Draft of IPCC 2013 Report Already Circulating

The political construct is unraveling by hessian · 2012-12-10 01:11 · Score: -1, Troll

Global warming existed to justify wealth transfer from the first to third worlds.

It was always a political agenda, with scientists taken along for the ride because they could get funding that way.

--
Futurist Traditionalism

Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:17 · Score: 0

It was always a political agenda, with scientists taken along for the ride because they could get funding that way.
SOURCE ?
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:20 · Score: -1

Common sense?
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:21 · Score: 1, Insightful

No, it was partly to justify wealth transfer from first world to the richest individuals, through a third world proxy ruled by corrupt officials. It's obvious now that the Kioto Protocol has failed, the UN has created a new excuse to perform the same operation (now, instead of buying them "carbon credits", rich countries will have to give them "compensation money for climate change")
The rest was to justify the move to alternate (worse) forms of energy, because it's expected China and India will increase the cost of oil now that they are starting to abandon the socialist-based economies that put them into starving misery for decades. USA, Japan and Europe won't have it as easy now that they have to compete with these awakening giants for energy production.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:23 · Score: 2, Funny

Republic Broadcasting Network.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by hey! · 2012-12-10 02:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Baloney. It's the political hacks who pounce on something like this and say "Look! The scientists revised their consensus predictions, *obviously* it's just politics because the truth never changes." They say this because politics is the only thing they (think) they understand. It's just as silly as when they get up on their high horses about "revisionist" historians -- revising history is what *actual* historians do. Revising climate predictions is what climatologists do, and in any case the rumors of what the new IPCC (you like them now?) forecasts will contain is well within the range that's been discussed all along, except for a somewhat more pessimistic sea level rise figure. If you'd actually been paying attention to science news instead of political pundits, you'd know that the recent buzz has been the remarkable accuracy of the original 1990 IPCC report (source: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1763.html). This is a remarkable piece of support for the anthropogenic hypothesis, since the computer models used in the late 80s relied heavily on atmospheric CO2 accumulation.
The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue. It was vigorously debated in the scientific literature well before it became a political hot potato -- check the abstracts on Google Scholar if you don't believe me. Now you can pooh pooh a 2 degree rise in global average temperature and 1 m rise in sea level, but that's because you have no idea what the effects of those changes will be. A 1m mean sea level rise means substantially more frequent flooding events. A 2 degree temperature rise has a huge effect on the distribution of vector borne diseases.
It sounds benign to say that there will be "new arid zones in the Southern United States", but only if you don't think about what the appearance of a new arid zone would mean.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by lordholm · 2012-12-10 02:13 · Score: 2

IPCC being a body with representation from different states (with a lot of political interest in the reports), that more or less work with consensus, their reports are often watered down when released. This means that the published science is often more pessimistic than the IPCC report.

--
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Re:The political construct is unraveling by r1348 · 2012-12-10 02:20 · Score: 1

Since when Al Gore's bank accounts are in the third world?
Re:The political construct is unraveling by TapeCutter · 2012-12-10 02:54 · Score: 5, Informative

The source is FF lobbyists, TFA is a A grade bullshit, the author has a track record. The usual suspects in opinion columns around the world will all point to it (or more commonly each other) for the next year. When the report is published they will either ignore the fact they were wrong or insist it was a in "a draft"

The very notion of a secret draft plays into peoples biases, it also depends on people's ignorance of basic facts. Some easily verifiable facts:
The IPCC conducts it's business in the open and are more than happy to respond to a layman who spots a trivial typo in a draft (as I did circa 2001).
They're expecting ~100K review comments this time around.
The thousands of scientists and others involved do not get a dime from the IPCC, all work is donated (aside from 3-4 permanent office staff).
The IPCC's accounts can also be found via that link.
Their $5-6M annual budget comes from donations by the governments of over 100 countries of all political stripes. Somewhat ironically the bulk of it is spent on airline tickets..

The political construct is unraveling
The headline hit the nail on the head, but I'm pretty sure it's not the nail the GP was aiming at.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by gr8_phk · 2012-12-10 02:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.
Nope. The political angle has been apparent for quite some time - I figured it was an attempt to stop the developing world from advancing. Say to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage. But prior to the politicization there were the ever conflicting reports just like we see today:

sea levels to rise almost a meter more than present over the next century, but past dire warnings of stronger storms or more frequent droughts won't pan out.
Remember the record hurricane season that was going to be the new norm due to climate change? How about the collapse of the ice shelves in Antarctica that later later started growing - oh, melting will be at the north pole and MORE ice will form at the south. I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again. At least that is more consistent with the ice cores (looks like we're due for glaciation to start within 1000 years). One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 03:13 · Score: 2, Informative

I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again.
An article in Newsweek written by a scientifically-illiterate journalist is not the same as a peer-reviewed article written by an actual scientist working in the field. As to the rest of your nonsense, you do realize that science works by "changing the story" all the time? I guess by your "reasoning" gravity doesn't exist either since we have more refined models than Newtonian gravitational theory.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by rhsanborn · 2012-12-10 03:29 · Score: 5, Informative

Perhaps you recall the media making a big deal of global cooling, but the scientific community was not. The story isn't changing nearly so much as people say it is. Popular media is doing a hell of a job of making it sound like this is a controversy. It isn't. There is a great graphic here. Source

Climate skeptics have played the media and the general populace like a fiddle. They point to the relatively small number of scientists who speculated on global cooling, and then say, "they can't make up their minds". They pick the .02% of papers speculating that global warming doesn't exist and call it a "controversy".
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Gavagai80 · 2012-12-10 04:22 · Score: 1

If it weren't for the Montreal protocol, we could have global cooling.

--
This space intentionally left blank
Re:The political construct is unraveling by V+for+Vendetta · 2012-12-10 05:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again.

Here's a good and insighful read of the author of the study that became media's "next ice age" in the 1970s has to say about it: http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_7.html#schneider
He ends with:

Ironically, inside the scientific world, this switch of sign of projected effects is viewed as precisely what responsible scientists must do when the facts change. Not only did I change my mind, but published almost immediately what had changed and how that played out over time. Scientists have no crystal ball, but we do have modeling methods that are the closest approximation available. They can't give us truth, but they can tell us the logical consequences of explicit assumptions. Those who update their conclusions explicitly as facts evolve are much more likely to be a credible source than those who stick to old stories for political consistency. Two cheers for the scientific method!
Re:The political construct is unraveling by WaywardGeek · 2012-12-10 06:28 · Score: 1

Thanks for the informative post. I googled, and can confirm the author of TFA is infamous for absurd attacks on climate science and climate scientists. However, according to IPCC's schedule, a 2013 "second order draft" is circulating now to governments, who could be leaking them. While TFA downplays a 1 meter rise in ocean levels by 2100, that number is double it's previous estimate. Given a recent study claims oceans are rising over 3mm per year, even 1 meter may be low. How bad will it be if we see a 3 meter rise?
While the author is a wing nut, I'm encouraged to see these guys shifting away from "the Earth is not warming" to a discussion of how bad the impact will be. If I were Canadian, I could see plenty of upside to global warming. It's not 100% bad, just mostly bad... Shifting to a discussion of the impact would be a huge step forward.

--
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Re:The political construct is unraveling by marylinfelton45 · 2012-12-10 06:48 · Score: -1, Flamebait

upto I saw the draft which said $7685, I accept that my father in law really bringing in money part-time from there computar.. there neighbor haz done this for under twenty two months and a short time ago repayed the dept on there mini mansion and got a great Renault 4. read more at..WWW.GoogleJob1.MEL7.COM
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Purpendicular · 2012-12-10 06:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

No one that appeals to "consensus" has any scientific credibility. "On the word of no one", Nullius in verba, used to be the motto of the Royal Society. It is well hidden these days. It is not featured on the home page. In the 19th century, the Royal Society received money from the British government. This created such a scandal that any further government funding was refused. It was judged scandalous that scientist could depend on government funding. This was during laissez-faire. The British government then bankrupted the universities during the First World War (they had their savings in government bonds). These days, the Royal Society is a stooge of British politicians. Since they are the ones paying. Darwin was a hobby scientist. He was not peer reviewed. He did not work at a university. He did not publish papers. He wrote books. Followingen the IPCC logic, I should have answered that "oh, but the whole physics department agrees with my statement" during the defence of my thesis...
Re:The political construct is unraveling by SleazyRidr · 2012-12-10 07:01 · Score: 1

Even though you've already been thoroughly debunked, I feel the need to chime in about this global cooling malarky.
See, there are two types of gasses that make a difference to these discussions. Carbon oxides and sulphur oxides. Sulphur oxides reflect heat, so warmth from the sun bounces back out into space and the earth cools down a little bit. Fortunately for us, scrubbing our exhaust gasses and purifying our fuels meant that we could stop pumping suplhur oxides into the atmosphere. Yay us!
Carbon oxides behave a little differently, they absorb heat, so any heat that would be radiating out gets caught by the carbon oxides and makes them wiggle a little faster, which warms up all the air around it. Unfortunately, no one has come up with an "easy" way to stop pumping carbon oxides into the atmosphere, everything we have would require us to change what we are doing. We don't want to change, so the science telling us about it must be wrong.

--
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Ferzerp · 2012-12-10 07:05 · Score: 2

3mm/yr * 100 yrs = 0.3m
The math you have performed for the numbers that you have presented is off by a factor of 10.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by hey! · 2012-12-10 08:26 · Score: 2

One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.
If you don't change your story when data challenges it, you're not doing science. It's that simple.
I understand that "people" (by which *I* mean "some people") are easier to convince if you never change what you say no matter what new evidence comes up. That's because they don't understand the difference between changing your story purely for the effect it has on the listener, and changing your story because you've learned something new. In other words, the "people" you are citing can't tell the difference between dishonesty and honesty. Let's take Antarctic sea ice as an example. "People" may take scientists honest admission that seasonal sea ice is increasing as a sign of dishonesty, but it's a peculiar conspiracy that raises and publishes doubts about itself.
In any even the Antarctic ice kerfuffle turned out not to be related to lowered temperatures at all, but more energetic winds driving the sea ice beyond regions in which it formed.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by bmcage · 2012-12-10 08:31 · Score: 1

3mm/yr * 100 yrs = 0.3m
The math you have performed for the numbers that you have presented is off by a factor of 10.
Well, this proofs he's an engineer! .... Or he took the accelleration into account without mentioning it. That would make him a physicist. As those are rare on /., it must be the first.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Vintermann · 2012-12-10 08:48 · Score: 1

> How about the collapse of the ice shelves in Antarctica that later later started growing - oh, melting will be at the north pole and MORE ice will form at the south.
It's very convenient: Whenever arctic ice hits new record lows, denialists can point to Antarctica and say "oh, but THERE it's growing!". It does rely on the audience not remembering the fact that it's winter in the south when it's summer in the north, but that doesn't seem to be a problem!

--
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 08:56 · Score: 0

Bob Ward, is that you?
You can't seriously reference RealClimate.org as a source of unvarnished truth in this debate.
A modicum of search will reveal the IPCC's review policy is anything but transparent and responsive; it's not even in the same ballpark as ordinary scientific review (e.g., in other branches of science you don't get to blithely dismiss criticism from reviewers). There are dozens of examples where FOI requests have been required to (eventually) see even the review comments. Examples: http://climateaudit.org/2007/06/07/foi-request-to-noaa/ and http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm and http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/an-ipcc-backchannel-%E2%80%98-to-hide-ipcc-deliberations-from-foia/ from ten seconds of googling.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by hey! · 2012-12-10 09:30 · Score: 1

Well, it's not as simple as you suggest. The data shows that the maximum extent of the Antarctic's seasonal sea ice has grown recently, which is the opposite of what you'd expect if the temperatures were increasing. But temperature isn't the only thing that determines the extent of seasonal ice. There's wind too, and that's what researchers think caused the increase in extent.
Still, it's quite possible for certain regions in a global warming scenario to become dramatically cooler, due to changes in the transport of energy from warmer regions to cooler in ocean and air currents.

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by TapeCutter · 2012-12-10 10:25 · Score: 1

Yep, all the "for policy maker" reports are passed around the donating nations where they get to have a say. They don't have a say in the scientific report they are based on. There's nothing to leak because it's not a secret.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by TapeCutter · 2012-12-10 10:29 · Score: 1

Did you get your $0.50 for that post? If so, did you save it or spend it all at once?

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:The political construct is unraveling by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 12:06 · Score: 0

You know as well as we all do that there's no "big oil" conspiracy. It's a fun meme, and the general population probably believes it, but even after having defrauded their way to internal budget documents from Heartland the warmistas couldn't point to any big oil climate change denial funding.
You see, we're mostly like me. People with a good scientific background and inquisitive minds who've just realized that the emperor is, indeed, naked. You'll see it too, eventually, since the climate is currently proving us right. Observation beats models.

They need to include some sex scenes by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:13 · Score: -1

If they want to flog this dead horse of a fad back to life.

Re:They need to include some sex scenes by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 04:06 · Score: 1

If they want to flog this dead horse of a fad back to life.
How about "we're all fucked"?

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:They need to include some sex scenes by riverat1 · 2012-12-10 05:43 · Score: 1

Interestingly Brad Werner presented a talk titled "Is Earth F**ked?" at the recently concluded AGU meeting. You can find the abstract and view the presentation here. His answer is probably unless we start seeing the kind of activism around the world like that that accompanied the civil rights movement and anti Vietnam war movement of the 1960's.

I still don't get it... by Kergan · 2012-12-10 01:13 · Score: 1, Troll

How did real estate in Florida ever get so overpriced in the run up to 2008, if anyone out there is taking rising sea levels seriously?

Re:I still don't get it... by bluefoxlucid · 2012-12-10 01:18 · Score: 1, Funny

funny thing is sea levels are slightly higher around the equator. An average 1 meter rise means like a few centimeters at best around New York, and Florida underwater.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:I still don't get it... by yotto · 2012-12-10 01:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Because the scum of the Earth doesn't mind ignoring facts while siphoning money from the stupid?

--
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:19 · Score: 1

No. 50% of Americans don't believe in global warming, the other half will sell to a bigger sucker.
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:21 · Score: 0

Because people don't buy houses with their own money.
Re:I still don't get it... by Joce640k · 2012-12-10 01:26 · Score: 4, Funny

How did real estate in Florida ever get so overpriced in the run up to 2008, if anyone out there is taking rising sea levels seriously?
Simple: Only old people go to live there so they figure they'll be dead when it happens...

--
No sig today...
Re:I still don't get it... by vlm · 2012-12-10 01:26 · Score: 2

Question doesn't make sense. Its all "greater fool theory". Doesn't matter if its a bad buy because the price is high or the sea is rising. As long as you think there's a greater fool out there to buy it from you at a higher price (because real estate only goes up!) then go for it. Like all bubbles, it works great until it doesn't.
Also if you think modern McMansions are built to last the century or so required to be flooded, you have a rough discovery process ahead. I don't think flooding in a century is a serious concern if a hurricane will destroy it every decade and/or black mold and/or mutant alligator infestations and/or fresh groundwater will all be gone in a couple decades and/or its unlivable for most people without stable electrical grid AC etc. Its kind of like me being worried that within perhaps 5 thousand years its nearly guaranteed that my house will be underneath a two mile sheet of glacial ice, because its happened a zillion times before and will happen again.... yeah but I don't think my 1950s ranch will be around in 6950 AD for other reasons, so I'm not concerned with the inevitable return of the glaciers.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:29 · Score: 0

How did real estate in Florida ever get so overpriced in the run up to 2008, if anyone out there is taking rising sea levels seriously?
Because people are stupid. Why else would they build where there are tornados regularly. Hey, this place gets plenty of earth quakes, what a great place to put a city...
One day San Francisco is going to bobbing about in the Pacific and everyone will be surprised it happened
Re:I still don't get it... by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 01:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Global warming doesn't care whether you believe in it.
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:51 · Score: 1

I bought in the center of the state. I expect to have waterfront property in a few years... perhaps even my own small island nation.
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:04 · Score: 0

Neither does Santa Claus - what's your point? :)
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:06 · Score: 0

I've always assumed that, if push comes to shove, Disney will build an 8m high dyke around Florida. That's why I wasn't too concerned about buying Florida property, though I did it in 2009 at the bottom of the market (so far)...
Re:I still don't get it... by FriendlyLurker · 2012-12-10 02:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Talking of stupid, anybody who takes this IPCC "draft" trolling seriously are being duped. The IPCC are climate change deniers, hiding behind a thin veil that can hardly be called "science"
The end game of the massive well funded disinformation campaign being to influence as many people as possible into taking strong climate change denial opinion. The problem is, the likes of Fox news and troll news like this one are succeeding very well in this aim, http://environment.yale.edu/climate/the-climate-note/>as this graph shows. Science and evidence be damned.
IPCC Disinformation campaign:

The slide above comes from the presentation of Hans von Storch to the InterAcademy Review of the IPCC, presented earlier this week in Montreal. The slide references the misrepresentation of the issue of disasters and climate change by the IPCC. von Storch is very clear in his views:

IPCC authors have decided to violate the mission of the IPCC, by presenting disinformation.
Not only did the IPCC misrepresent the science of disasters and climate change, but went so far as to issue a highly misleading press release to try to spin the issue and put an unprepared IPCC WG2 chair on the BBC to try to defend the undefensible. I was promised a response from the IPCC to my concerns, a response that has never been provided.

