2011 Was the 9th Hottest Year On Record

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2011 Was the 9th Hottest Year On Record

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 20, 2012 @11:10AM from the maybe-we're-just-really-competitive dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "Last year was the 9th hottest year out of the past 130, according to NASA and the NOAA. That's no coincidence: nine out of the ten hottest years on record have been since the year 2000. It's long past time to face facts: the Earth is getting hotter, and to deny it is an exercise in fantasy."

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The open question... by symbolset · 2012-01-20 11:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

Is it a bad thing? Or did we just dodge an ice age?

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Help stamp out iliturcy.
1. Re:The open question... by Troed · 2012-01-20 11:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Why are you under the impression that global warming won't increase the amount of arable land?
  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
  
  --
  it's in my head
2. Re:The open question... by Troed · 2012-01-20 11:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You do know it doesn't take humans a century to build a farm, right? It's also a very parallelizable activity. There's simply no basis in facts for your statement, which makes me wonder what your intention with posting it would be.
  
  --
  it's in my head
3. Re:The open question... by DrVomact · 2012-01-20 11:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why are you under the impression that global warming won't increase the amount of arable land?
  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
  Bingo. One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences. That's extremely improbable. Even if we grant that these theories are correct, it's clear that their proponents stress the negative impact because they need to induce fear to motivate funding and to justify the additional bureaucratic power that they crave.
  
  --
  Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
4. Re:The open question... by bky1701 · 2012-01-20 11:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Now they just claim it isn't caused by humans. Global warming deniers are the new creationists - moving goalposts every time they are proven wrong because they can't stand what science is telling them. They have zero credibility.
  
  --
  Great Intellect...
5. Re:The open question... by Fwipp · 2012-01-20 11:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It takes a long while to turn sand into soil.
6. Re:The open question... by yurtinus · 2012-01-20 11:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Woah... That's not bad for rented fingers. Who's your supplier? I've been looking for a decent set.
  
  --
  +1 Disagree
7. Re:The open question... by Tsingi · 2012-01-20 12:00 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Now they just claim it isn't caused by humans. Global warming deniers are the new creationists - moving goalposts every time they are proven wrong because they can't stand what science is telling them. They have zero credibility.
  But there are lots of them
8. Re:The open question... by J+Story · 2012-01-20 12:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If we are entering another warming spell, as in the Middle Ages, then Canada definitely stands to benefit. Canada is the second largest country in the world, but a large area is only sparsely inhabited because it's simply too cold. In all likelihood, a warmer north with allow greater exploration and uncover new oil reserves. Canadians who want to stop global warming (assuming it's possible) are working against the country's best interests.
9. Re:The open question... by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-01-20 12:10 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences.
  You are confusing two different groups of people.
  Climate scientists are pointing out that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere increases the temperature, and that this is well known, although the amount still has large error bars-- about plus or minus fifty percent, actually. These aren't "advocates;" this is science: ordinary, messy, plodding, data-intensive, science.
  For saying this, however, climate scientists are being attacked relentlessly. It's a politically driven argument, not a scientific argument, which means that it can't be refuted by any amount of data.
  There is another question, which is, what will the effects of this warming be? Since the deniers won't even credit that carbon dioxide has a warming effect at all, the odd result is that the ONLY people discussing the effects of temperature increase are the ones looking at negative effects. It's a one-sided debate because the other side has abdicated. They find it easier to attack the scientists than actually look at what the effects will be.
  I do predict, however, that eventually the terms of the debate will change, and the deniers will start changing their argument to "well, we may be increasing the temperature, but that's a good thing. We want to increase the temperature."
  Actually, I'm looking forward to that shift. First, I really would like to see both sides looking at effects. But, mainly, iI\t's a lot better than the "scientists are frauds and scientific results are a hoax and global warming is a scam" that is currently the argument.
  
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  http://www.geoffreylandis.com
10. Re:The open question... by trout007 · 2012-01-20 12:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I live in Florida and all we plant in is sand. All of those oranges tomatoes and strawberries are grown in sand.
  
