think beyond their immediate family and the next meal or app download.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Is there anything, absolutely anything at all, that Global Warming supporters don't lie about or get wrong? There is no science or any scientific method in anything they publish; it's just one fraud after another.
Perhaps my definition of moron is somewhat broader than yours, which makes me less tolerant than you.
You're safe amongst friends on slashdot so you can just say what you think :I am cleverer than everyone in the world with the possible exception of Linus Torvalds, although even he didn't create Linux until his twenties, whereas I could install Ubuntu aged four.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They lost their reputation in the standard way -- by being idiots.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
15% of Greenland's glaciers = 1 meter of sea level? WRONG! The math doesn't work out, unless the glaciers are hundreds of kilometers thick, which they aren't.
There's no such thing as unbiased history. It's more biased than environmental science, even. Just some guy's opinion about stuff that happened long ago.
There is no such thing as unbiased science either. Just look at the historical evidence.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Thermometer readings are not subject to interpretation. The post-processing is, but that part can be replicated in some lab in Oslo.
Well, for a start, thermometer readings from more than a few hundred years ago don't even exist. The argument is not over the verifiable recent figures, it's their extrapolation.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Addressing the gravitational acceleration on the surface of the earth and attempting to determine whether a global warming is being caused by man are two VERY different questions. I mean the latter is the REAL question. It's not whether there *is* climate change or not (there is and always has been), it's whether mankind is causing it and, if so, what can be done about it. And it's very hard to come up with a hard science answer to those questions. You can model it, but models depend in large part on certain assumptions made by the modelers, the accuracy of the model, etc. And scientists have a terrible track record of predicting the future.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
None of it matters. Either we will develop the technology to make it non-issue (we already have far cleaner air than 50 years ago with a lot more industry and people, and that trend will continue), or civilization will dissolve into anarchy, also solving the problem by greatly reducing CO2 output. No reason to remake economies on this.
It's pretty clear that you haven't any sort of clue whatsoever, as you're willing to spew ignorant bullshit like the above.
And it's pretty clear you have no clue how science works in the REAL world. Scientists aren't robots; they're human beings who want tenure, grants, jobs, the respect of the colleagues, etc. And you're not going to get ANY of those things if you're the one guy challenging (or even subtly questioning) the groupthink.
Believe me, I saw it time and again when I was in academia. Some grad students had their tongue so far up their committee's asses that a quick turn could break their necks. I saw professors so desperate to publish that they would force all their grad students to put their names on any paper the student delivered or published, whether or not the prof. had ever even *seen* said paper (the term "Publish or perish" didn't come out of nowhere, you know). Do you REALLY think that's the kind of environment that encourages true HONESTY and intellectual debate? Hardly. Disagreeing with the wrong person could stop your career dead in its tracks, regardless of how well you could support your contentions.
And it's even *worse* in the private sector, where disagreeing with your employer or challenging them is the quickest way to the unemployment line.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How is that implied? I have not offended the person I was replying to and was merely offering my own point of view. Toonol disagreed with me, I clarified my position, and that's that. He doesn't have to accept it, or even like it. FYI having a different point of view is not "trolling". Having a discussion is not a "flamewar". You are reading a little more into my post than you should, in my opinion.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Okay for those of you for whom science wasn't your primary interest, a quick refresher. First there's a phenomenon. You observe it. Then you come up with a theory to explain it. Next you create an experiment to test your theory. You collect data.
If the environmental scientists were the only ones talking, it would be significant, but scientist from virtually every field of scientist are making contributions to the larger conversation of global climate change and now doctors, economists, geologist, meteorologists, chemists, biologists, sociologist, ecologists and computer scientists are saying important things about climate change as each adds new pieces to the puzzle.
When did "conversation" replace "experiment" in science? Exactly what experiments did the economists bring to the table?
I think the idea is probably that the economists, sociologists, and computer scientists join in the conversation in order to find a way of coping with the effects of climate change in the future.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
"OMG! Climate alarmism! We're all going to diiiiiie!"
No, more like "Calm down, people. We're NOT all going to diiiiie."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We need another decade or two of study before we commit strongly either way. This will allow the science to be improved, and will (hopefully) cause the pop-culture aspect of the controversy to fade. The best thing that could happen for climate science is for both the public and the politicians to STOP CARING about it.