A former head of the IPCC, Robert Watson, says the following in the context of the 2035 glacier issue, but could be equally applied to the disaster issue:

To me the fundamental problem was that when the error was found it was handled in a totally and utterly atrocious manner.
The IAC Review of the IPCC is fully aware of this issue, and it will be interesting to see what their report says on the topic. Meantime, the IPCC is continuing its preparations for its next assessment in business-as-usual fashion.
Re:I still don't get it... by Grizzley9 · 2012-12-10 02:22 · Score: 5, Funny

Global warming doesn't care whether you believe in it.
Stop anthropomorphizing Global Warming. It doesn't like that.
Re:I still don't get it... by r1348 · 2012-12-10 02:26 · Score: 1

Florida being invaded by giant lesbians would make it a way more interesting place to live in...
Re:I still don't get it... by blindseer · 2012-12-10 02:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

I believe that whether or not AGW is true the response should be the same. More nuclear and natural gas. Less ethanol and foreign sourced oil. Drop the stupid subsidies on windmills, solar panels, and electric cars.
Electric cars are now a mature technology. We no longer need to subsidize them since people are buying top dollar electric cars anyway. Electric car subsidies are just the wealthy legislating more more to the wealthy so they can by their status symbols. Also, until we replace coal power with nuclear these cars produce more carbon than a gasoline, diesel, or especially natural gas counterpart.
Windmills rarely produce a net carbon savings because they are still backed up by inefficient natural gas turbines or, the largest culprit of carbon output, coal.
End this insanity with CFL bulbs. I don't like the idea of having fragile, mercury filled, glass tubes hanging over where I eat and sleep. If we had nuclear instead of coal it would not matter what kind of lighting I chose when it comes to carbon output.
If we cannot figure out whether or not ethanol actually saves on carbon or not then perhaps we should not be dumping so much money into it. If people want ethanol then let them have it, just don't make me buy it so you can feel better about yourself. Like the CFL bulb example above this would all be moot if we could get some natural gas and electric (from nuclear) vehicles on the road.
The nice thing about all of this is that it involves reducing government influence on our lives, increases the choices of the consumer, lower taxes, greater wealth for all, and no painful transitions in infrastructure. This is also precisely why it will not happen. AGW is about bigger government, not saving the world.

--
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:I still don't get it... by lordholm · 2012-12-10 03:04 · Score: 1

Then don't buy CFLs, buy LED bulbs instead. Problem solved...
Honestly, cleaning out after you break a disconnected CFL is not that hard, the mercury is in liquid form. If you break it while it is on, I would be more worried about the fire hazard coming from the exposed conductors, which is even worse in a incandescent bulb.

--
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 03:44 · Score: 0

You wrote "can hardly be called "science" in, and then show links to Wikipedia a blog!!! I do not know about the blog, but Wikipedia articles will say whatever the last person to edit it wants it to say!
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 03:47 · Score: 0

I think we will have working and accurate models of the 2020 climate in 10 years at the latest
Re:I still don't get it... by Spectre · 2012-12-10 03:48 · Score: 2

How did real estate in Florida ever get so overpriced in the run up to 2008, if anyone out there is taking rising sea levels seriously?
Because people are stupid. Why else would they build where there are tornados regularly. Hey, this place gets plenty of earth quakes, what a great place to put a city...
One day San Francisco is going to bobbing about in the Pacific and everyone will be surprised it happened
Keep in mind ... there are NO places in the USA where tornadoes occur regularly. Take Kansas (where I grew up), it is in "Tornado Alley". Ooh, dangerous! Not really. There's dozens of tornadoes per year in the state, but tornadoes have a pretty small damage path, usually only a few square miles. Let's say it is an absolutely horrible year, though, and there are 100 tornadoes with an average damage path of 20 square miles, that would be 2000 square miles of damage. Kansas is ~82,000 square miles in size, though. So even in a year far worse than has happened in recorded history, as a Kansas resident for a worst case year you are 40 times more likely to be unaffected by a tornado than you are to be affected.
The downside is, damage from a tornado if you are directly in the damage path tends to be absolute. Grass and foundations tend to be the only items left intact.

--
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Re:I still don't get it... by thomasw_lrd · 2012-12-10 05:05 · Score: 1

I have to disagree with you on that. Tornadoes seem to really like to hit the same place.
Here is the data from where I used to live. There were over 30 tornado's within 10 miles in the last 30 years. Anecdotal maybe, but I know that one car dealership had damage it seemed like once every year for 3 years.
http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Arkansas/Saline-County/Benton.html

--
21st Century Renaissance Man
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:23 · Score: 0

Your wrong, the link goes to qualified scientists pulling apart the IPCC position. Check it again:

can hardly be called "science"
Re:I still don't get it... by spmkk · 2012-12-10 05:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

So, in other words, data about climate change is only legitimate if it points to dire straits. Got it.
Question for you and other CC hardliners: How is it that any claim of political play in AGW promotion is dismissed as right-wing hyperbole, but doggedly insisting that ANY climate data that casts doubt on the World-Will-End-In-Hellfire hypothesis is politically driven is somehow valid?
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 06:21 · Score: 0

>End this insanity with CFL bulbs. I don't like the idea of having fragile, mercury filled, glass tubes hanging over where I eat and sleep. If we had nuclear instead of coal it would not matter what kind of lighting I chose when it comes to carbon output.
Here's what I don't understand about this issue. I spend my day working and eating under regular florescent tubes. People have been doing this for years. Why are CFLs an issue when regular florescent lights are so prevalent?
Re:I still don't get it... by blindseer · 2012-12-10 08:32 · Score: 1

Why are CFLs an issue when regular florescent lights are so prevalent?
I don't like those either. One difference is that where those exist are places that I do not own. Their house, their rules. In my house I like incandescent bulbs, they are inexpensive, light instantly in all kinds of weather/temperatures, contain no toxic materials, relatively tough, have a pleasant color, and do not require any special disposal when burned out.
Now we have government bureaucrats that think they know better than I do what is the best way to light my home. If the government was really concerned about carbon output and other pollution from coal fired power plants they'd be building nuclear power plants. I'm convinced that they are more intent on making a show to the public that the government cares about us than they are in creating effective legislation.

--
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:I still don't get it... by blindseer · 2012-12-10 08:58 · Score: 2

Sure, LED lighting is a solution. The point is that I don't want the government telling me what lights I should buy. I most definitely don't want the government spending my tax money on subsidizing CFL bulbs for other people to buy. If these people want to feel better about themselves for "saving the planet" by buying a CFL bulb then they can do that with their own money.
I'll probably end up getting some LED bulbs in the future but for right now I enjoy the extra heat they provide during this cold weather.

--
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:I still don't get it... by Tablizer · 2012-12-10 09:15 · Score: 1

Translation: "I don't want the government telling me that I can't piss all over others' yards and planets as I please."
For the record, I am for heavily taxing incidence bulbs rather than banning them.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:I still don't get it... by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 10:06 · Score: 1

More like they are trying to maintain the illusion that they are working on our behalf.
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 10:25 · Score: 0

Global climate change doesn't care whether you believe in it.
FTFY
Sure, 'warming' is correct --in the global average sense-- but it obscures real concerns through oversimplification (and provides fodder for deniers). Part of winning the disinformation campaign is having a consistent, accurate message.
Re:I still don't get it... by SourceFrog · 2012-12-10 10:43 · Score: 1

You don't have toddlers, do you. And the irony in your post, bashing people about how it's "not that hard", is that your advice is wrong. The mercury is not in liquid form, it is released as vapor. The correct thing to do is immediately open the doors and windows and leave the room for 15 minutes to allow the vapor can dissipate. I guess it wasn't as easy as you thought. http://epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp So when your toddler pulls over a lamp and noone knowledgable happens to be watching (and you've just proven how easy it is to be ignorant), then he/she will lean in and look closely with curiosity breathing in big gulps of mercury vapors, just perfect for developing young brains.

--
My other UID is three digits.
Re:I still don't get it... by blindseer · 2012-12-10 10:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

My so called "pissing on others' yards" is the fault of the government. They are the ones not letting people build more nuclear power plants. If we replace all these coal plants with nuclear ones we would put a very significant dent in the carbon output we produce.
CFL bulbs are a band-aid on a gun shot wound. Electricity is used for many things other than lighting. If we put our efforts in building nuclear power plants then ALL electricity use gains. Electric cars are one example. Getting an electric car does not "save the planet" if we're burning coal to charge them up. Electric cars only make sense if the electricity comes from an energy source that has less carbon output than an equivalent gasoline or diesel car would.

For the record, I am for heavily taxing incandescent bulbs rather than banning them.
That's a distinction without a difference. The government would still be doing nothing about the real problem, carbon output from coal fired electric power plants. Replace those coal plants with nuclear and the light bulbs I buy should not matter to anyone.

--
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:I still don't get it... by SourceFrog · 2012-12-10 10:48 · Score: 1

A 1m sea-level rise by 2100 is the same as 5000 years? I think you need math lessons. 100 years is enough for a property to pass hands only a couple of generations. I have colleagues who have property that has been in their family for over 200 years. Hell, with advances in technology many of us here could easily be living well over 100 years. How do you put that in the same league as 5000 years?

--
My other UID is three digits.
Re:I still don't get it... by SourceFrog · 2012-12-10 10:52 · Score: 1

If that's true, then Spectre's point is actually even more valid, because if they're more likely to hit certain localized regions then you by just avoiding calculating why and then avoiding those regions you could dramatically reduce the risk of being affected by a tornado even further.

--
My other UID is three digits.
Re:I still don't get it... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 10:55 · Score: 0

When a CFL is off Hg is in liquid form. It is only in gas form when the bulb is on.
Re:I still don't get it... by Tablizer · 2012-12-10 11:41 · Score: 1

My so called "pissing on others' yards" is the fault of the government. They are the ones not letting people build more nuclear power plants
For the most part voters believe wind, solar, etc. are less risky than nuclear even if it costs a bit more. In a democracy, sometimes 51% tell the other 49% what to do. That's life in a democracy. As The Stones point out, you don't always get what you want. You are perfectly free to go out and evangelize nuclear to the masses.
As far as electric versus gas cars, the advantage is that electric gives the industry and gov't more options of power sources and generation location and time-time-of-day. It may not pay off yet, but if enough cars are electric, it may start. But that's another long subject.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:I still don't get it... by blindseer · 2012-12-10 12:36 · Score: 1

Ah, but you see we don't live in a democracy. At least I don't. I'm in the USA, which is (theoretically at least) a republic. I don't know where you live. In a democracy the 49% have to do what the other 51% demand. In a republic the government is only empowered to perform those duties that it was constituted to do on the behalf of the people. This government, where I live, was never empowered to subsidize CFL bulbs or windmills. The federal government has just decided, despite the will of the people that created it, to usurp that power.
If 51% of this republic wants higher electricity prices to have the illusion they are saving the planet then let them pay full price for their windmills and electric cars. They have no right to demand my money to fund their pet projects.
I say "illusion of saving the planet" because I am not thoroughly convinced that windmills and CFL bulbs actually reduce CO2 output. CFL bulbs are very energy intensive to create and my own personal experience tells me that the operational lifespan of these bulbs are highly inflated. A "Mythbusters" episode also showed that CFL bulbs will not last near as long as advertised. The CO2 savings only arise if they can reach a lifespan that can offset the energy consumed in it's manufacture and transport when compared to other lighting options. Given what was shown on "Mythbusters" I have my doubts that we actually come out ahead with CFLs.
I say that windmills CO2 savings are highly inflated as well because the aluminum used in their construction is energy intensive and has a high carbon output. (This carbon output is mostly from the carbon reduction used to refine the ore to elemental aluminum, not just from the coal used to power the refineries.) When the wind does not blow then the slack has to be picked up with something else. That something else is usually with the very inefficient (by industrial electricity generating standards) natural gas turbines or with coal.
Assuming that I do live in a democracy and there are 51% of the public that believe that we can reduce our CO2 output with CFL and windmill subsidies then that just tells me that there are a lot of voters that were lied to and/or did not care to find the truth. They've been lied to about the dangers of nuclear power, the CO2 savings that CFLs and windmills give, as well as all kinds of lies about electric cars.

You are perfectly free to go out and evangelize nuclear to the masses.
I know that. That is why I'm posting here.

--
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Re:I still don't get it... by Tablizer · 2012-12-11 13:36 · Score: 1

If 51% of this republic wants higher electricity prices to have the illusion they are saving the planet then let them pay full price for their windmills and electric cars. They have no right to demand my money to fund their pet projects.

Taxes have been around since the dawn of civilization. Go find a deserted island or maybe Somalia if you want away from civilization. Otherwise, being a member requires compromises, some of which you may not like.

then that just tells me that there are a lot of voters that were lied to and/or did not care to find the truth.
That may be true. No political system is perfect, except systems in books written by reality-detached dreamers.

--
Table-ized A.I.

ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY !! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:20 · Score: -1, Redundant

Just sit back and chill !! You can't do anything about it !! NO !! You CAN'T !!

Alien Civilizations by arisvega · 2012-12-10 01:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Now that the number of planets around stars in this galaxy alone is in the ballpark of several billions, one starts to think that the reason for no apparent alien civilizations similar to this one is because they boil themselves out .. they simply raise the temperature of their own place before they are able to either counter the effect, or before they are tech savvy enough to colonize someplace else: they either boil, starve, or poison themselves.

If this projection is correct, and the effect grows at an exponential rate, it will be 1 degree for the last century, (order of) 3 for the next, 9 for the one after that, and then it is either super-tech or extinction.

Careful now, humans.

--
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.

Re:Alien Civilizations by CRCulver · 2012-12-10 01:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Now that the number of planets around stars in this galaxy alone is in the ballpark of several billions, one starts to think that the reason for no apparent alien civilizations similar to this one is because they boil themselves out .. they simply raise the temperature of their own place before they are able to either counter the effect, or before they are tech savvy enough to colonize someplace else.

This idea has been around for a few decades now. In Larry Niven's Ringworld , the alien race the Puppeteers had moved their homeworld further away from their sun some centuries before the start of the novel, in order to avoid the death by heat that Niven felt would accompany technological development.
Re:Alien Civilizations by vlm · 2012-12-10 01:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

they either boil, starve, or poison themselves.
I'd put money on primary energy. Base your whole culture and economy on petrochemicals, use them up, then ? There could be a trillion "successful" civilizations out there right now living a vaguely ancient/medieval lifestyle, with legends of having billions of people burning hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in their distant past, but today its a couple million peasants with wax candles and ox power.
Its a depressing anti-fission anti-fusion anecdote... if any other culture in the universe could have harnessed fission or fusion effectively, we'd currently be a province of their galactic star empire, or at least we'd have detected them by now. Since that seems not to be the case, I'm not overly optimistic about our odds with those energy sources. So when the oil and coal is burned up, that's it. Back to 1700 at best.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Alien Civilizations by war4peace · 2012-12-10 01:50 · Score: 1

You're saying it like it's a BAD thing :)

--
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Re:Alien Civilizations by O('_')O_Bush · 2012-12-10 01:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

For all we know we are a province of their empire. Being conquered doesn't mean you are entitled to knowing about it if your technological advancement is so low that you can't participate in the greater galaxy...

--
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Re:Alien Civilizations by O('_')O_Bush · 2012-12-10 01:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

We have been polluting heavily for a hundred years or so, but we are already able to counter the effect of global warming (look at all the schemes for changing climate, from space mirrors to simulated volcanic eruptions, to painting a small part of the earth white). The biggest obstacles are willpower for funding and lack of need/urgency.

--
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Re:Alien Civilizations by daem0n1x · 2012-12-10 02:08 · Score: 1

We're turning Earth into the Planet of Love!
Re:Alien Civilizations by vlm · 2012-12-10 02:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Participate does not equal see. The natives saw the guys with muskets and cannons and giant wooden ships, even if they couldn't get involved in court politics or academic research back home.
Another interesting sci fi book plot or whatever is more than one group of savages (aka us, interpret us as pronoun or united states as you wish) might exist. Sure the neo-roman empire ignores and laughs at us savages as a group, but there should be other just slightly more civilized planets, yet still savages compared to the overlords, doing all kinds of stuff we'd notice, like tossing radioactive waste into their sun screwing up the stellar spectrum, or broadcasting RF all over the place, or doing strange things with neutrinos and graviton sources, or extensive civil engineering with H-bombs, or terraforming other planets in their solar system, or attempting to build a dyson sphere, or fill their upper atmosphere with fluorocarbons, all stuff we'd see other savages doing even if the overlords ignored all of us savages as a group, which is interesting.
I've read Kraus et al about interstellar radio detection, I wonder if anyone out there has run similar numbers for pulsed neutrino generation and detection. I don't care quite enough to shovel thru arxiv for hours, but if some /.er has a useful lead to speed the search? That would make an interesting SETI technique with a built in "you must be this tall" sign to keep the rabble out, apparently EM radiation isn't nearly sufficient. "You must build a cryogenic 100 KM gravitation wave detector to participate in the intergalactic interspecies internet" or "You must be able to generate, control, and detect a neutrino flux equivalent to a major particle accelerator with a 10 amp beam current to participate in the interstellar interspecies internet"

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Alien Civilizations by semi-extrinsic · 2012-12-10 02:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

An interesting counter-argument is that we could, by chance, be one of the first civilizations to achieve the technological level we are currently at. Given what we know (or think we know) about the history of star formation in the universe, e.g. that the early stars going nova are the primary source of heavier elements (required for fission, hell, even for semiconductors), this is not unreasonable.