  --
  I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
11. Re:The open question... by Daniel_Staal · 2012-01-20 12:21 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  There are good effects of global warming, and there are bad effects. It's sometimes hard to predict which are which. What we do know is that it is change, and a major one, to the support system which keeps the human race alive. Unmoderated change is likely to be a bad thing, and we know that lots of the effects will be bad. Best not to run the experiment with our only life-support system.
  Take the article you linked to: Ok, so that's an increase in arable land. This will be offset by other lands becoming less useful. The total might be higher or lower: Hard to say for sure. However, the Sahara doesn't have great soil, so even if it's wet enough to grow crops, it's unlikely to be as productive as, say, the American mindwest. Also, many plants are fairly picky about the conditions they grow in. Temperatures, elevation, type of soil, total rainfall, rainfall pattern, length of growing season, ratios of daylight to darkness during the growing season, all of these are known to impact the productivity of many crops. Taking a crop that grows well in one place and moving it someplace else often cuts yield significantly. Even if the total amount of arable land goes up, that doesn't mean we'll be able to grow more useful crops.
  Global warming is a massive uncontrolled experiment, and if it goes badly humanity will suffer for it. We don't necessarily know it will go badly, but it appears at least as likely as it going well. (In fact, it appears more likely, overall.) I'd rather avoid that type of situation.
  
  --
  'Sensible' is a curse word.
12. Re:The open question... by Courageous · 2012-01-20 12:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't trust any form of science when it's delivered in a political context.
  Your words "funny that's the one study you trust" is an example of confirmation bias.
  The short story is that there isn't a single pundit who won't happily grab the one "study" that confirms all his beliefs and croon it to the world while simultaneously ignoring every other story.
  This problem is worse than it might first appear. It is practically intrinsic to the inferential statistics used in modern studies such that 1 in N studies will, with a degree of reliability, produce exactly the wrong conclusion. The statistics aren't perfect. Drawing random samples from a normally distributed population will sometimes indeed produce samples not representative of the distribution itself. It happens.
  So normal science, even when practiced well, will occasionally throw the confirmation-bias favoring pundit and other Joe Schmoe a bone, and we end up with a nation of smug ignoramuses who preen about their confirmed beliefs, but who in fact know very little at all.
  Meh.
13. Re:The open question... by Gadget_Guy · 2012-01-20 12:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ...for all we know.
  That is the crucial part of your post. It is obvious that the scientists who study this field know more about it than the average person. So why do the people who admit they don't understand the issue keep wanting to claim that the scientists are wrong.
  They claim to be sceptics, but they invariably accept without question the findings that match what they want to believe - that we might have dodged an ice age or it might not be warming as fast as predicted (even though they have to gloss over the part where it is getting warmer).
  Then they will make simplistic claims to argue against the scientific world as if the scientists never thought of that aspect, like that the temperature rise is just within the margin of error or that scientists hadn't considered that the temperature changes could be due to the sun. If only just one scientist would study the sun then we could settle this quickly. Oh wait, they do!
  Finally, they attempt to trivialise the problem by saying that all this fuss is just about being a tiny bit warmer, or that it is just about being less snow in the world. This ignores all the things that scientists predicted that is already occurring, like increased extreme weather events and various species dying out.
  My point is that this debate tends to be those who know what they are talking about and those who don't. If you were a sceptic, which side would you consider to be more trustworthy?
14. Re:The open question... by the+gnat · 2012-01-20 12:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  I do predict, however, that eventually the terms of the debate will change, and the deniers will start changing their argument
  You got the tense wrong - I've been noticing a steady shift in online arguments over the last few years. The sequence goes approximately like this:
  "The earth isn't warming, if anything it's getting colder."
  "Maybe the earth is warming, but this is due to (natural climate flucations|sunspots|God)."
  "Sure, CO2 emissions could be raising the global temperature, but we can't stop this without (totalitarian social engineering measures|China|reverting to a pre-industrial level of civilization)."
  "Sure, CO2 emissions are raising the global temperature, but is this really such a bad thing?"
  "Let's emit even more CO2 so we can make plants happy and grow bananas in Manitoba!"
  At this rate, in a few years I expect to see the "skeptics" claiming that we have a profound moral duty to avoid public transportation, run our SUV engines and AC in the parking lot, and convert all of our solar and wind facilities into coal-fired plants. (Think of all the Eskimo children who will be saved from hypothermia!)
15. Re:The open question... by mosb1000 · 2012-01-20 12:59 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  No it doesn't. Many plants grow in sand just fine. After a while you plow those under and they leave the trapped carbon in the soil. Then the soil is suitable for conventional cereal crops. I visited a farm in Africa where they were doing this. It takes a couple years at the most.
16. Re:The open question... by baileydau · 2012-01-20 13:02 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  So how come it is humans warming up the planet when the planet not only has been warmer in the past without humans, but has done so in the last 10,000 years before humans even had domesticated animals.
  I can believe our burning CO2 into the atmosphere is bad. the smog is a great example of that. However that doesn't mean that this isn't part of a normal warming and cool trend the planet goes through. In fact not a single person who supports Global warming will even look at such data.
  Of course the planet has been hotter / colder than now, but that's not really relevant. The climate scientists have been able to link / model the changes this time and a significant factor is the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, from my personal point of view, the rate of change is very significant. "Natural" climate change tends to be very slow, what we are experiencing now isn't.
  