In the meantime, of course, nothing we do could possibly be making things worse, and so we might as well wait a few hundred years to really get the science right. As we'll probably get hit by an asteroid before then, there's no need to worry.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Most of the records broken this summer in Texas were set in the 20's.
Anyone who lives in TX and pays attention to the weather broadcasts knows this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I love it when a moron talks about intelligent people. Such a contrast!
"When did that even become a hard science?". It has always been. Don't confuse your own ignorance with reality. Just because you had not heard of it does not mean it has not existed before then.
You act as if you are above the whole issue just because "each side" seems too polarized. You seem to consider yourself a rational person, yet discount arguments because of fringe crazies. If you bothered to look behind the media spectacle you will see an academic discipline (yes, a hard science) where the core foundations of climate change as not even being disputed anymore due to conclusive evidence.
But it's great that you can feel superior to everybody because you don't believe in either side. The world really needs more people like you who silently judge and purely complain....
I can not help but wonder if anyone has considered what the environment was like when Greenland was named.
What I really find entertaining is the tree rings. They used those as proxies up until, what, the late sixties? Then, for some reason for which I have not heard an explanation, the Trees decided to stop playing nice and NOT agree with the temps they were measuring.
So they kept the earlier measurements from when the trees were playing nice and ditched them when the trees stopped cooperating.
If tree rings are bad proxies now, they are bad proxies in the past.
What I really want to know is how all these trees got together and decided to fuck up the measurements.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Let's make it clear, I'm here to play the science game, not the policy game. If the questions I'm asking are ridiculous for policy makers, it's because they're not interested in what the scientific method provides here.
Even with this question, the null hypothesis is "the same causes that have been in effect during other periods of warming before humanity existed". Those causes don't have to be specified, and moreover, are probably too numerous and chaotic to be specified in detail.
Now, you may ask separate sub questions, like "Are solar fluctuations the proximate cause of the current warming?" or "Are cosmic ray variations the proximate cause of the current warming?" or "Are GHG variations the proximate cause of the current warming?" - in each case, the null hypothesis is "current warming has the same causes as in effect during other periods of warming before humanity existed."
Thus far, the assumption that solar and cosmic radiation cannot account for 100% of the observed warming recently does not provide much support to the idea that human emitted GHGs do account for 100%, or 50%, or really any defined magnitude. After all, nature found a way to have rapid periods of warming in the past (and rapid periods of cooling in the past), without having to resort to human SUV emissions.
That all being said, if you're convinced that GHGs are the primary cause (>50%?), why do you suppose CO2 lags temperature changes in the ice core record?
I forget, what experiment did they do with the Earth?
How exactly is AGW falsifiable?
Where exactly is your proof? Hint, I don't have to prove you are wrong, you have to prove you are right.
And remember, as we have all heard here a billion times, correlation =! causation.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/05/new-sea-level-page-from-university-of-colorado-now-up/
In fact, it's actually flattening. Remember, this is supposed to be the hottest 10 years in the last 10,000 or whatever.
This may have to with additional Antarctic accretion, or a reversal of thermal expansion driven by the La Ninas. But it seems likely that the current sea level regime will not change a whole lot as long as we have an isolated polar continent -- we are still firmly in the grip of the Antarctica-driven glaciation cycles that began some tens of millions ago. So long term, I'm much more worried about massive new glaciers forming in, say, Canada and Norway, than whether we lose some in Greenland. Cold has generally been a much harsher foe to humankind than warmth.
Layzej wrote:
>[Reporting the Greenland glacial measurement error] is certainly above and
>beyond the call of duty
No, it is not. It their obligation.
Kinda of hard to take serious a guy who's looking to talk with little green aliens on his home PC.
NOTE TO CLIMATE ALARMISTS: You need to get over the fact that your dire predictions are simply wrong. These predictions were based on careless analysis and gross extrapolation of bad data using flawed computer models. The climate is changing. So what!!! Stop bilking tax payers with alarmist rhetoric and go back to doing honest research and analysis. It's about time that you accept that the physics behind your computer models is incomplete and flawed. Do honest research and stop with the Chicken Little crap already! The world is tired of hearing your shrill, whiny voices!