--
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
Re:Alien Civilizations by Charliemopps · 2012-12-10 02:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

Those books were garbage and I'm ashamed to have read them. Someone told me they were hard scifi... but instead it was a furry anime style series of bad science. All of his books, in fact, are pretty much garbage.
Re:Alien Civilizations by vlm · 2012-12-10 02:17 · Score: 2

Yeah it would be pretty bad. Fictionally, exploring the 1700s has been pretty popular to the point of tiresome. Nobody has explored taking modern culture back to 1700s tech. Even the "1632" series assumes the world's resources are ready for taking (again). "Survivalist" lit doesn't talk about much but the gun battles on the way down. A 1700s tech planet with 2000s culture would be pretty interesting to explore, after all the annoying population reduction is long taken care of. Scientists, doctors, engineers who have all the knowledge but none of the tech would be interesting.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Alien Civilizations by Charliemopps · 2012-12-10 02:22 · Score: 1

We can't "Boil ourselves out" it's one thing to claim we have the tech to change the global climate by releasing gasses that were locked away during a previously hot era, but the idea that we could KILL the earth is completely preposterous. At worst, we'll make it uncomfortable for ourselves, cause a mini extinction event and the world will move on with our without us. If without us, another intelligent race will come along eventually.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:42 · Score: 0

But if there's some sort of bell curve it would be less likely that we're on one of the extreme ends.
We probably just need to be patient until James Webb, ATLAST and other space telescopes pan out.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:43 · Score: 0

If they are advanced enough they simply replace astronomers with replicas or block any transmission they don't like at the boundary of the solar system. They could also just hack the telescopes to give consistent information that they like. Or maybe they implant chips into everyone's brains that make us unaware of anything they want us to be unaware of. Maybe half of what we think is people actually have 5 tentacles coming out of their eyes and we just don't know it because that is removed from our awareness. Just messing with telescopes is probably the easiest intervention since it requires only that they detect all telescopes powerful enough to catch them out. Even if they fail to detect some stealth telescope, they can intervene more forcefully in those isolated cases. If someone is really advanced and determined, there's few limits on what you could imagine them doing.
Re:Alien Civilizations by arisvega · 2012-12-10 03:29 · Score: 2

e.g. that the early stars going nova are the primary source of heavier elements
Massive stars go supernova within a few million years from their creation: solids have been around in the Solar system for at least 4.567 billion years (from meteoritic studies), and the universe is at minimum 14.5 billion years old (cosmology arguments). There are already plenty of visible galaxies where star formation is not proceeding as fast as in this one.
And, in light of new evidence, numerous planets around most stars seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
So, plenty of time to develop life similar to this one, even if one needs 2 billion years from rocks to bacteria, another 2 from bacteria to apes, and only another tiny -in comparison- 200,000 years perhaps to get the apes to do their own rocket science.
That said, in my opinion I do not think that the low initial metalicity is much of a convincing counter-argument here.

--
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-12-10 04:19 · Score: 2

Nobody has explored taking modern culture back to 1700s tech.
You might be interested in Stirling's Emberverse series. I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions about what would happen in this scenario--for one thing, I think he assumes that civilization would actually fall too far and too fast, in contrast to the overly optimistic outcome of the 1632 series--but it's a good read.
He also has to invoke something kind of mystical to make this happen. There's no realistic hard-SF scenario under which the entire world reverts to a pre-industrial technological level all at once. Far more likely is a situation in which the resources necessary to maintain the modern first-world lifestyle are gradually depleted with corresponding hoarding, and we end up in a neo-feudal world of a high-tech elite surrounded by starving peasants.

--
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:Alien Civilizations by RicktheBrick · 2012-12-10 04:34 · Score: 1

I am not going to go into all the solutions that have been proposed just on /. in the past two years as it seems that there is at least one a day. I really believe that someone who is being born today will be almost totally bored in their twenties. Most everything will be done by robots for them. One will talk to a computer like one talks to another human. Sex will not make it into the top 10 things to do so reproducing will be a very hard chore that most people will avoid. We will find ways to lower our energy needs. Before 2100 we will probably find a way to keep our brains alive and provide a complete artifical world for everyone. In that case people will exist while using very little energy. Just look at our television today. A 19 inch will use just $4 a year in energy cost. I have my doubts that it has not already happened and I am already in that artifical world.
Re:Alien Civilizations by dpilot · 2012-12-10 04:47 · Score: 2

My guess is that once you take 2000s tech out of 2000s people, you won't have 2000s culture, either. Take away the tech and the population will crash. People tend not to like participating in a population crash, and don't do so peacefully.
Two conspiracy theories for your consideration, and both have a common root:
"They" know that there is no graceful way we can get from where we are to a sustainable word - there are just too many people. Even birth control and China-like birth policies won't do it fast enough. Beyond that, even trying to do so will deplete the ecosystem terribly - the safest route is a population crash. It will be chaotic, but the ecosystem would have a better shot at recovery. In that same vein, "they" have an enclave to preserve science, etc, for rebuilding after. To hasten the crash, they simply permit/encourage short-sighted thinking, such as climate denial and hyper-nationalism.
Conspiracy Theory 1 - "They" don't really give a hoot about mankind, "they" just want to be in charge, and see this as a route to having exclusive ownership of science and technology, to cement "their" position on top.
Conspiracy Theory 2 - "They" really are enlightened, see this as a sad but necessary step forced by circumstances, and will do their best to craft a better world after the crash.
Far more likely than either - it's just plain short-term thinking, combined with a hefty dose of denial and an overblown sense of entitlement.

--
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 04:47 · Score: 0

FYI: The Hubble Deep Field disagrees with you and says the universe is 13.7 billion years old.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:08 · Score: 0

furry anime
I assume you're referring to the Kzin?
So you're judging a book based on the fact that it has a talking tiger with bat ears?
Re:Alien Civilizations by thomasw_lrd · 2012-12-10 05:09 · Score: 1

Reminds me of a Disney movie or maybe the TV series. Lilo and Stitch. The aliens want to destroy the Earth, but a couple of aliens and kid save the Earth by convincing the Galactic Council that mosquitoes are an endangered species. Nobody else even realized how close the Earth came to being destroyed.

--
21st Century Renaissance Man
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:11 · Score: 0

Most of those books were written in the 70s and 80s. Science marches on.
Re:Alien Civilizations by thomasw_lrd · 2012-12-10 05:11 · Score: 1

I fear living in a galaxy where humans are the most advanced civilization. I want my aliens to be better and smarter than us.

--
21st Century Renaissance Man
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 07:18 · Score: 0

Your face is garbage and I'm ashamed to have seen it. Someone told me that is was ok... but instead it was a furry anime style series of awfulness. All of your body, in fact, is pretty much garbage.
Re:Alien Civilizations by thegameiam · 2012-12-10 08:09 · Score: 1

The islands of elite surrounded by starving peasants reminds me of Feintuch's Voices of Hope, or perhaps Tiptree's "Backward, Turn Backward." Brrr...

--
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
Re:Alien Civilizations by ceoyoyo · 2012-12-10 09:01 · Score: 1

Unless there's some completely new neutrino detection method we don't even have theories for, looking for ETs via neutrino emissions isn't a very promising avenue. To see anything, even purposeful, tight beam communication, would imply not only a big detector but also a completely ridiculous amount of production. Nobody sane would communicate with neutrinos unless they had a REALLY good reason to, like wanting to ram a signal through a light year of lead.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Tablizer · 2012-12-10 09:26 · Score: 1

Its a depressing anti-fission anti-fusion anecdote... if any other culture in the universe could have harnessed fission or fusion effectively, we'd currently be a province of their galactic star empire, or at least we'd have detected them by now. Since that seems not to be the case, I'm not overly optimistic about our odds with those energy sources.
We already are; they just chose to hide themselves from us. Except every now and then their cloaking devices hiccup and they have to invent weather balloon and Venus-in-the-fog stories to cover the snafu.

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:Alien Civilizations by arisvega · 2012-12-10 10:35 · Score: 1

if any other culture in the universe could have harnessed fission or fusion effectively [..] we'd have detected them by now.
I am not sure about that- think of the practicalities: the distances are vast (so signal-to-noise does not look promising), and there is barely any monitoring project. Even so, there are targets, and the idea is to try to obtain spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres. As for detecting fusion, consider that the largest nuclear yield ever detonated from humans is at around 50Mt (TNT equivalent, Tsar Bomba) and all that energy was delivered in a heartbeat. Compare that to the 100,000,000,000 megatons of (equivalent) TNT per second that is output from the Sun, a pretty dim star if you just travel a bit outside and look at it from a distance. If you were to stand on the outskirts of the Solar System, extend your arm and hold a pin in front of you, the pin's head would cover the Sun; if you were as far as only the nearest star, the Sun would look like a dim point source of light, with no dimensions at all: you would have to a) have superb instruments, b) know exactly where to look and keep looking, and c) get lucky, in order to say see an extraterrestrial nuclear test happen, on the exoplanet that hapens.
So overall, for detecting signs that someone is smart, I would look on atmospheres and lasers. Or some other coherent form of radiation that cannot be attributed to a known astrophysical (natural) process.

I'd put money on primary energy. Base your whole culture and economy on petrochemicals, use them up, then ? [..] So when the oil and coal is burned up, that's it. Back to 1700 at best.
I hear your argument. Perhaps renewable energy can be the answer. And personally, I haven't given up on achieving a break-even point for fusion, even though mining of rare materials may be necessary (making the meaning of 'break-even' tricky, because someone will have to burn energy to go, mine, fetch and refine them). But true renewable energy, not that 'green' crap that is marketed everywhere nowadays. That, and lots, LOTS of recycling (especially with water) and an ingenious farming scheme to feed an ever-growing population.
In about a hundred years from now, half-naked African nomads (just an example here) that are not much into television and consider themselves lucky and wealthy because they own a small herd of cattle, will suddenly stop looking so 'stupid' and 'backwards' to the West: food is going to get very expensive.

--
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-12-10 12:30 · Score: 1

Short term thinking is no doubt the real reason. "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."
I would go further, however. Anybody who thinks that the only possible outcome is a population crash isn't just the victim of short term thinking: they're also the victim of small horizons thinking. Yes, if NOTHING changes, we're in for a population crash. But when does nothing change? Never. Something, somewhere, is always changing. It's just a matter of getting the necessary changes done, somehow or other.
There are two good reasons to believe that a population crash is neither necessary nor inevitable. The first is the calculation of how much energy the sun delivers to the earth each day. It's a gargantuan amount of energy. It powers the entire biosphere. More to the point, it's perfectly capable of powering our current civilization without reducing the amount of energy effectively available to the biosphere. Indeed, it's capable of powering a first world standard of living for every person on Earth, with power left over. So when the fossil fuels are gone (assuming the Russian theory that they're not actually fossil is wrong (or that if it's right, the rate of ongoing conversion is too low to be relevant)), the power is still available, even without tapping uranium or thorium or getting our shit together well enough to build a commercial fusion plant. It's just a matter of converting it to electricity before it hits the ground, and we know how to do that right now.
Second, while there are numerous Slashdot posts that engender the discussion about how royally fucked up our economy is, the fact still remains that upward mobility is still possible. Yes, it's radically reduced from its peak, and yes the absolute rate was never very high to begin with, but it is still possible. Sergei Brin, Larry Page, and Elon Musk were not born wealthy. Well to do, perhaps, but wealthy, no. They weren't even born merely rich. Yet all three of them hit billionaire with decades yet to live. So while our economic system has its problems, it is still possible to become "New Money", and New Money, having no vested interest in the status quo the way old money does, is willing and eager to rock the boat. Which means there is still a mechanism in our economy to replace old power sources with new ones. Is it easy? No. Is it inevitable? No. Is it even likely? Maybe not. But it's possible.
So a population crash isn't required. There is a power source, the science of that source is understood with the rare perfection only possible to fundamental physics, the engineering to utilize the power source is understood well enough to get started, and, most importantly, the financial will to actually do so exists: Messrs Brin, Page, and Musk are all investors in Solar City, a company manufacturing solar cells using a reel to reel process that you don't hear about because it hasn't failed.
There is a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth about energy. Relax folks. It's being quietly taken care of. By the type of rich people that the typical Slashdot denizen actually likes: the New Rich, who made their billions by changing things, and think it's a good idea to go right on changing things, to make them more billions.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 02:27 · Score: 0

Those books were garbage and I'm ashamed to have read them. Someone told me they were hard scifi... but instead it was a furry anime style series of bad science. All of his books, in fact, are pretty much garbage.
And what authors would YOU hold up as exemplary examples so that we get equal non-specific generalized bashing time? :-p
Re:Alien Civilizations by vlm · 2012-12-11 02:57 · Score: 1

unless they had a REALLY good reason to
Thanks for restating my exact point, which was its a nearly perfect intergalactic "you must be this tall to enter the carnival ride" test.
Its a little stuck up of the space aliens, but its certainly a very effective way of enforcing that savages don't learn about you until they've got, what, at least semi advanced computers and electronics, substantial industrial processes to make the giant detector, a certain level of physics knowledge... its not like the roman empire could have accidentally discovered neutrino pulses accidentally, like they theoretically could have discovered radio waves given the tech of the time.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Alien Civilizations by dpilot · 2012-12-11 04:43 · Score: 1

I have to agree with everything you've said, except perhaps the possibility of avoiding population crash. With population crash the problem isn't energy, it's food. As with energy, the problem is perhaps soluble with sufficient technology. Maybe you're ready to eat smeat, but I'll bet a lot of people aren't, and I'll bet that a lot of agribusinesses, including Monsanto, aren't ready to accept it as a competitor.
The real issue is, as you say, New Rich vs Old Rich - disruption vs BAU. Perhaps the saddest thing is how fast last year's New Rich became this year's Old Rich. The internet was the most disruptive thing we've seen since WWII created the US middle class, but too many of the Old Rich have learned lessons about capping that disruption source. Plus relative newcomers like Apple, Intel, and Microsoft I'd put squarely in the Old Rich camp these days.
As for calling those 3 Old Rich, I'd say that one characteristic of Old Rich is that they squash innovation by potential competitors, keeping control of the pace of innovation to themselves. In contrast, New Rich simply outrun their competitors, and don't take the distraction of "managing" them.
So the battle is between New Rich and Old Rich. If the former win, they win. If the latter win, we all win. By the way, "Never attribute to malice..." is also known as "Hanlon's Razor". I only found out about that designation in the past year. I've also come up with my own corollary, "Sufficient incompetence combined with sufficient power has effects indistinguishable from Evil."

--
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 06:50 · Score: 0

Don't believe everyting you hear from the IPCC.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 07:21 · Score: 0

No one knows what the climate change curve will look like, Perhaps climate changes exponentially with CO2 concentration or perhaps increasing CO2 beyond a certain point will have little incremental effect. No doubt our descendants will be amused by our predictions.
Re:Alien Civilizations by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 09:50 · Score: 0

We didn't always have electricity. Some people and cultures still do well
without it. If it stops flowing, (from government controlled taps) no great
loss in my book.
Re:Alien Civilizations by ceoyoyo · 2012-12-12 16:11 · Score: 1

That's not a REALLY good reason.
The Roman empire wasn't about to discover interstellar radio waves. If you were really worried about it though, you could use some encoding tricks to make sure nobody without a decent computer could tell your signal was anything other than noise.
Considering the power you'd need to use to send messages interstellar distances using neutrinos, the savages would probably notice stars going out.

How surprising... by Razgorov+Prikazka · 2012-12-10 01:23 · Score: 0, Flamebait

It is more apocalyptic than ever before. And I betya that the IPCC 2014 is even more horrendous!
When will it become so silly that even the most hard-core greenies cant take it serious anymore? The earth has been much warmer and much cooler than these day's, the difference is that now we are here with a lot. That is correlation, not causation...
For those who have some difficulties telling them apart, go and do a statistics class. For you who already did that; here is an obligatory xkcd reference...

--
rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...

Re:How surprising... by Razgorov+Prikazka · 2012-12-10 01:25 · Score: 1

http://xkcd.com/552/
Now with link...
Sorry...