  So water levels increase? It will be disastrous, but the majority will survive.
  Yes the majority will survive the (direct) effects of climate change. But that's not the point. It will cost us a "shed load" of money to adapt, move our cities / agricultural locations etc. from where they are now to wherever they need to go. That is the main point
  There will also be conflicts over land / resources. You used to be sitting on a great bit of agricultural land, now it's a desert, or under water. Or your major city no longer has a water supply. That's the problem we face.
  
  --
  Ever stop to think ... and forget to start again?
17. Re:The open question... by tragedy · 2012-01-20 13:23 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Umm yeah. Even if your oversimplified notion of how things will turn out for Canada comes true, you haven't considered the fact that Canada has a highly aggressive and heavily armed neighbour to the south which will suffer from global warming effects and may want to expand into other territory. Oh, and they have an irrational hatred of anything French.
18. Re:The open question... by Chris+Burke · 2012-01-20 13:26 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  So let me put it to you this way: The Earth's temperature is rising. So fucking what? It has been much higher in the past. Life not only survived - it kicked ass.
  What are you, some kind of earth-mother-worshiping hippie?
  Yeah, of course life will survive. It's survived far worse than we've thrown at it -- the KT event, the Oxygen Catastrophe -- and yet life kept on ticking.
  "So fucking what?" says the dinosaurs, says the anaerobic bacteria, says every species that went extinct while life went on.
  Life on earth is extremely robust. Individual species, not so much. Or just our societies. Frankly there's a wide range of consequences that I care about from the extinction of the human race to simple political upheaval as the locations of arable land change that I don't want to face; the fact that "life" will continue on blissfully uncaring not making one fucking bit of difference to me.
  
  --
  
  The enemies of Democracy are
19. Re:The open question... by Maow · 2012-01-20 14:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Ohs Nos! Those poor kids in Canada are going to go without 20 feet in snow!
  That 20 feet of snow becomes our drinking and irrigation water in the summer.
  Without it, there could easily be a month of no irrigation. That's a big fucking deal.
  And the further south you go in NA, the more months without irrigation / drinking water. Hope no-one plans on moving north when the water runs out in the south during the summers; by then the border might be as well guarded as the US / Mexico border.
20. Re:The open question... by chrb · 2012-01-20 14:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You link to an article that explains that in one particular region of the Sahara the localised effects of climate change may have caused more rain, and hence desert greening. This does not mean that the same thing will occur everywhere in the world. In fact, desertification is increasing. Consider some other recent evidence:
  climate change is making desertification "the greatest environmental challenge of our times"
  Australia suffers worst drought in 1,000 years
  THE GREAT DROUGHT OF 2011 Is America's Worst Since The Dust Bowl
  Africa drought pushes Kenya and Somalia into pre-famine conditions
  