"... starting to slowly warm." BS: Scientists have known for over a hundred years that the earth has been warming since the last glacial age with punctuated periods of extra warming & cooling. The idea that the earth has "suddenly" warmed is nonsense. Alarmists are quick to point to the documented rise in CO2, a weak greenhouse gas, as the culprit while the evidence seems to show that the warming precedes the rise in CO2 historically. Neither CO2 levels or temperatures are anywhere near historical maxims as measured on a geologic scale. We don't know yet if some portion of the temp. rise is due to human activity or even if its a bad thing as another Ice Age would be infinitely worse than a warm period. Much more unbiased study is needed before we ever consider throwing civilization off a cliff in pursuit of a "green" future.
No,
but it does mean that every single 'discovery' to come out of that research should be taken with an appropriately sized dose of salt - until we actually get there and can verify all of them...
Would I want my entire future bet on an assumption from that research? No. Is it science to say "well that's as close as we can get right now - so lets call it fact and laugh at anybody who disagrees"? No.
I won't bother with the name-calling either.
Yes, and it's not like NASA data was changed completely revised a few years ago, or anything. Oh no.
snip
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-noaa-and-nasa-complicit-in-data-manipulation/?singlepage=true
And it's not like NASA did any of that on purpose or anything... while it was headed by James Hansen. Go google THAT name and see what biases he brought to the table.
And here's a site showing what is supposed to be the same data - published in 2000, then published again in 2009 - the whole graph has changed very noticeably.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/contiguous-u-s-gistemp-linear-trends-before-and-after/
I haven't seen anyone try this since then, but I haven't looked.
Ok,
Side A) Extreme environmentalists claiming the world is ending.
Side B) Extreme ostriches burying their heads in the sand.
As technology advances the dates move out. We are impacting our world, and as a result the world is changing. Cheetahs are on the brink of extinction because over a millennium of human based damage. Now we are finding ways to hopefully save the populations.
Wolves decimated to isolated parts of the world, now we are reintroducing them.
Trees and forests blemished and killed because of man made causes of various reasons. Yes, while it is still happening today, many are starting to do something about it.
No matter what side you are on, if you have half a brain you cannot claim we are not affecting the world. That being said, I don't believe throwing money around like morons is going to actually do anything.
This is also not the first instance of this, the superfund meant to clean up toxic wastes from the past was spent on lawyers pointing fingers at each other saying who is doing what instead of solving the problems.
Solutions are not going to take place in the realm of politics debates, it needs to be resolved with improving technology via modest tax incentives that reduce environmental (Not just carbon) impact and grants to companies that can make green technology cheaper and cleaner.
This contradicts computer simulation--the primary source of current global warming consensus
Computer simulations have never been accurate. Not once. Not even close. To date, simulations have only ever been able to accurately simulate a historical perspective - but only AFTER historical data has been provided AND the computer simulation has been tweaked and/or modified to properly simulate what actually happened. Factually, anyone who bases their opinion on computer simulations to any degree is by definition a i-d-i-o-t.
Yes, and those records are well below the temperature this year. The claim was that there have been droughts this bad before. I asked when that was. It wasn't in the 20s.
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but it does mean that every single 'discovery' to come out of that research should be taken with an appropriately sized dose of salt - until we actually get there and can verify all of them...
"If I can't touch it it ain't real." You do realize we'll never be able to touch the interior of Jupiter or the interior of a star, yet we understand far more about how a star works than we do about how a nerve cell works. We can model stellar interiors with great accuracy down to how sound waves propagate through them. We can compare them with surface oscillations that we measure. You bet your life on things that we understand less well than stars every day.
Compared with understanding the effects of a new drug, climatology is the model of certainty.
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Stop pretending your questions haven't been answered. Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing. While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations. And the rest.
But that won't stop you from posting the same nonsense on the next article about climate.
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Bullshit. When stations go missing you discard all prior data from that station, unless you've got a new station within a short distance. The hockey stick has been confirmed many many times. You see why we get tired of refuting the same claims you were making 10 years ago. You are repeating things that are untrue. In other words, you are a lying troll.
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Kinda hard to a serious a guy who has no qualifications what so ever and posts anonymously.