--
rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:31 · Score: 0

I wonder if Randall Munroe cries when he sees posts like this?
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:32 · Score: 2

Sorry, but what do you expect a scientist to do?
"Oh well, we did the prediction as scientifically accurate as possible, but it's still a pretty gloomy outcome predicted.
Better tone down the ecological and economical consequences so they can continue with business as usual"?
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:39 · Score: 0

It is more apocalyptic than ever before. And I betya that the IPCC 2014 is even more horrendous!
I bet IPCC 2214 will be even more apocalyptic. Even if you just read the history section and skip over the predictions.
Re:How surprising... by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 01:46 · Score: 2

Correlation is an important tool. It might be the most important tool.
But, climate scientists use more than correlation. They build ever more accurate models, and test them for their ability to make predictions. Like a lot of science actually.
Re:How surprising... by Razgorov+Prikazka · 2012-12-10 01:56 · Score: -1, Flamebait

What I expect a scientist NOT to do is scaremongering like:

1950's Peak oil; no more oil in 1970... never happened
1960's Big freeze; a new ice age was about to start (because of constantly FALLING global temperatures)... nothing happened
1970`s Acid rain will wipe us all out by 1985... never happened
1970's Overpopulation will lead to famines and mass extinction of humans... nothing happened
1976 Swine flu will wipe us all out... nothing happened
1970's Peak oil; no more oil in 1990's... never happened
1970's The ozone layer will disappear. CFC's were banned; the ozone layer is still growing... nothing spectacular happened
1980's AIDS will wipe all the gay's out... later replaced by 'will wipe us all out'... nothing happened
2000's Peak Oil; no more oil in 2020... bit early to tell... but I have a hunch
2003: SARS will wipe us all out... nothing happened
2005: Avian flu will wipe us all out... nothing happened
2012: IPCC 2013 tells us that the sea level will rise six feet by next January

What I do expect a scientist to do is keep calm and give an accurate prediction with all the if's and but's included, not an alarmist prediction that gets your face on the news. If there is a scientist in a 'prime time talk-show' I immediately stop believing them. The story has to be dumbed down to such an extend that it becomes about as scientifically rigorous as this IPCC prank that is going on for far to long.
Get a 'shopping bag for life' and a 'special light bulb' if you really believe that it will make a difference, but leave me in peace please.

--
rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...
Re:How surprising... by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 02:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

Acid rain we avoided with a cap and trade system on sulfer dioxides. Much like what they want to do with CO2 since it is already proven to work.
This is a real problem these days, if we solve any issue before the break down of society we get a bunch of ill informed mouth breathers beating their chests claiming there never was an issue.
Re:How surprising... by nedlohs · 2012-12-10 02:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

Maybe you didn't get your science information from the news which as you state likes alarmist predictions you'd have a better understanding of what scientists have actually been saying about all those things for all those years?
Re:How surprising... by apcullen · 2012-12-10 02:28 · Score: 2

Acid Rain was moderated with a cap and trade, not avoided. Anyone with a swimming pool in the northeast will tell you they have to correct the ph of their pool every time it rains.
Re:How surprising... by Rockoon · 2012-12-10 02:34 · Score: 1, Interesting

They build ever more accurate models, and test them for their ability to make predictions.
There are now dozens of supercomputers that have been built for the purpose of climate modeling, and on those, hundreds of different climate models have been run.

Now please tell us which one of those hundreds of models shows the best skill at prediction.

Surely we know which model that is.. and surely we know which supercomputers were involved in the simulations.. and surely future funding for bigger and better supercomputers is going towards the refinement of only the best models..

A citation indicating which model shows the best skill at prediction should be pretty easy given these facts. You don't have one because their prediction skill isnt what is being tested.. its their fitting skill that is tested as a proxy for prediction. They dont wait to see which models show skill at prediction.. they put in for new funding for larger supercomputers immediately after they can show that they can fit the data.

--
"His name was James Damore."
Re:How surprising... by the+eric+conspiracy · 2012-12-10 02:45 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually peak oil has happened. Why do you think you are paying $4 for gas, and we are drilling EVERYWHERE for the last dregs, not to mention trying to process tar sands. And why do you think economic growth worldwide sucks? Why do you think global oil production is in a downtrend?
1960's big freeze - I call bullshit. There was never a scientific consensus that this would happen.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
1970's - Ozone layer was preserved because of a concerted global response to remove the cause of it's shrinkage. Duh.
1980's - Aids has killed 15 million people. Go talk to people living in countries where it is pandemic and then come back and tell me nothing has happened.
http://www.avert.org/aids-impact-africa.htm
2003 - SARS. Please cite a claim that it was going to wipe us all out.
2005 - Avian Flu - ditto
2012 - Oh BS.
Alarmist predictions are made alarmist by news reporters. The actual predictions have been pretty much accurate.
http://phys.org/news/2012-12-pair-global.html
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:59 · Score: 0

You know all of that is true. I am even as dumbfounded as you at the shifting sands of tabloid like news on the weather. Which drowns out real research into it.
However, there is one thing just about every person out there can agree on. Pollution bad. I am just as dumbfounded on one side which screeches 'it does not exist' and the other screeching like chicken little 'the world is going to END'. Again 'Pollution bad'. I can get behind that. "the water level may go up by 6 inches" It may affect me, but who cares you are looking at the symptom and ignoring the problem 'pollution bad'. What is wrong with stopping pollution? What I do care about is the scare tactics people have taken on to stop pollution. It makes people irrational. Then when the scare does not happen it pisses people off (and blown any credibility you have). People do *not* like being lied to (even though it may technically not be a lie).
Right now per dollar the cheapest way to make energy is burning coal and boiling water (small inversion right now with natural gas in the US). We have billions of metric tons of the stuff. That one thing has the biggest affect on our world than anything else. I have gone thru all the motions to 'save the planet', more efficient appliances/tv/etc, CFLs everywhere it makes sense, blah blah blah. Even then I do not even put a dent in my power bill. Why not? There is that AC/Heater thing and as is I have it set at 62 in the winter and 75+ in the summer... And still my power bill does not budge. Even replaced the sucker for a 'more efficient unit seer18' (coil leak croaked the old one). Woopie f-ing do. Power bill doubled gas bill halved and the amount of cash is exactly the same.
We are busy dinking around with tiny crap (banning incandescents, driving priuses, etc) and ignoring the elephant in the room. We use huge amounts of electricity and the cheapest way to get that right now is coal and in second place natural gas followed by oil (in most of the world). I deliberately ignore nuke power as frankly no one has the will to build them anymore without billion dollar overruns. The day solar/wind/hydro gets in front of those you will see everyone switch over to them. Cap&Trade might do that. But from where I sit it looks like a wallstreet gimick for the 1% to shift money amongst themselves and stick it to the rest of us more. There is nothing wallstreet loves more than derivatives and year over year money growth from a monopoly business and finding better ways to monetize the value stream.
Re:How surprising... by Jason+Levine · 2012-12-10 03:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

The same thing happened with Y2K. A lot of people worked very hard to prevent a giant mess and were successful. Since a catastrophe didn't happen, people assume it was all hype and no substance. Would it have ended civilization as we know it? No. Would it have led to a period of great chaos which could have sent the economy reeling (the markets hate chaos)? Yes.
If you work hard enough at averting a crisis, you inevitably get people who second guess whether your efforts averted the crisis or whether the crisis averted itself and you're just trying to claim credit.

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:How surprising... by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 03:34 · Score: 1

To test the models appropriately takes at least a decade. So, yeah, they're working on it.
In the meantime, they have a number of models written by different groups with different assumptions, etc., and they give broadly similar results.
But I'm sure you have a better approach?
Re:How surprising... by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 03:37 · Score: 1

Mod parent up. Science used as a whipping boy for apocalyptic predictions only makes it look like modern day witch-doctoring.
Re:How surprising... by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 03:41 · Score: 1

Oh, but you forget, we have this magical thing called "averaging" we can do to these hundreds of different climate models, and voila!, we get to the perfect model that is super accurate! And of course all the assumptions built into the models we averaged (even if they contradicted each other), must be true, true, true! :)
It's like having three dozen models of earth's gravity, which when averaged, come out to 9.8m/s^2, even though none of them hit it on the head - obviously they're *all* perfectly correct :)
Re:How surprising... by Ost99 · 2012-12-10 04:23 · Score: 2

Nice anti-science rant.

What I expect a scientist NOT to do is scaremongering like:
1950's Peak oil; no more oil in 1970... never happened

Peak oil doesn't mean no more oil.
And peak oil happened in the 1970s; for US production.
BTW which definition of peak oil are you referring to?
1) Maximum oil production has been attained, and it will decrease from now
2) Demand for oil surpasses production
or
3) Rate of new discoveries fall below rate of consumption?
both 2 and 3 happened in the 1970s, but only temporary

1960's Big freeze; a new ice age was about to start (because of constantly FALLING global temperatures)... nothing happened
New ice age? We're still in an ice age.

1970`s Acid rain will wipe us all out by 1985... never happened
Human extinction was never suggested as a possible outcome of acid rain. Enormous amount of money and international agreements reduced the problem to a manageable level. By listening to the scientists we avoided a major ecological crisis.

1970's Overpopulation will lead to famines and mass extinction of humans... nothing happened
Overpopulation has caused famine and mass death of humans in Africa every year since 1970.

1970's The ozone layer will disappear. CFC's were banned; the ozone layer is still growing... nothing spectacular happened
Enormous amount of money and international agreements reduced the problem to a manageable level. By listening to the scientists we avoided a major ecological crisis.

1980's AIDS will wipe all the gay's out... later replaced by 'will wipe us all out'... nothing happened
Nothing happened? Infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa are approaching 10% in several countries; with rates approaching 50% of the adult population in some areas.

2000's Peak Oil; no more oil in 2020... bit early to tell... but I have a hunch
Yeah, nothing will happen. Oil will still cost $20 a barrel just like in 1999. It's obvious we'll never run out.
Global increase in crude oil production has been 0.5% from 2000-2011, and prices have increased from $20 to $90, with peaks close to $150.

Get a 'shopping bag for life' and a 'special light bulb' if you really believe that it will make a difference, but leave me in peace please.
When you have a planet to yourself, you can do what you like. As long as you're sharing with the rest of us, you'd better learn to behave responsibly.

--
---- Sig. gone.
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 04:51 · Score: 0

You can claim BS on 2012 on 12/22/2012 if we're still around.
Re:How surprising... by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 05:33 · Score: 1

You can claim BS on 2012 on 12/22/2012 if we're still around.
Actually there's nothing to be lost by claiming it now, since there won't be anyone to criticize you if you're wrong.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:How surprising... by gravious · 2012-12-10 07:11 · Score: 1

It is apparently $4 for gas because of oil speculation: http://www.globalresearch.ca/perhaps-60-of-today-s-oil-price-is-pure-speculation/8878
Speculation accounts for 60% of the cost of gas they say. Bit of a long read but I'm convinced.

--

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 08:02 · Score: 0

They build ever more accurate models, and test them for their ability to make predictions
And they have all failed. No, really, don't take my word for it - look it up yourself.
That's why they never validate the predictions, but instead update the model parameters with new data. That's NOT how you do science.
Re:How surprising... by DrJimbo · 2012-12-10 08:19 · Score: 1

1) The report you link to is over four years old.
2) The report merely speculates that futures trading was the cause of oil price increases back then. I realize it is long but you seemed to gloss over the first word in the title which is Perhaps.
3) The report is actually an alarmist advertisement for a book from the Centre for Research on Globalization. The founder of this group has been on the list of "Canada's nuttiest professors, those whose absurdity stands head and shoulders above their colleagues."
4) Even if the report were accurate and timely, it does not refute peak oil. Simple supply-and-demand markets are unable to deal intelligently with limited resources. One of the basic rationales of futures markets is to deal more intelligently with such limitations. IOW, a rise in futures prices is precisely what is supposed to happen when it is clear that a resource will run dry in the future.

--
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Re:How surprising... by gravious · 2012-12-10 09:22 · Score: 1

Ok. Points taken. I offer a slight rebuttal.
Point 1) I don't think it matters that the report is four years old.
Point 2) the Perhaps means circa not maybe.
Point 3) Judge the content, not the author; certainly not the founder. Disclaimer: the author is F. William Engdahl, apparently a peak oil skeptic and perhaps believes in the abiogenic origin of petroleum. I am not saying that I am or I do.
Point 4) I am not trying to refute peak-oil. I am trying to say that it is possible that speculation could have driven the price of oil up. It's not inconceivable you know, I find it plausible that big money could be gaming the energy markets. If housing/property bubbles can happen, why not commodities/futures bubbles?
I have nothing against the theory of peak oil and have no problem getting my head around the idea that we could someday slowly reach the end of a finite resource and that at that point in time demand would outstrip supply bumping the price of oil (and its futures) up. I don't think that there is any conclusive evidence that we are at peak-oil (or gas) and I don't even think that it would be a bad thing if we were: solar, wind, hydro, nuclear get relatively cheaper - we may enter into a period of global recession while we transition, but we'll get out the other side with some nice tech.

--

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
Re:How surprising... by the+eric+conspiracy · 2012-12-10 10:30 · Score: 1

> we may enter into a period of global recession while we transition, but we'll get out the other side with some nice tech.
The economics will have to improve for that to happen. Right most alternatives consume more energy than they produce.
Re:How surprising... by Rockoon · 2012-12-10 11:22 · Score: 2

But I'm sure you have a better approach?
Yes, my approach is to not to label things that havent been tested as 'ever more accurate.'

But hey... what do I know.. its not like their lack of honesty isnt the reason that I distrust these fucks.

--
"His name was James Damore."
Re:How surprising... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 12:46 · Score: 0

1970's The ozone layer will disappear. CFC's were banned; the ozone layer is still growing... nothing spectacular happened
Nothing spectacular happened? Your ignorance is stunning. The country I live in has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. On the right day I can get sunburnt in less than 10 minutes. The Antarctic ozone layer has just barely started to show signs of improvement in the last 5 years and won't fully recover until 2050.

On the whole by Trisha-Beth · 2012-12-10 01:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'd rather have more accurate models than more precise models.

Bad models don't get any better by adding decimal places.

I expect that accurate modelling of something as complex as climate is really, really hard.

Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:41 · Score: 1

They're completely ignoring the biosphere's side of the equation. A lot of plants and animals won't survive the "slight" change in temperature and weather. A lot more, won't/can't breed if the conditions don't permit them. When so many links in the chain get broken, we'll get the apocalypse anyway.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:41 · Score: 0

Or as I say it, really really subjective. The modelling, that is.
Which is why you can't have frothing, raging climate scientists who want to meet people in dark alleys with baseball bats.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:44 · Score: 1, Insightful

It's not that hard, but it's useless as climate is a well known chaotic system, so it doesn't matter how precise the model is, it's guaranteed to completely deviate from reality within a few simulation steps. In other words, its predictive power is zero, same with economic models.
Re:On the whole by mapkinase · 2012-12-10 01:48 · Score: 1

>I expect that accurate modelling of something as complex as climate is really, really hard.
especially, 100 years forward.
I am not sure there is a big difference between my trust in this report's prediction of the future and the one in Time Machine.

--
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Re:On the whole by O('_')O_Bush · 2012-12-10 01:49 · Score: 1

Plants and animals with such narrow ranges are far more susceptible to deforestation and encroachment than to GW...

--
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Re:On the whole by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 01:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm pretty sure they mean more accurate. Many people incorrectly use "precise" and "accurate" interchangeably.
The article mentions using faster computers. Anyone who's done modelling knows that you can do more steps in the same amount of time, resulting in increased accuracy. They also mention better modelling.
Re:On the whole by Chatterton · 2012-12-10 02:09 · Score: 1

Some animals are far more susceptible to such narrow change in GW than to deforestation and encroachment:
http://www.neaq.org/conservation_and_research/climate_change/effects_on_ocean_animals.php
"Climate change directly affects the reproduction of sea turtles in three ways. First, sea level rise will affect significant nesting beach areas on low-level sand beaches such as Bonaire, the Maldives and the Great Barrier Reef. Second, rising temperatures increase the chance that sand temperature will exceed the upper limit for egg incubation, which is 34 degrees C. Third, rising temperatures bias the sex ratio toward females because temperature during incubation determines the sex of the egg. Loggerhead turtle nests in Florida are already producing 90 percent females owing to high temperatures, and if warming raises temperatures by an additional 1 degree C or more, no males will be produced there. "
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-10 02:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is a deep misunderstanding of complex non-linear dynamic systems. You may not be able to say what the PRECISE state of the system will be, as in exactly when it will rain for the weather, or which region will have exactly what rainfall for climate, but you CAN quite confidently map the basins of the various attractors and understand the ensemble state of the system. In other words you don't have to know the precise climate in every little region to know the overall climate. This is ESPECIALLY true of the climate because there is a phase space that represents the possible states. In other words the laws of physics basically govern the overall climate, if one area turns out a bit drier than you predicted then another one has to be a bit wetter because the rain has to fall SOMEWHERE. Excess heat in the system has to go somewhere, and eventually it has to drive increased evaporation, increased temperatures, etc. This stuff is just constrained by basic physical laws. The only real arguments at this point are about ACTUAL regional conditions and details like whether or not the extra rainfall in an area will fall in big storms or more small storms for instance. It is very true that models will not precisely predict these things. It may be impossible to do so, but that doesn't make the models useless at all.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by PortHaven · 2012-12-10 03:20 · Score: 1

Hmm, I thought the redwoods were growing more these days. Thanks to that extra CO2. Most plants seem to do better with higher CO2. And there are some who argue we've seen plant growth reductions during this period of lower CO2 levels.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 03:31 · Score: 0

The makers of the IPCC models have always said if the models get it wrong for 15 years in a row, then the models are not working. Well, according to the IPCC's own datasets, global warming stopped 16 years ago while their models predicted a continuous rise at the rate of 3C/century:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 03:44 · Score: 1

Overall climate is meaningless - nobody experiences global average temperature. What matters is *regional* climate.
Put another way, it's not global average temperature that counts, it's the specific distribution of that temperature. There can be a cold world with areas of extreme drought, areas of extreme flooding, areas of extreme hot, and areas of extreme cold. There can be a warm world with mild weather everywhere. The global average tells you *nothing* about the distribution.
When we get GCMs that can accurately model and project and hindcast regional climate, I'll start paying more attention.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 04:34 · Score: 0

How about NOAA's estimate of sea level rise between 8 inches and 6.6 feet? I feel pretty confident that the actual change will be in that range.
Re:On the whole by dryeo · 2012-12-10 05:09 · Score: 1

Usually it is things like phosphorus availability that limits plant growth, not CO2.