  Predicting the world's overall changes in food production in response to elevated CO2 is virtually impossible. Global production is expected to rise until the increase in local average temperatures exceeds 3C, but then start to fall. In tropical and dry regions increases of just 1 to 2C are expected to lead to falls in production. In marginal lands where water is the greatest constraint, which includes much of the developing world but also regions such as the western US, the losses may greatly exceed the gains. Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
21. Re:The open question... by artor3 · 2012-01-20 15:01 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You clearly haven't thought this through.
  Let's say the new arable land is in the Sahara. Do you think all the midwestern American farmers will be happy to abandon their lives to go move to a foreign country? Or are we going to basically have a massive spike in unemployment while simultaneously waiting for natives of the area to learn the trade?
  How much will it cost to move all of the machinery to the new farms? And what about top soil? That doesn't grow overnight. Even if the climate in the Sahara makes it arable, that doesn't mean we'll be able to grow anything there for at least a few years.
  And how about distribution? How long will it take to replicate the American interstate highway system in a patchwork of third world countries?
  And how about the new cost of food, which has to be shipped to the US from overseas after centuries of us being able to feed ourselves?
  How about the plant species themselves, which have been selectively bred to thrive in certain environments which might not match the environments around the new farms?
  Even a few years of this would bring our country to its knees. Please try to actually think a position through before taking it. (And that goes double for you mods!)
22. Re:The open question... by blinking_at · 2012-01-20 19:09 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Sorry, I should've linked to the actual paper of course.
  High-Frequency Dynamics of Ocean pH: A Multi-Ecosystem Comparison
  These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100
  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028983
  The paper doesn't say what you think it says. It shows that there are wide variations in ocean acidity in the short term. The issue of the effect of long term changes in average acidity is not addressed. After all, we have daily and yearly temperature cycles -- but the polar caps are melting and the glaciers are retreating as a result of longer term average changes.
23. Re:The open question... by turkeyfish · 2012-01-20 19:32 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  If you actually read the article, the article made no such claim that "we have nothing to worry about". The fact that specific organisms may well at brief times be already experiencing pH levels not predicted for the ocean as whole until 2100 is not a particularly worry free finding, since it may indicate that such organisms are already near their tolerance levels for certain periods of time. The study also indicates that total dissolved CO2 may be far more important than pH and this is precisely what those who study fish behaviors are finding. High carbon dioxide concentrations severely impacts orientation behavior and response to sounds in juvenile fishes causing them to be much less able to locate suitable bottom types and avoid predation. Consequently, the article is consistent with the findings of others that 1) increasing carbon dioxide levels in the ocean have the potential to seriously disrupt ecosystems, even though pH may not be the prime driver and that 2) the consequences of increased carbon dioxide pollution must be further studied and an increasingly fine scale of measurement.
  Despite your over eagerness to misinterpret the findings to suit your ideology, your pointing the study out is appreciated.
24. Re:The open question... by turkeyfish · 2012-01-20 19:48 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  "What about all those areas that are going to become better farming land due to a warmer climate?"
  Yes, they sure do, and entire communities are now starving and moving out of Northern Mexico, but anyone who has spent anytime in West Texas and Oklahoma this past summer knows that the increasing heat and dryness also affected a lot of farmers north of the border.
  Keep in mind that we are presently coming out of a solar minimum and have had a prolonged La Nina event tied to the SO, yet even so we had the 9th highest year on record. Coming out of this natural cyclic cooling cycle will mean substantially warmer temperatures. All those folks in Texas and Oklahoma better be ready for some real heat and dryness, not the relatively cool spell they had this past summer. Hansen et all predict it will come in 2013 or 2014, given the past record of periodicity coupled with the constantly increasing warming trend.
  Watch for meat prices to climb.
25. Re:The open question... by SecurityTheatre · 2012-01-20 19:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Fertile land doesn't just suddenly spring up under rainfall.
  Farmland is the result of thousands of years of river flows, lake beds, animal and plant decay and sediment.
  A location that is currently a pure desert like the Sahara will NOT be possible to farm. Certainly a few semi-arid or seasonally arid regions may be slightly less arid, but there are almost no global climate models that support an increase in farmland.
  Many of the places that will thaw (Siberia, Northern Canada) have soils that are very alkali and not suitable for farming. Many of the other places are at high altitude and wouldn't be suitable anyway.
  The places that are most likely to become farmland in a scenario of temperature increase are river deltas which may dry up to some extent, and those regions that are semi-arid or seasonally arid, but an equal (or greater) number of those will dry up. Places like Texas and Oklahoma are most likely predicted to become much drier, but much more subject to violent storms. Places like Iowa and Kansas will likely dry up to resemble central Texas or Oklahoma, where soil requires extensive irrigation to grow anything of value. Places like Wyoming and Montana may benefit from increased rainfall due to the low pressure that results from changing currents, but those places have very poor soil and probably won't suddenly be a replacement for Iowa. Maybe southern Alberta would have a huge increase in the output of farmland, but northern Alberta has terrible soil (tar sand?) and Saskatchewan is spotted with rocky places with poor soil (badlands) just like the Dakotas.
  The point is.... I have never heard an actual climate scientist claim that every single spot on earth will become less hospitable. This is a political/simplistic polemic. In fact, the South Ocean stands to benefit hugely with really nice weather in the models I've seen, but there's no farmland there.
"On record" by Troed · 2012-01-20 11:15 · Score: 4, Informative