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You know, the one where all the scientists were absolutely sure we were headed for another ice age and anyone who thought otherwise was in denial.
Given that it never happened and is something invented by denialists, it is annoying to have to repeated refute denialist trolls. Global cooling was a minority position held by some climatologists that reporters trumped up. The vast majority of climate papers in the 1970s predicted warming. But again, you won't let facts get in the way of making these claims on the next article.
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I think the real issue here is that the only folks getting any media coverage fall into the two camps you've described. Unfortunately, anyone who's beliefs fall in the middle aren't extreme enough to create a sufficiently eye-catching headline from. I was watching a Dennis Miller stand up routine last night and he summed up the controversy by saying he "doesn't know" but that he's reluctant to believe everything the scientists are saying because do we really trust the ability of scientists taking temperature measurements 100 years ago to be as precise as the ones today. I think there's some truth to that not to mention that at one point in our history climatologists were saying we're on the verge of an ice age....Let's just step back, take a deep breath and keep looking at EVERYTHING.
What started out as a well-supported observation that the earth was starting to slowly warm...
Actually that's just the recent history, going back to, say, the early '80s. The dogma before then was that human action was forcing the next Ice Age early, particularly through sulfur dioxide emissions from burning coal increasing the reflectivity of clouds. And it was a very big thing, e.g. strongly influencing the science fiction of the time.
While your characterization of the environmentalists is more or less accurate (except that they've been pushing this since the '60s or so and they're essentially a religious cult) I think you've constructed a straw man for the "other side". Ignoring the tiny fraction of people who are Objectivists let alone the small fraction who are that sort of extreme libertarian, your idea that the other side blindly trusts "mega-corporations" is entirely without foundation.
Seriously, do you think we're that stupid or naive? Suffix something with big- or mega- and we're less inclined to view it favorably, let alone trust it. Although we at least (mostly) don't object to the very ideas of capitalism or profit, so corporation are not born with some form of Original Sin.
Last winter was the 9th coldest on record.
No it wasn't.
Oh you mean where you are?
Not having much luck with that "global" concept are you?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Stop pretending your questions haven't been answered. Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; humans are now the dominant forcing. While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations. And the rest.
But that won't stop you from posting the same nonsense on the next article about climate.
Humans are not and will never be the dominant forcing to climate change. The sun will always be at the top. And quit citing from just one source site. Makes you look stupid.
All it takes is a simple google search
This is the THIRD worst, behind 1918 and 1956
Or you can go spelunking in the data here
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
So you seriously think that 0K is a reasonable temperature for the surface of the Earth?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
And, amazingly enough, I've got this jackass on Slashdot conflating the two....
We're between ice ages. It is suppose to warm up. At the height of the last ice age, the sea levels were ~40 meters lower than they are now. The sea level has risen as the ice recedes. Somehow the reefs have kept up with but you hear nothing but weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over any change that impacts the reefs. It has happened before. It is happening now. And the cycle will happen again.
What I really want to know is how all these trees got together and decided to fuck up the measurements.
One hypothesis: Humans have messed up salmon spawning cycles. We overfish. We dam rivers. We do all sorts of things to interfere with salmon reaching the forests where they formerly spawned. When fish die after spewing, they are eaten by animals such as bears. Those bears then go elsewhere and defecate. The nutrients in their waste, over years, decades, and centuries is an important factor in the growth rates of trees. Those nutrients, transported by the salmon to the forest and distributed initially by animals form a huge net transport of nutrients from one system to another. One could then hypothesize that this might be related to changes in tree ring growth.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Do you work for the Onion...no, really, do you?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
As a Texan, I can tell you that this is the worst 12 month drought on record. Spelunking indeed: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/hazards/2011/8
There have been longer droughts (1956) but this is certainly the worst the state has been through in a 12 month stretch since record keeping began.
Fascinating. Look at the Vostok core too. I linked to it elsewhere. The common factor is not absolute temperature, it's the natural variability in the system that's important. I'm aware that ANY evidence showing this kind of variability is generally considered suspect by catastrophists. Whenever you get real world data that contradicts your hypothesis, it's the data that's wrong, not the hypothesis.