--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Re:On the whole by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 05:37 · Score: 1

Plants and animals with such narrow ranges are far more susceptible to deforestation and encroachment than to GW...
I'm guessing that polar bears don't stay awake all through the hibernation period worrying about deforestation and encroachment.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:On the whole by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 05:49 · Score: 1

The makers of the IPCC models have always said if the models get it wrong for 15 years in a row, then the models are not working. Well, according to the IPCC's own datasets, global warming stopped 16 years ago while their models predicted a continuous rise at the rate of 3C/century:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html
And of course, The Daily Mail knows more about it than scientists do.
Meanwhile back in the real world, the ten hottest years on record only include two that weren't in the last 10 years, namely 1998 and 2001, both also within your mythical 16 year period. For those 16 years, which I take to start in 1996 since the 2011 results aren't in yet, 14 are included in the 14 hottest years on record.
Here is an easy link if you don't want to visit the scientific literature.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:58 · Score: 0

Overall climate is meaningless - nobody experiences global average temperature.
That's what we have weather predictions for rather than climate predictions. You may have noticed weather in summer generally is quite different from that in winter. Yet you can tell you are going to need a winter coat to survive winter.
Furthermore, overall climate helps predict things such as sea level rise and storm frequency and intensity. I'd say that is quite meaningful. Ask any New Yorker.
Re:On the whole by riverat1 · 2012-12-10 06:15 · Score: 1

Why not go directly to the source? The Met Office issued a press release in response to the Daily Mail story by David Rose that basically says he's full of it.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 06:16 · Score: 0

Dice rolling is a chaotic system. It's impossible to tell what side a dice will land on at any given moment. Therefore, it's impossible to predict the proportion of times a dice will land on a 1 if you roll it a thousand times.
Re:On the whole by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 06:21 · Score: 1

s/2011/2012/

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 06:56 · Score: 1

Global average temperature does not predict sea level along any coast at any time.
Global average temperature does not predict storm frequency, intensity, or location.
Now, when you've got a GCM that *can* do these things we can start talking. Thus far, the stochastic system that is regional climate variation has withstood all attempts of prediction.
Re:On the whole by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 08:05 · Score: 0

They did not disprove his point. They just spew a lot of hot air around it.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-10 10:06 · Score: 1

Yes, but your assertion that GCMs are useless without EXACT predictions of regional conditions is silly. It is just as ridiculous as saying that a map of a city is useless because it doesn't have every detail. It is just not a sensible answer.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 11:44 · Score: 1

Forget exact, just get regional even *partly* right - I don't mind error bars, but these models can't even do that. It's like having a map of the city that averages all the streets together, and averages all the avenues together, so there's only one cross street in the entire place :)
I might not care that there is a cat sitting on top of a garbage can that has been rolled out of someone's driveway onto the sidewalk when I'm looking at a map. But you simply can't use a giant map of the globe to navigate to your friend's house - you need a regional thomas guide for that.
Re:On the whole by riverat1 · 2012-12-10 11:53 · Score: 1

His supposed point demonstrates his lack of understanding of what climate models do and more generally his lack of understanding of the difference between climate and weather. more than any failing climate models may have. Global warming did not stop 16 years ago. It's absurd to think it has.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 03:05 · Score: 1

Sure, and such an accomplishment would be GREAT, but that doesn't mean the results we are getting are not incredibly useful. They show the range of likely outcomes regionally and the overall global numbers with a pretty high degree of confidence. From an overall decision making standpoint the global numbers are actually some of the most valuable. Since the solutions are global its not so important if area A gets wetter or drier, since area B is sure to do the opposite. Either way the answer is the same, less CO2.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-11 04:50 · Score: 1

I'm still not getting what you're considering "useful". There isn't a single GCM that shows any skill at predicting regional outcomes, and even if global averages are within their error bars, *none* of the global averages give anyone any actionable intelligence. Put simply, knowing in 1900 that the global average temperature in 2000 would be 0.8C higher would not have been cause for *any* action - it wouldn't tell you if you should build more levees, or spend more money in drip irrigation, or move croplands to a certain area, or to evacuate certain coastlines, or *any* other form of actual *useful* information. At best, you could say "watch out, climate is going to change", but that's no different than any other period in earth's history.

Either way the answer is the same, less CO2.
And there's the rub, isn't it? Asserting that no matter what the observations we could possibly make, the only answer is less CO2, is the textbook example of an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 05:12 · Score: 1

No, the hypothesis is that CO2 will cause temperature to increase. It is a validated hypothesis. Logically the action to be taken, should you wish to avoid this temperature increase, is to reduce CO2. Your problem is you've already decided what you will and won't do without even considering the most basic and fundamental option. Nor do you need ANY regional predictions in order to come to the one and only overarching policy choice. Knowing every detail of regional climate change for the next 500 years won't in any way shape or form alter the fact that avoiding climate change requires not putting CO2 in the air.
Your problem isn't with the science, your problem is you simply refuse to accept the inevitable and inescapable conclusion. No amount of building dikes and levees and whatever is going to matter in the long run, the CO2 level of the atmosphere MUST BE STABILIZED, PERIOD, END OF REPORT. You can wiggle and twist as much as you want, but you're never going to be let loose of the truth. There is only one set of choices, either start now and do it affordably, or start later and create an economic catastrophe, which will it be?

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-11 05:42 · Score: 1

No, the hypothesis is that CO2 will cause temperature to increase. It is a validated hypothesis.
If all you're talking about is a non-zero effect, that's trivial and insipid - who cares if CO2 causes a .0008C warming/century, when natural variation is to the tune of up to 2C/century?
Establishing a hypothesis that demands that we avoid the temperature increase requires quantification.

Nor do you need ANY regional predictions in order to come to the one and only overarching policy choice.
Sure you do - you have no basis for assuming that any additional warming due to additional CO2 is harmful, nor that any mitigation efforts would be beneficial on the whole. You've gone straight from the "wild speculation" phase to the "so let's do this now" phase.

, the CO2 level of the atmosphere MUST BE STABILIZED, PERIOD, END OF REPORT.
But that's an assertion, not proven. CO2 levels in the atmosphere vary all the time, and always have, and there is no evidence at all that we can either control the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, nor that any attempt to control it would be beneficial.
You could take the same tack with H2O - it will obviously cause temperature to increase. It is a validated hypothesis. Are we now willing to jump to "the H2O level of the atmosphere MUST BE STABLIZED, PERIOD, END OF REPORT"?
You've got a clever argument, but it simply doesn't hold water.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 06:18 · Score: 1

Your ignorance of the topic is monumental. There's not even any reasonable place to begin. You need to educate yourself on the actual facts, then we can talk about options and policy. Until then its pointless. Here, here's a free link. http://www.realclimate.org/ Enjoy! ;)

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-11 06:38 · Score: 1

So you simply can't handle the argument? Or was I unclear in pointing out your misunderstandings and mistakes?
If you want a reasonable place to begin, start with your necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. Quote one from realclimate if you'd like.
We agree on the facts - CO2 has a nonzero warming effect, and humans emit CO2. What we don't agree on is your specious conclusion that the nonzero warming effect of CO2 is so great it will cause catastrophe. Furthermore we don't agree on your ludicrous assumption that any amount of human effort could actually *stabilize* CO2 levels at any sort of "goldilocks" point.
Now, if you can't begin the scientific method with an appropriate falsifiable hypothesis statement for your position, then you're right, it's quite pointless, unless you'd like to argue that the scientific method doesn't require falsifiability.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 07:28 · Score: 1

This is all marvelous except you are sans facts. There is no realistic doubt at this time that we have already seen almost a 1C temperature rise due to anthropogenic CO2, nor that there will be at least a 2.2C total sensitivity, nor that 3C is much more probable. If you cannot accept these facts then you are not operating in the real world but instead in a land of pure fantasy. Again, I urge you to actually read the literature or at least the summaries and presentations of the findings written by the people who have done the research, not that written by hacks paid by the oil industry.
I'm not sure you even understand what falsifiability IS. Nor am I required to do anything. The burden on you is to understand the current literature. It isn't my obligation to educate you on a subject you are falsely claiming to know something about. Read the science. The people doing this research have advanced a theory and supported it with a mass of evidence from multiple lines of research. If you are going to assail that you have to actually come up with a hypothesis, attested by evidence, which contradicts the theory in a way that it cannot answer. You haven't done that, nor has any researcher done that or even come close to doing that. Until you understand how this works you are indeed correct, discussion is pointless.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-11 15:14 · Score: 1

There is no realistic doubt at this time that we have already seen almost a 1C temperature rise due to anthropogenic CO2
Okay, so from 1900-2000, we experienced, as best we can tell, 0.8-1.0C of warming. You're literally going to blame all of that on human CO2? Even though the rate of warming has been pretty steady since before high human CO2 emissions and the end of the little ice age?
Really?

there will be at least a 2.2C total sensitivity, nor that 3C is much more probable.
You're throwing out numbers with no context. Do you mean 2.2C total from 1900-2100?
Do you have any sort of reason for us to believe that even 3C, from 1900-2100, would be harmful?

I'm not sure you even understand what falsifiability IS.
Of course I do - your hypothesis must have stated, ahead of time, what observations would prove you *wrong*. It must not be invulnerable, and able to explain away every possible observation.
Exactly what observations of CO2 and temperature, during the 20th century, would have falsified your hypothesis? What observations of CO2 and temperature next year, would falsify your hypothesis?

The people doing this research have advanced a theory and supported it with a mass of evidence from multiple lines of research.
But none of them have specified any falsification, which makes their advanced theory as scientific as astrology (which has a mass of evidence from multiple lines of research).
Go ahead, quote a *single* falsifiable hypothesis statement from *any* climate scientist you happen to believe in. Stop hand waving and show us the first step of the scientific method - or did you decide to believe in your authority figures without asking them for any sort of due diligence with the scientific method?
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 16:31 · Score: 1

You don't have to 'specify the falsifiability'. A falsifiable hypothesis is merely one where it is in principle possible to invalidate it. There isn't some form you fill out where you list the possible ways and if you leave it blank your hypothesis is unfalsifiable. Do you know anything about how science is conducted or what falsifiability means? I don't get the impression that you actually do.
The whole debate exists not because AGW is falsifiable, but simply because there's not a yes or no answer to the question "how much does adding CO2 to the atmosphere raise the temperature". Given that observation has demonstrated that temperature has been rising at a rate well within the range predicted by climate models and that every other known forcing except CO2 has been shown NOT to correlate well with this warming we are left with the logical conclusion that the roughly 3C climate sensitivity is a good number and that no other hypothesis so far advanced seems to work. If you can show some other mechanism that is at work, which fits better, then you can falsify the CO2 based AGW hypothesis. It is as simple as that. It isn't up to me to dream up that hypothesis. Certainly if I have a moment of revelation on the subject you'll read about it, I'd be HAPPY to write that paper. Unfortunately nobody has yet come up with that theory, my guess is it doesn't exist.
As for the increase in the 20th Century? Sure, I'm going to blame a good part of it on AGW. Truthfully I don't see anything in the literature which indicates there is a particular reason to blame any of it on anything EXCEPT CO2. However there's an equally good fit to other processes in the timeframe 1880-1950 or so. Past that point there's no indication it wasn't 100% CO2 and its related feedbacks. So yeah, we're good :)
As for explaining the numbers I'm using. Seriously, if you don't know what standard sensitivity numbers are, you're really kinda pretty far in the dark. You can pick up that kind of basic understanding from any of the 'science explained' type sites. Again I'd recommend realclimate.org as it is the most rigorous, but others will do such as http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-11 17:30 · Score: 1

A falsifiable hypothesis is merely one where it is in principle possible to invalidate it.
So please, tell me what observations of CO2 and global average temperature will invalidate your hypothesis? What observations will you accept as an invalidation?
And remember, you can't just assert trivial falsifications like, "show that humans don't exist, and then AGW doesn't exist", because surely the mere *existence* of humans doesn't imply that AGW is true. Your falsifiable hypothesis needs to require the necessary and sufficient factors that would lead us to believe it is in fact true, not just trivial falsifications.

there's not a yes or no answer to the question "how much does adding CO2 to the atmosphere raise the temperature"
Then be specific about how much you believe creates how much temperature, and be specific about what observations would falsify your hypothesis. (Of course that's not even getting into the entire idea of increased temperature being a bad or good thing.)

every other known forcing except CO2 has been shown NOT to correlate well with this warming we are left with the logical conclusion that the roughly 3C climate sensitivity is a good number and that no other hypothesis so far advanced seems to work.
1) we don't know nearly enough about the forcings of the climate system, much less any confidence we've identified all of them. Take for example ENSO/PDO/ADO - we *know* these things make climate changes, but there isn't a single GCM that can predict or hindcast them.
2) you're not in competition with other hypotheses advanced by others, you're in competition with the null hypothesis (that climate changes for reasons other than human CO2). Natural variability is the null hypothesis, even if you can't specify all the natural variables.

Truthfully I don't see anything in the literature which indicates there is a particular reason to blame any of it on anything EXCEPT CO2.
So exiting an ice age doesn't seem like a good reason for 0.8C/century temperature increases? :)

Seriously, if you don't know what standard sensitivity numbers are, you're really kinda pretty far in the dark.
So you were quoting 2C/doubling of CO2, or 3C/doubling of CO2? You weren't being very clear.
And furthermore, if that's the case, then we have even less to worry about. 1900-2000 increased only 0.8C. Even if we *double* our output of CO2 compared to what we released in the 20th century (which certainly won't double atmospheric levels of CO2, since we're a small tiny fraction of that), we'll only barely make another 0.8C by 2100, hardly anything to worry about.
I understand why you're making the mental mistakes you're making - you're motivated, intelligent, and you're good at finding confirming evidence to buttress your beliefs. But do yourself a favor, think about the importance of falsifiability, and how that simply doesn't fit with "the CO2 level of the atmosphere MUST BE STABILIZED, PERIOD, END OF REPORT."
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-12 02:17 · Score: 1

I don't know what you think the rules are here, but you need to demonstrate why adding CO2 to the air will not cause the temperature to go up. That's all there is to it. You're arguing with basic physics. If you cannot explain why basic physical processes will not work then you're just not going to get anywhere. Got it? Every analysis we have done that is at all realistic in the last 50 years has shown a sensitivity exactly in line with observation. The best available hypothesis is AGW. Again, you need to show how this will not happen, as there is no known mechanism that would result in the Earth NOT warming when we add CO2 to the atmosphere.
See, this is what you are not getting. It isn't a matter of proving something false in an absolute sense. It is a matter of you have to have a better theory. You do not have a better theory. You cannot explain why no other forcing matches the signature of what we are seeing except CO2. You cannot explain why CO2 will not raise the temperature, YOU HAVE NO HYPOTHESIS, nothing at all. You are asking people to accept that what we see is some random chance thing, and every bit of analysis that has been done demonstrates that at this the probably that is true is rather low, certainly no higher than 10%. "We just exited an ice age" is not a theory, nor is it even true, that was 12,000 years ago and the temperature has long since stopped recovering from that.
Now, BEYOND ALL OF THIS, air temperature rise is only a small part of the whole thermal picture, 3% approximately. 97% of the picture is hidden in the oceans, where all the evidence strongly indicates heat is accumulating. While we are still in the early phases of constructing a complete heat budget it is clear that significant changes are afoot, again only really consistent with CO2 forcing.
You have no idea what a 2C temperature change will do. For one thing this is only a global average. Some areas will have much greater increases, and every bit of theory indicates this will be concentrated in high latitudes. 2C is also the LOWEST likely result. What if the increase is 4C? That could mean 6C in the Arctic with no problem. 2C actually DOES have a very significant effect on the climate of a region. For instance (for whatever reason it has happened) the area in which I live has seen more than a 1C increase since 1970. Guess what, spring has advanced by almost 3 weeks, and snow cover now rarely exists before the end of December. Far more precipitation now falls in the winter and early spring, the summers are now significantly drier. This absolutely causes problems. We are a mild example of the effects.
Don't get me wrong, some of the more breathless panic is a little over the top, but 2C will cause a fairly large amount of economic loss worldwide. IPCC's assessments of that are probably fairly realistic. Given those estimates controlling CO2 output makes sense and will probably be cost-effective. Again though, this is at the LOW END of estimates. What we have seen so far is that consistently IPCC has been conservative. 3C is a much more likely outcome and 4C is probably more likely still for an overall 21st Century temperature increase. When you reach 4C the results are QUITE ugly.
You can be skeptical about exact sensitivities, but there's a point where this sort of 'optimism' becomes blindness. On our current course we are set to release something like 5 teratons of carbon into the atmosphere (3.7 teratons are already listed as assets on the books of energy companies). Beyond that degradation of the environment will probably result in the addition of another 500-1000 gigatons. Loss of natural sinks is likely to result in another teraton not being recycled into the soil/wood/etc. This is an astounding amount of material. Any suggestion that such a vast disruption of the carbon cycle and introduction of such unprecedented quantities of fossil carbon into the air will not have profound effects is ludicrous. Almost any change is likely to be bad for us, and this change is likely to be extremely rapid by g