... for very short values of record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

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it's in my head
Re:Denial. by bky1701 · 2012-01-20 11:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Funny, because a lot of real scientists disagree with you. We know humans have influenced it. It's pretty simple, really. You get into politics when you start claiming "nobody knows" when, in fact, we have a damn good idea. Are you a creationist?

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Great Intellect...
Re:Sensationalism by Obfuscant · 2012-01-20 11:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

And this is the real crux of the issue. The only way we're going to be able to support 9+ billion people on this planet is if we keep things running pretty much the way it is now.
I think the point being made is that if it happened without us being here at all, there must be causes that we have no control over. If there are causes that we cannot control, it would be folly to waste the time and money trying to control what we cannot.
Xerxes ordered his slaves to whip the waves to keep the waves from coming in. He was trying to control something he couldn't in a way that wasted time and energy and probably lives. People who ignored the fact that the sand spit they were building million dollar houses on wasn't there 100 years ago are demanding that something "be done" to keep the spit from eroding today.
As a society, humans are very good at seeing "how things are today" and leaping to "this is how they should always be", even if that means "doing something that doesn't change what's happening".
4th coldest year? by Confusedent · 2012-01-20 11:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

If this is the 9th hottest year, and 8 of the past 12 have been hotter, then wouldn't that technically also make 2011 one of the four coldest years out of the past 12? Doesn't change the fact that the past decade has been hotter than the others, but the phrasing is considerably more alarmist than "2011 4th coldest year out of past 12!!"
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by JobyOne · 2012-01-20 11:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

Farmers, maybe? Their profession is only...you know...the foundation of modern civilization and intimately tied to climate conditions.

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Porquoi?
Re:Global warming shills by JustNiz · 2012-01-20 11:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

Only when the last tree has been cut down,
the last river poisoned,
and the last fish been caught,
will people realise that they can't eat money.
18th century Cree Indian proverb.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by Dahamma · 2012-01-20 12:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

There have been many significant climate changes over the billions of years since the Earth was formed. And you know what? They have usually been *really* bad for the dominant species at the time.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by Moryath · 2012-01-20 12:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