Come now. That's a ridiculous assertion to make. The ice caps are far colder than -6F! Moreover, the extra heat will increase water vapour, which will increase cloud cover, which will reduce incoming solar radiation. The IPCC assume clouds are a +ve feedback, but now we've had 3 papers in a row showing that they aren't (Lindzen & Choi, Spencer and now Allan). Moreover, the cooling effect of clouds is something like 17 times the magnitude of the warming affect of the back-radiation assumed to contribute to warming. This is new science (published only the other day). It's completely ignored by the models. It's completely ignored by scientists like Trenberth. It's completely ignored by the catastrophists and I have no doubt it will be completely ignored by you as well.
But, as this argument continues, scientists are doing some excellent work. At CERN (the CLOUD experiment) particularly. Showing how cosmic rays increase the frequency of CCN. More work to do, but if this can account for even a 1% change in cloud cover, it can account for much of the Earth's internal variability over the medium term.
So no, the jury is still out. The science isn't "in". The consensus is wrong and it will slowly fall apart as people peel off to start getting back to what they were doing before; not producing propaganda for the Environmental movement and their various financial interests (including Goldman and Enron, with their trading desks), but proper science motivated by a desire to answer questions and enrich Humanity with knowledge.
Not to pick nits, but it isn't the TIME atlas (as in TIME magazine, owned by Time Warner), it's the Times atlas (as in The Times, the UK newspaper owned by Murdoch's News Corporation).
It's published by HarperCollins, part of News Corporation. Not that I necessarily want to reinforce your perception of it being written by moronic reporters, but that's the same News Corp who own Fox. Fun times.
To be honest, I stopped looking in 2009. I had a very hard time finding anything raw.
Many of the links at realclimate are processed data, but they have some gaps, caused by the sources.
And yes, it takes a while to paw through it to figure out what is and isn't available, how it seemed to be collected, and what gaps, if any, there are and what they might mean.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Denialist trolls over at the Scott Polar Institute will believe whatever they want to. We all know all the "real" scientists have a consensus. /sarcasm
In other words, they destroyed copies because they could always get the original data.
I was not thinking of ONE specific instance. But you seem to refer to the UEA incident in 2009. From the Sunday Times article of 11/29/09:
"The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals â" stored on paper and magnetic tape â" were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building."
I'm still confused, did they dump the original data? Well, their comment was, from the NYT of 10/14/09:
"According to CRU's Web site, "Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data."
I've read this snippet a few times. I still don't understand it. It just seems they stated 'we manipulate the data to make sense of it, scrub the anomalies, and then we delete the original data since we don't use it anyways, it's too noisy to be useful.
My dear cousin, the doctoral statistician working in the pharmaceutical industry, sometimes regaled me with stories of the lengths that researchers would to to to make data out of noise, or make favorable data out of unfavorable, or just make it up. Her job was to identify these attempts so her bosses knew to trust the data or make them do it over. We last talked about this in 2007, and she was not impressed with the manipulations she saw in these climate models. But she wouldn't come right out and say they were gaming the data, just that they were looking for the evidence they expected to see. And that doesn't always mean they are wrong. And some data, she kept warning me, just needs to be massaged.
Yeah, in other words it's too complicated. Trust them. With everything.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
How exactly is AGW falsifiable?
Show that an increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere won't cause an increase in energy retained by the Earth.
It's true that correlation != causation but often it's a big hint that the relationship should be investigated.
Rankine.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
What's that you say? Prove a negative?
Except GISS data is "adjusted" to show more recent warming, and without open data and processing methods, people and scientists distrust James "Coal Trains are Death" Hansen, who heads it.
This data F*****P has made Berkeley Earth Station Temperatures project morally and scientifically necessary, which aims to correct this mess with honest, open data. But it will take a few more years.
http://berkeleyearth.org/
If "1998 is an outlier," then what was 1976? "The Great Climate Shift?" And what about before CO2 gasses? The Great Depression resulted in a global retraction of industry powered by coal, and yet the 1930s in the US was warmer, generated more record high temperatures by state than any other decade? Why didn't it cool? What hasn't any recent decade resulted in more record high temps, as AGW theory (REALLY: Enhanced Greenhouse Effect), predicts?
CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. That is easily shown in the lab. You have to show why it doesn't do that in the atmosphere and show that another mechanism is responsible for the warming that has been documented.