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-12 02:47 · Score: 1

you need to demonstrate why adding CO2 to the air will not cause the temperature to go up. That's all there is to it. You're arguing with basic physics.
Let's focus on that for a second. You cannot simply assert that "CO2 is a greenhouse gas; humans emit CO2; therefore we must do everything in our power to stabilize CO2 levels". You can plug in *any* greenhouse gas into that hypothesis, and be just as silly. Shall we stabilize H2O levels worldwide?
This is a clear example of a trivial, and useless falsification. Yes, if CO2 didn't exist, or had spectral properties even .01% off of our calculations, then GCMs modeled with that are obviously false, and therefore AGW is false. But the simple existence of CO2 and its spectral properties does not imply humans are causing catastrophic global warming.
But even if we take a look at your trivial example, CO2 has been added to the atmosphere in the past (the expansion of animal life, volcanism, ocean outgassing), but the temperature has not gone up (note the lag of CO2 to temperature in ice core records). "Oh, but there was X, Y, Z at work!", you'll say...once again, using an ad hoc special pleading to preserve your central conceit.
You need to do a better job than saying "basic physics means that my complex and fragile hypothesis must be true".

there is no known mechanism that would result in the Earth NOT warming when we add CO2 to the atmosphere.
Sure there are - heck, AGW alarmists talk about soot and particulate matter "hiding" the warming all the time, and let's not forget we've got ENSO/PDO/ADO, cloud albedo, or even solar variations (besides simply TSI).

97% of the picture is hidden in the oceans, where all the evidence strongly indicates heat is accumulating.
Ah, the "missing heat" argument...one that unfortunately has not been observed :)
Look, you want to talk basic physics, look at the heat capacity of the oceans vs. the atmosphere: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/energy-content-the-heat-is-on-atmosphere-vs-ocean/
Now, do you really think the atmosphere can drive the oceans? Certainly, cloud cover (varying albedo) can have an effect by blocking or allowing radiation from hitting the oceans, but simple atmospheric temperature? Try heating a pot of water with a thin layer of air, and tell me just how hot you need the atmosphere to move the oceans :)

You have no idea what a 2C temperature change will do.
Sure we do, we can measure what happened between the bottom of the little ice age and today. However, if you want to assert that I have no idea what the *next* 2C of temperature change will do, you should humbly note that neither do you :)
Why should we destroy our economy on the basis of something you have no idea about?

the area in which I live has seen more than a 1C increase since 1970.
There is no reason for you to believe that such a change wouldn't have happened if humans didn't emit CO2. Frankly, it's much more likely that your 1C of increase is a matter of UHI, which although certainly human driven, has nothing to do with emissions.
But that being said, please, be specific about what catastrophe has happened in your area because of this change! Has the area completely depopulated? Have all the animals and plants died? Have hurricanes and tornadoes ravaged through at a higher rate than before? Exactly what are you afraid of an early spring or mild winter? Has some local tit-mouse population crashed?
Maybe if we understand the severity of the effects you've observed in your locality, you can make the case that we "must act now"...

2C will cause a fairly large amount o
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-12 05:03 · Score: 1

Whatever dude, you have no hypothesis of any kind, your view of the evidence is so warped it isn't even funny, and you seem to fail to grasp the entire problem with your position, which is that you are contrasting a hypothesis with a great deal of evidence in favor of it against NOTHING. You have no explanation, no chain of evidence, no causal mechanisms, nothing. You have no leg to stand on. You can try to invoke uncertainties and very poorly understood evidence from time periods in the very distant past, but what you CANNOT DO is explain what is wrong with the current hypothesis or why the observations match its predictions so well. Until you can do those things you are just wrong. Occam's Razor cuts you.
I could care less if in your misguided mind you have convinced yourself that the truth is just some delusion. Reality could give a crap less what you believe. It would be easier if you would wake up, smell the coffee, and lift a hand in the great work ahead, but it is going to go on regardless. Don't expect any special breaks, you're going to pay your fair share.
Frankly we're not going to get any further. Your arguments don't float, they wouldn't convince the vast majority of the scientific community, and they will probably never convince me either. Good luck.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-12 05:46 · Score: 1

Whatever dude, you have no hypothesis of any kind
But that's the point - I don't need to have a hypothesis of "observed global warming is caused by the invention of board games with more than 3 players" in order to critique yours. The null hypothesis, that there is no causal relationship from human CO2 emissions to global average temperature (and further, that there is no causal relationship from global average temperature to any sort of measurable harm), stands as your high bar.
You don't need a competing astrology chart in order to recognize that someone's astrology chart is pseudo-science.

You have no explanation, no chain of evidence, no causal mechanisms, nothing.

We don't need to invent a reason for natural climate change - it happened for the billions of years before humanity, and will certainly happen for billions of years after. It's simply the null hypothesis. Or are you going to argue that natural climate change isn't real until we model every natural forcing?

what you CANNOT DO is explain what is wrong with the current hypothesis or why the observations match its predictions so well.
Sure I can. What's wrong with the current hypothesis? It's not falsifiable. Why do the observations match predictions so well? Because the predictions are cherry picked after the fact. If we get less hurricanes, you point to paper A written in 1990. If we get more hurricanes, you point to paper B written in 1990. You're playing astrology.

Your arguments don't float, they wouldn't convince the vast majority of the scientific community
I still think you haven't really understood the argument, or the scientific method at all. You've failed to specify, or even quote, a falsifiable hypothesis that would affirm your beliefs as true. You've looked at a lot of data, and found it consistent with your beliefs (just as astrologists can look at a lot of data, and find it consistent with theirs), but you've failed the most basic of criteria for scientific truth - falsifiability.
Re:On the whole by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-12 06:40 · Score: 1

But again, your answer to the consensus AGW theory is "it just randomly happened" which doesn't cut it. Up to a certain point that kind of thing is of course hard to distinguish from correlation, but we've substantially passed that point, thus your objection is simply dated. At this point I have a theory that has predicted what is observed to a degree that exceeds noise by about 3 sigma. You can't just ignore that. Your null hypothesis is no longer holding water. This is the whole entire problem with your position. In 1980 you could say "well, you have causality explained but you could be wrong, there's not enough data to say" but in 2012 that's not a viable argument anymore. I have causality and correlation with a signal strong enough to erase all real doubt. Beyond that I have MULTIPLE signals in the form of the pattern of warming (night time lows up the most, melting ice, increased deep ocean thermal transport, etc). It isn't just one signal. Some of them are weak, but with very few marginal exceptions they point in the same direction.
I'm not cherry picking. I'm not invoking ANYTHING except the very simplest thing, CO2 traps heat, this raises the temperature, the temperature is actually going up, the 'fingerprint' of when and where this happens matches with CO2 causation and the signal is above 3 sigma. I don't need any other arguments. I especially need not refer IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM to any aspect of weather, that's a straw man type of argument. I haven't said a damned thing about any storms, NOTHING, that's not in any way needed to support my argument. I am going right to the center of the thing, and I notice you simply never address the core of the argument, there's a greater than 3 sigma warming signal consistent with my theory. Show me a hypothesis that is even CLOSE to 3 sigma that is an alternative. You cannot. You are simply almost certain wrong, with greater than 90% probability. I would be a fool to believe what you believe.
Honestly, there just isn't anything more to be said on the subject. I'll be happy to look at your alternative hypothesis when you have one, the null hypothesis is now rejected as untenable, so you must do better. I await your alternative theory.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:On the whole by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-12 09:09 · Score: 1

But again, your answer to the consensus AGW theory is "it just randomly happened" which doesn't cut it.
You sound like a creationist - "random happenstance can't lead to intelligent life!" :)
Seriously, the null hypothesis, which simply asserts that what we've seen before humanity (natural climate change) is exactly what we're seeing now (natural climate change), doesn't require any further specification, just as evolution doesn't need to provide every transitional fossil, or document every mutation that ever occurred.

At this point I have a theory that has predicted what is observed to a degree that exceeds noise by about 3 sigma.

No you don't. You have no idea what the noise of the system looks like, and you've post hoc chosen your "predictions" to match your observations, much like a cold reader emphasizes "hits" and minimizes "misses". You simply don't have any sort of falsifiable hypothesis.

Beyond that I have MULTIPLE signals in the form of the pattern of warming (night time lows up the most, melting ice, increased deep ocean thermal transport, etc).
Warming happens. All of those signals would happen during natural warming periods. Observing them does not show that humans caused the warming.

I'm not invoking ANYTHING except the very simplest thing, CO2 traps heat, this raises the temperature, the temperature is actually going up
You have no way of asserting your CO2 sensitivity parameter is correct, and no way of asserting that the temperature rise isn't the one driving CO2 levels.

the 'fingerprint' of when and where this happens matches with CO2 causation and the signal is above 3 sigma.
Again, you've emphasized your "hit", but denied any falsification. Any observation that is below 3 sigma, and you'll use an ad hoc special pleading to preserve your central conceit. You're playing a game of faith, not science.

there's a greater than 3 sigma warming signal consistent with my theory.
Again, "consistent with", the same way the personality of an observed Leo would be "consistent with" their horoscope. But say for a moment, you're right about the warming - where's the proof of any sort of harm? You keep trying to show what is "consistent with" your hypothesis, but fail to show how the multiple steps must follow from one another.

the null hypothesis is now rejected as untenable
Oh really? :) You managed to discard the possibility of natural climate change with a wave of your hand?
I know that this is an important, self-identifying argument for you, so it must be scary to have it challenged, but do you *understand* the argument I'm making? Can you follow the rationale, even if you reject it? I think you're still confused about what falsifiability is, and what the null hypothesis is, and can't quite stop citing "consistent with" observations that aren't addressing the weakness in your argument.

How do you model such a complicated system? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:27 · Score: 0

We just cannot. We cannot even predict the weather more than a few days ahead. Yet somehow we pretend that wee can predict climate 100's of years ahead. Small flaws in the model could result in large errors. We cannot even be sure that we have considered all the relevant parameters.

This is just a case of GIGO.

Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 01:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just because YOU are ignorant of the methods and the available accuracy doesn't mean everyone is.
What's your preference, ignore the possibility that we could be destroying our world because predicting the future is difficult?
Yeah, good plan.
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

How do you model such a complicated system?
In principle it can be modelled analytically, if we knew enough to do so. We don't yet though. Our GCMs don't come even close to modelling the historical record with statistical significance. At best they roughly mirror some short-term variations like 100ky cycles and a general increase or decrease in some metrics with the help of fudge factors, but never across multiple geological periods.
The only people expressing confidence about our predictive ability in climatology based on physical modeling are those who hold the scientific method in less esteem than their own reading of tea leaves. We can graph trends of course and extrapolate along them, but that is unrelated to scientific understanding.
We'll get there one day. For now though, beware of shamen wearing the clothes of scientists. If the scientific method isn't being respected, you can guarantee that science is taking a back seat to something less objective.
But don't lose hope. And in the interim, look after our one and only habitable planet. Just because science isn't able to model it accurately yet doesn't mean that it's OK to pollute it. Commonsense applies.
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Capt+James+McCarthy · 2012-12-10 02:07 · Score: 2

Just because YOU are ignorant of the methods and the available accuracy doesn't mean everyone is.
What's your preference, ignore the possibility that we could be destroying our world because predicting the future is difficult?
Yeah, good plan.
I don't think humans will be destroying the world. The world will remove humans from the equation and it will be fine moving forward. It's done it many times before, so there is little to doubt that it will do it again. Now don't jump on this as though I'm not saying to do anything, or that humans have an affect on the environment, because we do. Just like any other living thing, we have an impact on our surroundings. Resources are limited, every living thing takes resources. Some take from other living things.
Finding the magical balance with the Earth and humans will be a tough one to solve. Throw in the 'natural' ebb and flow of the weather and it's even more complicated. The question will be is how good humans really are at adapting to changes in the environment. We will always have an affect on it.

--
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-10 02:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

Actually your assessment is quite good, except it would be applicable to the 1970's. Modern Earth system models are FAR more sophisticated and capable than you are stating. They respond in quite realistic ways to different forcings, reproduce both recent historical temperatures and paleoclimate. They are also virtually entirely physical, containing no 'fudge factors', just basic physics. There are plenty of things that aren't accurately measured and a few significant things that are only partially understood, but when we plug in various different models of those things (say clouds for instance) we can constrain the range of what these unknowns could possibly be hiding. It isn't much. One of the most remarkable facts about climate models is just how consistently they have produced quite similar overall results and how HARD it is to get them to produce really unrealistic results. Even the most grossly simplistic models usually demonstrate significant correspondence with reality. The main area of uncertainty, and one that may possibly be irreducible, are small scale regional predictions. Climate can have a lot of different similar states. It is perhaps impossible even with virtually infinite computer power to predict what the rainfall will be in New England around 2050. The answers you will get in each model run with slightly randomized initial state will vary somewhat. Interestingly though the GLOBAL results are generally rock solid consistent. Chances are this is just a feature of the real world, tiny effects WILL make a local difference, but the overall state of the whole system is constrained by basic conservation laws, so that the large scale predictions are highly accurate (and have generally been shown to be so). Truthfully we may be approaching the limit of what we can usefully do in terms of prediction.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by PortHaven · 2012-12-10 03:21 · Score: 1

Love that this gets modded down. But it's so true....
Are coral reefs shrinking due to CO2/global warming or are they shrinking due to toxins, pesticides and other run off.
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by DeadCatX2 · 2012-12-10 05:29 · Score: 1

It's not global warming that is killing coral reefs. It is ocean acidification.
In a nutshell: as more CO2 is released, it will dissolve into the ocean to maintain equilibrium. As CO2 dissolves into the ocean, the result is an increase in carbonic acid, creating bicarbonate and hydronium ions, which reduce the pH of the ocean.
Under "normal" conditions, the carbonate ions are supersaturated. As pH falls, carbonate ions become undersaturated. In these "abnormal" conditions, calcium carbonate and aragonite (what coral "bones" are made of) are vulnerable to dissolution.
In more plain terms, the coral reef's skeleton is being dissolved faster than the coral reef can build it. Note that the tests for this hypothesis controlled for pollution, so this effect is observed even if the only factor is decreasing pH. From the abstract of the paper cited below, "We investigated the calcification rates of five colonies of the zooxanthellate coral Stylophora pistillata in synthetic seawater using the alkalinity anomaly technique."
^ Gattuso, J.-P.; Frankignoulle, M.; Bourge, I.; Romaine, S. and Buddemeier, R. W. (1998). "Effect of calcium carbonate saturation of seawater on coral calcification". Global and Planetary Change 18 (1–2): 37–46. Bibcode 1998GPC....18...37G. doi:10.1016/S0921-8181(98)00035-6.

--
:(){ :|:& };:
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 05:54 · Score: 1

We just cannot. We cannot even predict the weather more than a few days ahead. Yet somehow we pretend that wee can predict climate 100's of years ahead. Small flaws in the model could result in large errors. We cannot even be sure that we have considered all the relevant parameters.
This is just a case of GIGO.
Ah, yes. Oceanology is also a crock, because it didn't predict the wave that ruined my sand castle. And astronomy too - no one predicted the meteor I saw last month. They can't even predict how many planets there are around Betelgeuse! If they can't predict the little stuff, how can they claim to know what's going on in the big picture!
I find it comforting to know that creationists have independently discovered this fraud in the nature of scientists, and frequently invoke it to debunk evolution. We're not in this alone, like some kind of fringe group or something.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Red+Flayer · 2012-12-10 06:45 · Score: 1

It's not global warming that is killing coral reefs. It is ocean acidification [wikipedia.org].
Acidification is a threat to the long-term viability of coral reefs.

However, the reefs that are dying off now are doing so not because of acidification, but by-and-large because of high water temperatures.