In reality, farmers care a great deal. Even a few days' change in the growing season, or an increase in the temperatures during the hottest part of it, will change what crops are able to grow and the taste that'll come from them. Wineries in particularly are heavily affected by even one or two days' difference in warm or cold temperatures at the right or wrong time for the grapes.
Civil traffic engineers should care, since temperature changes impact what planned maintenance needs to be done on roads. A colder or snowier winter (one doesn't necessarily mean the other, oftentimes a severe cold snap removes enough moisture from the air to limit snowfall while a milder winter can mean more snowfall) means a need to stock up on road salt and gravel. A hotter summer means a need to resurface roads more often and a need to plan against using looser surfacing that can fall apart in high heat (ever noticed a freshly pave asphalt road in midsummer a bit too far south?).
Tourism? Shifting weather conditions can reduce the skiing season in many regions. Even one lost week can mean going out of business if it happens 2-3 years in a row for the smaller operations such as restaurants or private home renters, and the employees suffer too since they don't just lose tips; most of them lose working hours. Too-hot summer weather makes people avoid some destinations in the middle of summer as well.
Don't forget your power bills. Use a lot of air conditioning?
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-20 12:30 · Score: 5, Funny

Boo hoo to the farmers. They had their day.. in the middle ages.
Food comes from the supermarket these days, smartass.
Global warming is a hoax, just like the science of modern field crops.
Bah to science, let all stories about global warming get 150+ comments bitching about nothing!
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by DCFusor · 2012-01-20 12:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

Mod parent up. I farm, I also trade commodities. I'm outdoors a lot and have been monitoring all this since '80 or so. It's getting warmer for certain. I like it warm, but some of the things I grow don't. And pests that used to stay south of here have moved north to here and we are getting new problems from that. They can migrate quick, but trees cannot...I'm not going to die from the change we have, but another 30 years on this same track - what was productive farmland will be a desert. So, someone will have to tear down that city you live in to grow crops in, because some of the best land on the planet - right here, won't be anymore, and that food's gotta come from somewhere. At our human density, everything that isn't city is farm...more or less. It's not going to be pretty. Gonna vote NIMBY against tearing your city down while you starve? GoodLuckWithThat. Who cares what caused it - we better look into how to change it back!

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Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by icebraining · 2012-01-20 12:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

Changing it back might be foolish, but it'd be nice if we could at least try to stop the change that is still occuring.

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Dilbert RSS feed
Re:Hyperbole much... by geekoid · 2012-01-20 13:02 · Score: 4, Informative

"There's a bunch of charts and data to indicate that this might be the earth's natural cycling
no, there is not. we passed that 15 year ago.
I like when people invoke solar activity with out actually thinking.
There are sever types of deniers:
http://ncse.com/climate/denial/climate-change-is-good-science
who deny that significant climate change is occurring
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, but deny that human activity is significantly responsible
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring and that human activity is significantly responsible, but deny the scientific evidence about its significant effects on the world and our society
who acknowledge that significant climate change is occurring, that human activity is significantly responsible, and that it will have a significant effect on the world and our society, but who deny that humans can take significant actions to reduce or mitigate its impact
also:
http://ncse.com/climate/climate-change-101/how-much-human-responsibility-for-climate-change

--
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Have you also solved the "dark matter" problem? by TapeCutter · 2012-01-20 13:21 · Score: 4, Informative

It's quite a well known graph but it does not show that it has been hotter in the past 12,000 yrs than now, (which is what you implied with your original comment about records), in fact it shows the opposite. It shows 2004 was significantly warmer than at any other time during the Holocene. The thick black line is a moving average with an interval measured in centuries (it states a 500yr interval was used for sediment proxies, other proxies are likely to be 1-200yr intervals). Since the duration of recent human induced warming fits entirely within the last moving average interval the graph smooths out the hockey stick at the end. In other words the last 50yrs is virtually invisible on the 12,000yr X axis and only accounts for part of the last data point on the black line. This is why they included the hockey stick insert for comparison, it effectively zooms in on the last 2Kyrs of the main graph to display the rapid increase that is not apparent in the moving average.