Are you willing to pay for the instrumentation it would take to actually observe the heat in the oceans? Say one probe for every 100 square miles of ocean? That would amount to nearly 1.4 million probes.
As the article you linked said there is a gap between the incoming sunlight and the outgoing radiation as measured by satellites. All of the energy in that gap has to be going somewhere. If it isn't the deep oceans then where is it? It hasn't left the planet or the satellites would have seen it.
Try the Global Historical Climate Network: (weather station records from around the world, temperature and precipitation) as referenced at RealClimate.
To be fair to the AC, he/she is right. If you're going to use percentages on temperatures then you have to use an absolute temperature scale like Kelvin. Using 300 K as an approximation is reasonable as the average surface temperature is about 288 K.
After commenting on the Kelvin issue I had to respond to AC.
Perhaps we've used half the relatively easily available petroleum but we haven't used anywhere near half the coal or natural gas. And that's not even considering things like oil shale and tar sands. The problem is self limiting but not at any CO2 level below 1000 ppmv.
They are able to pick that signal out of natural variation by the fact that the known things like ENSO and PDO are cyclical and tend to wash out over longer time periods.
An IR photon absorbed by a CO2 molecule is later re-radiated in a random direction and often at different wavelengths. Nearly half of that re-radiation heads back to the surface to be radiated again. Some of that re-radiated energy will be absorbed by another CO2 molecule before it hits the surface or leaves the atmosphere and the process repeats. By increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere you increase the density of CO2 thus increasing the chances that a re-radiated photon will be absorbed again. In effect it slow the photon's path out of the atmosphere which is reflected by an increase in temperature.
BerkelyEarth.org's initial findings show:
A preliminary analysis of 2% of the Berkeley Earth dataset shows a global temperature trend that goes up and down with global cycles, and does so broadly in sync with the temperature records from other groups such as NOAA, NASA, and Hadley CRU.
I'll admit they have a lot of analysis yet to do but I'd bet money they won't find anything drastically different when they're done than what has been reported by those other groups.
Too bad yourmommycalled has such low karma. What (s)he said there is accurate.
Problem is from 1965 to 1979 there were over 40 peer reviewed papers published on global warming and only 7 on global cooling. The global cooling meme got a big writeup in Time and Newsweek but it was never prevalent in the scientific community. Here is a study on that.
... swell foop ...
Heh! Was that on purpose or did you commit a spoonerism?
And yes, it takes a while to paw through it to figure out what is and isn't available, how it seemed to be collected, and what gaps, if any, there are and what they might mean.
That's what raw means.
You think Harry was having fun?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The same cause as all the other times throughout history the climate has changed?
You do know it has been a lot warmer just during the Holocene (last 10000 years)?
ARGOS observes, and hasn't seen the "missing heat" enter the deep oceans.
Observation trumps modeling.
it's in my head
The Argo system of oceanographic probes only go down 2 km (6500 feet). The average depth of the oceans is over 12,000 feet.
How do you suggest that the warmer waters manage to skip 2000 meters?
Please do science, not religion.
it's in my head
Heat in the ocean is transported primarily by convection, that is by water currents. The heat is transported down to the depths in limited places. The Argo probes aren't ubiquitous enough to capture all of the dynamics of ocean heat transport.
No, not all. But almost: http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/About_Argo.html
Please study what's known as the scientific method before replying. What you're saying is the same as proclaiming that science cannot disprove the existence of God.
it's in my head
Huh? I don't believe that science has anything to say about the existence of God since it is a supernatural phenomenon and science is all about natural phenomena.
I know the scientific method just fine thank you. Deployment of the current set of Argo probes was not completed until November 2007 so I'm not sure there has been enough time to collect enough data and analyze all of it yet. I look forward to the science that will be coming out of that dataset in the future.
Thank you for proving my point.
it's in my head
What point would that be?
That you don't understand the scientific method. You should've immediately recognized the comparison of what you wrote to proving the non-existence of God.
Please stick to science, even when you don't agree with the conclusions. Anything else is faith.
it's in my head
Tree rings aren't the only proxies - I believe that up to 12 data sets from different sources were used. Tree rings are the only ones that, so far, have shown inconsistency from the rest. and only since the "60s