All climate scientists of any repute from the last 50yrs will tell you CO2 has been the dominant regulator of the Earth's climate since multi-cellular life first appeared 500M years ago, the last time CO2 was at similar levels as today was 3M years ago, long before humans walked the Earth.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by whistlingtony · 2012-01-20 13:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Actually, the third world countries tend to care the most... This (I'm an American) First World country is usually the one holding everything up.
Go look at the handy map on Wikipedia about which countries wouldn't get behind the Kyoto protocols...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Yeah. And they all managed that without a world government or death squads. No destruction of all human life. So.. bascially, you're an idiot.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by Dahamma · 2012-01-20 14:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Ah but you see, the argument is that this time it's the dominant species' fault. So let the climate alarmists be consistent, take the blame like the higher human beings they claim to be and at long last shut the fuck up. Meanwhile the rest of us can adapt to the change like nature expects us to do or die trying.
Do you think evolution works like an X-Men comic? Are you expecting to grow gills, or absorb infrared radiation in the next couple of decades?
Most climate "alarmists" (aka scientists) are not worried about "harming Gaia" or somesuch bullshit (though *you* were the one to anthropomorphize "nature", which doesn't "expect" anything, so I'm not sure what that's all about). They are pointing out that yes, many of the changes ARE the dominant species fault, and are collectively blaming that species of which they are members. And they are hoping that the data they provide will help this species - through technology, and not fantasy - better understand just *how* to adapt (both by reducing the change and compensating for it) to what's happening.
Of course the world won't end. But if you don't think it's a good idea to plan ahead and try to reduce potential disaster to the human race long term, you might as well just restate your position as "fuck everyone else". But then don't be surprised when everyone else tells you to go fuck yourself...
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by Dahamma · 2012-01-20 16:33 · Score: 5, Informative

But if the information they posess is based on BS, should they not be called out. Last year was the coldest in the last 30, which is recorded by the local news, and the local wweather stations.
Are you talking about your town? Who cares!
2011 was the 11th warmest *globally* since records were kept in 1880, and is the 35th year on a row where temps are above the 100 year average. And that's with La Nina helping to cool things. Your information is just plain incorrect.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by QQBoss · 2012-01-20 16:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Please tell me what the "correct" average temperature is for the Earth? Even if you could, based on 130 years of temperature data why would you pick the temperature today as the point at which you would stop the change as "correct", when the Earth has been around for 1000s (throwing the biblical types a bone here) to billions of years and based on THAT scale the "correct" temperature might be some thing far different (much hotter, in fact, even if you only include the last 65 million years?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png (ok, not billions of years, but the geologists are working on improving that, I am sure, and it won't look any better for warmists)
I am all for reducing for man made emissions as it is economically feasible to do, I am all phasing out the use of petroleum products for transportation and other purposes as we find ways to do it that don't require making Peter destitute to subsidize Paul to do it. But I just don't have the hubris to say today (or any in the last 30 years) is the "correct" average temperature for the earth and not 2 or 3 degrees warmer or 2 or 3 degrees colder based on a starting date for data that makes today look bad when other examinations of data based on different starting dates make it look like today is really cold compared to where the Earth more commonly has been. I also can't ignore the fact that ice ages come and go and they tend to do so with great rapidity. The only constant is change. If scientists and engineers actually could create a stable environment at a particular temperature set point, chances are we would find out the results of that would be far worse for people than any predictions of anything short of a runaway greenhouse effect.
Re:There is no denying the Earth is getting hotter by turkeyfish · 2012-01-20 18:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

"What about all those areas that are going to become better farming land due to a warmer climate?"
The reality is that there will be very few such places, because historically they have been very poor for growing things and consequently have very poor soils. Just because the Greenland ice sheet is soon to melt does not mean the ground underneath is going to be great for farming. There is also the problem that most plants are extremely sensitive to the duration of day and night, particularly for flowering. Higher latitudes may have very long days during the summer, but have very long nights in the winter. Consequently, many plants will not grow under such conditions without massive amounts of additional energy for artificial lighting. Replicating the disastrous Biosphere II experiment on a planetary scale is not going to turn out well.
Ending carbon dioxide pollution is the only realistic thing that humans can do to assure their survival. The sooner we get started the better our chances of success.