--
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Troed · 2012-12-10 08:07 · Score: 1

Which model accurately predicts ENSO?
Also, are you saying that IPCC AR4 WG1 statements on cloud uncertainty are now no longer accurate?

--
it's in my head
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Troed · 2012-12-10 08:10 · Score: 1

It's not global warming that is killing coral reefs. It is ocean acidification.
No. Ocean pH varies an order of magnitude more than the slight change over the last centuries we believe we can measure.
Coral reefs bleaching due to cold water:
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/weeklynews/mar10/cwcoral.html
Coral reefs bleaching due to warm water:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-11-02-coral-caribbean_x.htm

--
it's in my head
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-10 10:51 · Score: 1

Regional models have been predicting the ENSO months in advance for years. Global models produce oscillations. The timing is never identical with the real events, but this is not actually anticipated to EVER happen, ENSO is weather, not climate, you can predict the existence of weather phenomena, but not specific individual appearances. This has been the state of the art since the mid 90's. Clouds cannot be summarized by "we now understand them" or "we don't understand them", there are a lot of different cloud phenomena. What we CAN say is go ahead and plug in the most optimistic and pessimistic cloud physics assumptions, what happens? You STILL get realistic models that STILL show substantial sensitivity. How do you think the low and high ends of the range are determined? http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm is a good summary of models and their history. They work quite well in terms of global predictions. As far as low level regional predictions it simply may never be possible to produce a single high confidence estimate because the exact pattern that evolves in the real world is partly dictated by processes with extreme sensitivity to input parameters.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Troed · 2012-12-10 11:04 · Score: 1

Regional models have been predicting the ENSO months in advance for years
If that was true we'd be in the middle of an El Niño right now, as I'm sure you know :)

ENSO is weather, not climate
Doubtful. The PDO cycle alone is long enough for ENSO to be considered climate, and you can't have an opinion on the PDO without ENSO. Cause and effect.

What we CAN say is go ahead and plug in the most optimistic and pessimistic cloud physics assumptions, what happens? You STILL get realistic models that STILL show substantial sensitivity. How do you think the low and high ends of the range are determined?
Are you saying we know the limits of cloud sensitivity as a feedback to a degree higher than the causative effect of CO2? (That wasn't the case for IPCC AR4, that's why I'm asking. I didn't know we'd come much further).

--
it's in my head
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-12-11 02:57 · Score: 1

You cannot divide these things up, CO2 and clouds are not separate things so your question is not sensible. Yes, we have narrowed the range of uncertainty in general. Time marches on and the Earth system is always understood better every year. Each increment of knowledge makes predictions more accurate. The point is that the most extreme possibilities for clouds in either direction just aren't that huge a difference. I mean it is a considerable difference, but no matter what it isn't going to invalidate the conclusions as this uncertainty has been taken into account.
And YES, ENSO is weather. I suggest reading the literature on the subject. It is a recurring instability which exhibits nonlinear behavior and is in fact a classic large scale weather feature. The difference being climate is an overall system state, weather is local transient state. The overall climate occupies a region of phase space around an attractor, weather is just a phenomenon which occurs transiently within certain regions of that phase space.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Re:How do you model such a complicated system? by Troed · 2012-12-11 05:02 · Score: 1

You cannot divide these things up, CO2 and clouds are not separate things so your question is not sensible.
Of course it is. If the uncertainty with regards to even the sign of cloud feedback (= state of knowledge at IPCC AR4) then we have no idea whether an increase in CO2 will cause warming or cooling after having accounted for those feedbacks.
Feel free to let me know which papers have narrowed down the uncertainties with regards to clouds since AR4. Those I've read still come to completely opposite conclusions.

And YES, ENSO is weather. I suggest reading the literature on the subject.
Oh I have :) I assume you've accepted that we have no models that are able to predict ENSO then? Do you also agree that cycles in ENSO (increased amounts of El Niño vs increased amounts of La Niña) are what causes the PDO cycle - and that it's a cycle over ~60 years and thus is what's considered climate (>30 years)?
I'm less sure whether you tried to claim the effects of ENSO being strictly local. If so, I'd have to ask you to .. read the literature.

--
it's in my head

Hardly a Doomsday Scenario?! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:27 · Score: 1

You're neglecting to account for the onslaught of Captain Planet.

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by Joce640k · 2012-12-10 01:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Just sit back and chill !! You can't do anything about it !! NO !! You CAN'T !!

Not as long as the disinformation campaign is running in the USA, no.

--
No sig today...

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by vlm · 2012-12-10 01:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Just sit back and chill !! You can't do anything about it !! NO !! You CAN'T !!

Sure you can. Move. Its not that hard, depending where you live. I live near a great lake, the supposed increase in extremes of weather is roughly equivalent to moving about 5% further away from the lake. So I need to move "about" a mile east. Having to move a mile toward the lake sucks for the rich people already living on the lakeshore, but they're the people most able to afford it anyway.

My distant ancestors immigrated to farmland about 100 miles north roughly the same distance from the lake. Absolute worst case screaming eco-nut scenario however highly unlikely, means my GGG-grandkids would have to move 100 miles north to my ancestral homeland to have the same climate as when I was a kid. No big deal.

Wake me when they're growing bananas in Chicago out in the open air, or a hurricane strikes Milwaukee, then I'll get worried about it.

--
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Pretty doomsday to me by david.given · 2012-12-10 01:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

sea levels to rise almost a meter more than present over the next century ... hardly a doomsday scenario

I believe you don't realise quite how many people live within a vertical metre of sea level.

Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:48 · Score: 2

sea levels to rise almost a meter more than present over the next century ... hardly a doomsday scenario
I believe you don't realise quite how many people live within a vertical metre of sea level.
A lot live BELOW sea level and they are doing fine. One meter levees? Piece of cake. One century to build that? One meter levees don't even need to be reinforced with concrete. A small strip of land will be more than enough. And we can have beaches on coast side of the levee.
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by war4peace · 2012-12-10 01:52 · Score: 2

Also I would like to point out that TFA pretty much ignores anything else than next century. If this trend accelerates, how would the world look like 500 years from now? If you think that's a LONG time, consider that mankind was traversing oceans 500 years ago.

--
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:16 · Score: 2, Informative

You're glossing over the fact that that's a one meter rise in _mean_ sea level. Oscillating tides can change that to be +/- 5 meters in some places (e.g. Cook Inlet of Alaska, or the Bay of Fundy). Depending on the weather, storm surges can potentially have another additive affect. Most readers should be familiar with a normal distribution, where a subtle change in the mean can have a disproportionate affect on the extremes. So if you're expecting a one meter rise, to protect your coastal infrastructure from an extreme event such as a storm surge would generally require you to built levies well above that mean change.
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:37 · Score: 0

Don't worry, most of those people are the mantapeople, they'll get along just fine under 9 feet of water.
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Rockoon · 2012-12-10 02:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you think that's a LONG time, consider that mankind was traversing oceans 500 years ago.
1903 we first took flight.
1942 we flew the first operational jet fighter.
1961 we put the first man in space.
1969 we put the first man on the moon.
1971 we put the first space station in orbit.
1980 we put the first re-usable vehicle into space.
Today there are over a dozen private companies with space flight capability.

500 years from now? You can't even begin to imagine what technology will be available. The only thing that you can be sure of is that it will look like magic.

--
"His name was James Damore."
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 03:52 · Score: 0

One estimate is 100 mil. That's a lot of displaced people. As noted, this is mean sea level, so the tide will be oscillating around the new mean, so you are going to have worse problems with spring tides and storm surges.
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:29 · Score: 0

1980 we put the first re-usable vehicle into space.
No we didn't. Having worked at Canaveral on the Shittle in the 80's, I can tell you with authority that very little of that boondoggle was "reusable".
It was well-understood by the rank-and-file at NASA that it would be cheaper to build a new Saturn 5 for every launch than it was to refurbish the Shittle after every flight. It was also well understood that many campaign contributors (i.e. contractors) liked it that way. And heck, it kept me employed for a decade...
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:42 · Score: 0

500 years from now? You can't even begin to imagine what technology will be available. The only thing that you can be sure of is that it will look like magic.
There are at least two scenarios that are more realistic,
1. Nuclear war will cause 500 years from now to look like a bad case of Dark Ages - Roman Empire was great too and see what happened?
2. End of fossil fuel era will result in overall decrease in standard of living. People keep slumming it along like they do today. The planet is a lot more "lonely" though, with most species of animals and fish being extinct. Canned Jelly Fish for dinner kids?
I hope for a better for a better future too, but examples all over the world point that the world doesn't care as much about better future than the mythical $$$ or being popular for the next election. Rationality is not something that is looked at positively by the idiocracy.
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by AdamHaun · 2012-12-10 07:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's never been about doomsday for the whole planet. It's about poverty, war, and general misery for billions. But Slashdot Libertarians are still stuck in their echo chamber where anything less than a massive asteroid strike is preferably to a tax increase. Didn't you know that the suffering of poor people is really just a plot to take away your money?

Some new arid areas are expected to appear in the south of N. America, South Africa and Mediterranean countries. Overall, hardly a doomsday scenario.
Oh, just some "new arid areas". No big deal. If you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Maybe you should read a bit about the massive drought that hit Texas last year. Or the many, many wildfires due to our entire state being a tinderbox. August in Houston was extra fun, with 29 out of 31 days reaching highs over 100 degrees F, with all-time highs of 109 F being reached on four separate days. Maybe you'd rather see some pictures, if that's your thing -- look, I Googled it for you! You know it's bad when people are hoping for a hurricane to bring drought relief.
Let me make this simple for you: no water = no agriculture, no cities, few people, lots of fires. Texas has 25 million people. That's a lot of misery you can spread around. A lot of potential refugees moving to your neighborhoods. But clearly letting my state be destroyed is preferable to allowing TEH EVIL (nonexistent) MARXISTS enact their EVIL (nonexistent) SOCIALIST AGENDA! (Which everyone in the world except Slashdot Libertarians is in on, of course.) Those evil socialists just hate the obvious solution of having billions of people and most of our agriculture pack up and move. But not Slashdot Libertarians! In addition to being IT administrators, they're *also* the worldwide experts in the economics of relocating entire populations, and can tell you with 100% certainty that it's super-cheap and mostly painless as long as we let the free market work its magic! Unlike carbon taxes which will instantly destroy the world economy! Because Cambodia!
(I really heard someone here compare fighting climate change to Cambodian communism once. Incidentally, Cambodian communism was all about forcibly relocating large populations, but if you want to be a good Slashdot Libertarian, you don't sweat the details.)

--
Visit the
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by war4peace · 2012-12-10 10:48 · Score: 1

Oh man, I just HOPE that ANY technology will be available.

--
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Re:Pretty doomsday to me by Rockoon · 2012-12-10 11:24 · Score: 1

1. Nuclear war will cause 500 years from now to look like a bad case of Dark Ages
Or, maybe even if we have a full scale nuclear war this year.. that in 500 years we will still have technology far more advanced than we have today.

--
"His name was James Damore."

Exploding bullshit detector here... by TapeCutter · 2012-12-10 01:37 · Score: 2

Olaf Stampf.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.

Hardly doomsday? by SirGarlon · 2012-12-10 01:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Let's compute the total market value of all coastal real estate below 1m elevation before we declare this "hardly a doomsday scenario."

Let's also factor in the costs of re-aligning all land use to the new climate and the impact of that re-alignment on the global food supply.

I'm not qualified to do that analysis, myself -- but I would venture, neither is the Slashdot editor who commented so dismissively on the report.

--
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.

Re:Hardly doomsday? by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 02:00 · Score: 0

Rather than let the sea have that land, can't we build a 1m tall levee? Heck a 5 meter levee could be dirt and we would be covered for a while.
The costs of re-aligning the land use will be high, but drawn out over a long period.
I am not happy about any of this, but it does seem like something humans have dealt with before.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by dkf · 2012-12-10 02:08 · Score: 2

Rather than let the sea have that land, can't we build a 1m tall levee?
You can, but you've got a lot of those levees to build. Better get on with it. Oh, and you've got to also figure out what to do about awkward cases like salt marshes (which aren't exactly sea or land, but rather somewhere in between) and you need to build bigger levees behind the first ones to deal with the fact that the sea doesn't stay at one level, but rather moves up and down with tides and storms; a 1m levee is unlikely to be enough given the consequences of catastrophic failure.
Levees can protect some of the coast, but definitely not everywhere. It's too hard to do and not cost effective when you expand to protecting thousands of miles...

--
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Re:Hardly doomsday? by iggymanz · 2012-12-10 02:12 · Score: 2

what nonsense. what is the value of all property in Detroit 50 years ago compared to now? over a timespan of even half a century people can move, things can radically change. new things can be built, old things abandoned, foundations and streets can be raised.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:27 · Score: 0

Let's compute the total market value of all coastal real estate below 1m elevation before we declare this "hardly a doomsday scenario."
Economic loss is hardly a doomsday scenario. Large scale starvation is also not a doomsday scenario.
A doomsday is a day when pretty much everything dies off.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:32 · Score: 1

What is it about Americans that think they can just build a wall to keep everything out? The US alone has thousands to tens of thousands of miles of coastline. Building and maintaining a 5 meter tall (which would then be necessarily be 15-20 meters wide) would be incredibly expensive and disruptive. Are you considering the infrastructure required to all ship, fishing and tanker traffic in and out of the ports? What about the large scale disruption to the fisheries and the marine ecosystems that would be caused by increased turbidity in the water and by disconnecting the greater ocean with the highly productive estuary habitats? Are you insane?
Re:Hardly doomsday? by dinfinity · 2012-12-10 03:49 · Score: 1

Yes. It is almost impossible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlands
And: http://www.compendiumvoordeleefomgeving.nl/content/figuren/nl/2043_004k_clo_03_nl.jpg
Although the red parts are dikes and the like that do not adhere to some norm, the amount of dikes that adhere to the norm has grown due to public spending. Yes, proactively protecting your country from the effects of storms and floods costs money. Tax money.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 06:09 · Score: 0

Note that the norm here is: a once in 10.000 years failure max.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by Bigby · 2012-12-10 07:22 · Score: 1

NYC already has quite a wall. Hurricane Sandy topped it with a crazy high 13 ft (~4m) storm surge. Some coastal areas will be impacted, but nothing that can't be managed locally.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by ceoyoyo · 2012-12-10 09:11 · Score: 1

As Americans are fond of pointing out, there's a bit of a difference between the size of the Netherlands and the size of the US. In this case we're talking about the coastline of the Netherlands versus the coastline of the entire world. Levees might let Manhattan stay where it is but they're not going to work in other places. Lots of people will have to move.
Re:Hardly doomsday? by GrimShady · 2012-12-10 10:32 · Score: 1

Rich people live on the coast and poor people live further inland. The way I see it the rich people will lose their land and have to buy beachfront property from the poor people. Robin Hood economics FTW!!!
Re:Hardly doomsday? by dinfinity · 2012-12-10 12:18 · Score: 1

You do realize that in general the bigger the country, the larger the proportion of land area (and thus population) to perimeter is?
Very important from a national perspective is of course also how much of your border is coastline (which in the case of The Netherlands is roughly half of it).
Also important is of course how much of the coast line is inhabited land near sea level (which in the case of The Netherlands is all of it).
Really, countering sea level rise is very much a non-issue for first world countries. The people with issues are the ones living in shit poor countries or the ones that live in an estuary (which do not really lend themselves to flood control).

20-year's worth of underestimation by MMatessa · 2012-12-10 01:48 · Score: 0

Hopefully the new models are not just continuing a 20-year trend of underestimating the impacts of global warming. Like melting arctic ice.

Re:20-year's worth of underestimation by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 05:59 · Score: 1

Hopefully the new models are not just continuing a 20-year trend of underestimating the impacts of global warming. Like melting arctic ice.
That trend has been so consistent that I find myself wondering whether the IPCC deliberately shoots low to make their projections more palatable.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by eldavojohn · 2012-12-10 01:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

sea levels to rise almost a meter more than present over the next century ... hardly a doomsday scenario

I believe you don't realise quite how many people live within a vertical metre of sea level.

Well, that's a valid point however hamanity's war with the sea is nothing new and the Dutch have become quite adept at it (with 20% of their country being reclaimed land). Now, that has a whole bunch of caveats about how much trouble they face is that system ever fails and we've all probably heard about that. I would bet that if people believed these reports, some relatively inexpensive measures could be taken to prevent a much more expensive catastrophe. I don't know how much these efforts could help Florida -- an occasional hurricane might make them a bigger problem. But engineers have been tackling this problem.

For the United States, I think a bigger doomsday scenario of this is for agriculture in Texas. Texas already lost $7.62 billion in agricultural this year and if you're telling me that that part of North America is going to get more arid? Well, droughts are something that humans have long had problems with. You can build all the irrigation you want but when that's dried up, there's not a lot you can do. If you like to eat beef and if you like Texas to be a productive state in the union, you should probably be concerned about this.

--
My work here is dung.

Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 01:57 · Score: 1

So then beef production moves slightly north?
Or maybe I can finally get grass fed beef from the USA?
Over all a small increase in the price of beef is not the end of the world. The decreased red meat consumption would probably be a good thing on average for us.
Texas still has lots of oil and natural gas. Its agriculture was living on borrowed time anyway. Once the aquifer went dry that was coming to an end.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:21 · Score: 0

Texas beef will now be reclassified as seafood.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by hackertourist · 2012-12-10 02:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

I would bet that if people believed these reports, some relatively inexpensive measures could be taken to prevent a much more expensive catastrophe
The Netherlands expect to spend over E100B until the year 2100 on combating the consequences of rising sea levels. Doable for a rich country, but not exactly cheap.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by eldavojohn · 2012-12-10 03:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

So then beef production moves slightly north?
This is a confusingly ignorant misunderstanding that I constantly see reiterated on Slashdot. There is only a finite amount of arable land and that is 18% of the United States with 0.21% of that being permanent crops. From this site, you can see in this graph that the figure of 18% actually fluctuates. Now, there's a lot of factors at play but drought is a big one and this idea that you "just move the cattle North" to the new land is downright laughable. Temperature is not the only factor in making land arable. Why does Iowa produce more corn than per acre than any other state? Well, the soil has a lot to do with it but also the temperature is better than, say, Minnesota even though there's a lot of corn and soy grown in Minnesota.

During the dust bowl of the 1930s, we should have learned that you can't just "move cattle and farming North a bit" to avoid droughts. We also should have learned how important it is to combat erosion and protect our water supplies.

What happened last season in Texas was they failed to grow their own roughage (hay, straw, alfalfa, sorghum, etc) for their steers to eat and so they paid top dollar to have it shipped down to them and other states profited from Texas' loss. This is not a sustainable model. Moving cattle northward will not work, there is a reason ranching flourished in Texas -- any areas north of there that have the same conditions have long become ranches. Even if someone does the math and says "Oh, hey, this area of Montana here is going to be highly sought after" it's not like a massive ranch in Texas can pick up operations and move them to Montana in a single season. You're going to see restructuralization problems and the United States consumer will cry highway robbery when their already subsidized McDonald's burger costs $1.33 instead of $0.99. Should Texas become akin to Arizona, our economy will feel it.

Or maybe I can finally get grass fed beef from the USA?
You can already buy this from Montana and other states. The problem is how much grassland can support free roaming cattle. Again, a lesson learned from the Dust Bowl, we need to build ranches and feed them in order to prevent top soil erosion. If you demand they be free roaming and you calculate it, beef will become incredibly expensive and not a viable option for the entire populace.

Over all a small increase in the price of beef is not the end of the world. The decreased red meat consumption would probably be a good thing on average for us.
Right, those grapes were sour anyway?

Texas still has lots of oil and natural gas.
So? Most states depend on multiple sources of revenue, right? You should be alarmed when any major industry faces a major problem. Otherwise, why not just kill off all the other industries and embrace "lots of oil and natural gas"? Well, that's simple, you use what you got and Texas is losing arable land to grow food for their cattle.

Its agriculture was living on borrowed time anyway. Once the aquifer went dry that was coming to an end.
An unsustainable agricultural strategy is bad agriculture. Doesn't everything -- even your oil and natural gas -- depend on the availability of water? You make it sound like we just turned Texas into Mars and probably for the better? Ruining land is not the answer and this report states that Texas will get more arid so measures should be taken to at least prepare for that, wouldn't you think?

--
My work here is dung.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by dinfinity · 2012-12-10 03:34 · Score: 1

That is annually about EUR 1*10^9.
GDP of the Netherlands is ~EUR 700*10^9.
So, assuming no growth of the GDP, that means an annual expenditure of ~0.14% of GDP.
How will The Netherlands ever find that kind of cash?
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by Charliemopps · 2012-12-10 03:50 · Score: 1

um... you can get grass fed beef just about everywhere. Stop buying your groceries at walmart.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 03:51 · Score: 1

Actually I honestly think $1 burgers are a bad thing for the USA. We are too fat and too sick for them. This is not sour grapes this is seeing the silver lining. It would encourage other healthier foods. Food can actually be too cheap. Yes, I do desire free roaming grass fed beef. Since I
I do think measures should be taken, but I know the people of Texas will never go for that. Limiting the water use of even 1 farmer/rancher before the water runs out will be seen as evil commie/social/mooslim/atheist talk. They will keep that tragedy of the commons going until the last steer dies of dehydration.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 03:53 · Score: 1

Some how I accidentally removed part of my comment while posting. The rest is
Since I do not eat meat everyday and red meat maybe once or twice a week even on a pretty low income grass fed beef would be very affordable. On my income it is not even a consideration.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by h4rr4r · 2012-12-10 03:59 · Score: 1

Yes, that was not my complaint. I wanted grass fed beef FROM THE USA. Right now I can get it from Uruguay at Wegmans or from some other South American nation at Tops. Much like the only grass fed lamb I can find is from New Zealand or Australia.
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by bill_mcgonigle · 2012-12-10 04:12 · Score: 1

if you're telling me that that part of North America is going to get more arid?
There are some models that say that. However, the geological history shows that warm periods tend to be wet periods. 5% of the world's water is locked up in police ice caps. We could use some of that back in the atmosphere - humans did very well in the period when the Middle East was lush and the Sahara wasn't desertifying. Of course that doesn't mean that everybody "benefits" individually. Lake Chad used to be 300x larger and 100 feet deeper than it is now. I'm sure lots of property is currently owned in that area. But North Africa was fertile instead of desert, and agriculture flourished, along with civilization. (Interestingly, more people now live in the desert North Africa than lived in the fertile North Africa - quality of life is a separate topic).
There is a real risk that the thermohaline cycle near Greenland will change and deflect the Gulf Stream to somewhere other than Northern Europe, which is kept artificially warm by it. It may be that Northern Europe was settled by humans at the time that it was because a global cooling trend caused local warming for Northern Europe. This is all that really matters to the UN/IPCC and "First World" governments since so much of their wealth is concentrated there. That it proposes means for the bankers and government people to grab more money and power "to stop it" is icing on the cake.
So, the models put out by people who are funded by these interests will largely be based on certain assumptions that fit the desired outcomes, and the models will show the outcomes that are generated by those assumptions. It would be silly to expect anything else from them.
The only thing that's certain right now is that every existing model is deficient in several ways. The interest of science would be best served by everybody who's model building being as up front and specific as possible about all the assumptions their models make and all the data sets that were used to build it. Assuming it's possible to build a good model through scientific collaboration with human-scale machines, this falls into the category of "when alchemists stopped keeping secrets they became chemists".

--
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Re:Texas Drought Should Also Be a Concern by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 06:13 · Score: 0

You should take a look at how much water California imports to support its agriculture. If Texas began to experience droughts with that kind of frequency I would expect similar solutions.

Paren't point by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

Global warming doesn't care whether you believe in it.

But the people who don't believe in it will not even consider that their Florida beachside home may be under water in a couple of decades. Therefore, the folks who see the seas rising will sell their beach side properties for a premium to the folks who are: sticking their heads in the sand; folks who think GW is a Liberal hoax; and folks who think the property is just high enough that they won't be effected.

1. Find people who don't believe in GW.

2. Sell (currently beach side; underwater later) property to them.

3. Profit!

Re:Paren't point by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:53 · Score: 2

But the people who don't believe in it will not even consider that their Florida beachside home may be under water in a couple of decades
Look at the people getting beachfront homes before the whole global warming thing. Nearly without exception they're all wealthier (though not necessarily 1%ers) paying top dollar for beachfront property, then crying to FEMA when the hurricane wiped them out. Then they'd build on the same spot again.
Rationality is not humans' strong point.
Re:Paren't point by runeghost · 2012-12-10 02:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

How is getting someone else to pay for building you a brand new house every decade or two irrational?
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-10 06:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

Go for it. Bear in mind that the actual data is that SLR is around 3 mm/year -- depending on how short a segment of the data you are willing to cherrypick to prove a point. Since the assertion is made above that SLR is supposed to be a meter more than previously claimed -- hence around 2 meters or even more -- and since here we are in 2012 with SLR having gone up a whole inch (to the nearest inch) in the last decade -- we have to take something like 78 inches and split it up among 88 years. Hmm, if SLR went up by an order of magnitude next year we might just make it.
Otherwise, bear in mind that people who currently have beachfront property could die of old age before SLR becomes an issue for them. You (dear reader) could die of old age before SLR gets high enough to realize a profit on land you bought inland anticipating that it would become oceanfront. Or not.
rgb

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Re:Paren't point by ceoyoyo · 2012-12-10 08:53 · Score: 1

"since here we are in 2012 with SLR having gone up a whole inch (to the nearest inch) in the last decade -- we have to take something like 78 inches and split it up among 88 years. Hmm, if SLR went up by an order of magnitude next year we might just make it."
One should be careful of fitting straight lines to data that likely is not linear. Still, whether sea level rises by 1 m or 2 m, a lot of very densely inhabited land is going to look a bit like Venice by 2100.
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-10 09:43 · Score: 2

One should indeed! One should also be very leary of fitting any kind of fit, linear or nonlinear, to data over only 10-15 years that has varied rather consistently over 140 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise. Personally, I think the figure says all one could possibly need to say. Note well that anthropogenic CO_2 was completely irrelevant over almost all of this time series even according to the IPCC. Note also the overall range of the entire chart, roughly 1/4 of which supposedly incorporates "substantial" anthropogenic global warming -- just under 9 inches in 140 years. Note also that there are several periods with rise rates comparable to the present, for even longer periods, e.g. 1938-1950, where CO_2 was again not a factor even according to the IPCC reports.
It may be absolutely true that global climate models predict large amounts of sea level rise, but there is no actual evidence in the form of large rises in sea level to support this! . Perhaps there will be in the future. Perhaps not. I'm a theoretical physicist, and I just love theories. I'm a computational physicist, and love large scale model computations. But at the end of the day, I'm just a physicist, and the theories and computations have to agree with observation. So far, these do not, not even over the last 140 years, and they don't even give us insight into the large climate fluctuations observed over the last (fill in the blank with any number greater than 1000) number of years.
In the meantime, I work every summer literally living at the edge of the ocean facing straight out through the Beaufort inlet in North Carolina. Although I know that tidal gauge data indicates that there has been a sea level rise there over the time I've been working there or otherwise visiting, I certainly can't see it in my own (literal) back yard, where if there were any substantial and consistent rise -- I'm talking a rise of a few inches -- my back yard would be underwater at high tide. My neighbors have lived in their houses for over 40 years, and (yes, I've asked) haven't observed any rise at all, let alone an alarming one, of the highwater marks on their docks or seawalls (where the tops of their docks would be underwater at high tide if there were any consistent rise). This is absolutely anecdotal evidence, although the ocean being isostatic it is difficult to imagine it going up one place and not everyplace else, but see the curve above for the best global tidal gauge and satellite data in summary.
If you looked at this data and didn't know it was "sea level rise" and destined to rise because of Evil Human Activity -- if you were told it was the sales price of widgets, or the mean length of romance novels, over time -- and were asked "is there a statistically meaningful acceleration in trend" visible anywhere in the record -- you wouldn't even bother to do an actual statistical analysis because the answer is fairly evidently "no". If you were asked to estimate how likely it is that any aspect of this trend would justify a final sales figure for widgets of 48 (9 plus 39 more) in only 88 more years -- that would be over four times the entire growth over 142 years in only 90 years -- you wouldn't hesitate to give odds of 99 to 1 against. Bayesian analysis might alter the 99 to 1, sure (depending on how sure you are about your priors) but not even Bayes is going to comfortably make this 99 to 1 for.
I'm just sayin'...
rgb
(I will now wait for the usual "refutation" of this, the assertion I'm being paid off by the oil industry or the like. I wish. Instead, take due note of my Russell quote, below.)

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Re:Paren't point by tolkienfan · 2012-12-10 10:04 · Score: 2

I agree with most of what you said.
Only a few things, though:
1. They aren't fitting a curve to actual sea levels, and then extrapolating.
2. There is evidence that changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere can have an effect - just look at CFCs.
3. The most accurate way to test climate models would be to make a series of predictions, and then compare to actual data. Unfortunately that would take a couple of decades. Considering the accelerating rate of gas release, some of us think it's unwise to wait for such an experiment to complete before taking action.
4. The sea level rise is estimated from the extra volume of liquid water from ice melt. We know ice is melting.
5. A sea rise of a few inches won't necessarily affect your highest tide for many years.
Many think, well let's just wait and hope; or the evidence is unclear, so we should do nothing.
I think that's an awful mistake. By the time we realize we were wrong it will be too late to react.
We should do the best science we can, and make the best decision we can taking in all the available evidence, and cost vs benefit.
Re:Paren't point by ceoyoyo · 2012-12-10 10:24 · Score: 2

"It may be absolutely true that global climate models predict large amounts of sea level rise, but there is no actual evidence in the form of large rises in sea level to support this"
I don't recall anyone saying there is. The IPCC is talking about scenarios that seem most likely, given what we think we know about how the planet works. We can wait and see, making observations to see if the models are correct, or we can start to think about what we're going to do if they are correct.
Personally, as a medial researcher, I like to try it and see what happens, but the patients usually prefer we have some theoretical justification and do most of our experimenting in animals (imperfect models) first. In terms of altering global climate I can see how the experimental approach might also have a few issues.
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-10 10:58 · Score: 2

I don't argue with most of this. A few points:
a) Global temperatures have largely levelled off over the last 16 years. Yes, this is also looking at the end of a time series, but over that time global CO_2 levels have risen dramatically. The lower troposphere temperature, as one of the few truly global indicators, is simply not showing the sort of growth it did over the first 17 years, and most of that growth is associated with a single discrete event -- the 1998 El Nino. Sea surface temperatures follow this trend even more directly, being nearly flat on both sides of the El Nino. It is also very, very difficult to separate out the CO_2 derived "warming signal" from the natural rise in temperature the planet has experienced after the little ice age, almost all of which had nothing to do with CO_2. The evidence that CO_2 forced warming is associated with a high climate sensitivity is weak already and weakening further. I do not know what sort of confidence one should place in high sensitivity predictions -- there isn't even good agreement among climate scientists or climate models, and the uncertainty is well-represented in the AR working group reports, just not in their summary for policy makers.
b) The only way to test climate models is to wait for decades and compare them to actual data. This is a test they have not done particularly well with over the last 16 years. In the meantime, one has to assign a lot less confidence to their predictions than is commonly done, given that they are trying to solve what is literally the most difficult problem in computational physics in the world, out to truly absurd future times. Their ability to hindcast and e.g. explain the last 1000 years of climate data is essentially nil. I personally just think that we don't yet know the right physics, or perhaps we do know the basic physics itself but that the complexity of the model is not yet computable. Tiny errors in a highly multivariate nonlinear system can have profound effects the further away you go. I also don't have a lot of confidence in various input assumptions -- not when they are applied to the geological data over long time spans. I think it will take as long as the rest of the century just to get the physics right, and if we were LUCKY we might get it mostly right in 20-30 more years of satellite data (the only data I have a lot of confidence in -- too many thumbs on too many scales in the thermometric record, as evidenced by the increasing divergence between reported land surface temperatures and LT and SS temperatures.
c) We know ice is forming as well as melting. Total sea ice isn't even changing a whole lot, and again it went through a very similar cycle back in the 30's, without CO_2. We simply don't have enough observational data to tell whether what is happening is mostly normal. And nearly all of the observed SLR is from the normal thermal expansion of seawater, and is not happening at an alarming rate.
But the main point is that I completely agree that we need to look carefully at cost vs benefit, based on the actual evidence and not unproven models. The actual evidence does not support drastic and expensive action, it supports research into alternative energy resources that might -- when mature in a decade or three -- be able to reduce the consumption of carbon based energy without causing a worldwide energy depression worse than the problem it seeks to "cure". There is a substantial human cost to most of the steps being taken now to "ameliorate" the problem. In fact, they form a real-time "catastrophe" of their own, one definitely affecting the world right now, not in 80 years, maybe. Every day of energy poverty in the third world is another day of misery, and like it or not, carbon-based energy is cheap and plentiful compared to the currently available alternatives.
Then there is the politics of it all. Nuclear power, for example, could substantially reduce our reliance on coal using well

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-10 12:28 · Score: 1

Personally, as a medical researcher, I like to try it and see what happens, but the patients usually prefer we have some theoretical justification and do most of our experimenting in animals (imperfect models) first. In terms of altering global climate I can see how the experimental approach might also have a few issues.
Excellent point. So, for a disease that has never in human-recorded history occurred due to the causes ascribed to its future occurrence, for which there is no empirical evidence in recorded history or prehistory that it is occurring other than an unproven theoretical argument, you would, I'm sure, endorse the medical adage "do no harm" by not prescribing what may be quack remedies for a disease that might not actually exist, it only "theoretically" exists, when those remedies have many severe side effects.
I agree.
It's really rather like not prescribing daily antibiotics for the entire human population because we are pretty sure -- theoretically -- that some disease is likely to evolve that the antibiotics might -- or might not -- prevent. Or taking any other sort of extreme measure in response to Pascal's Wager, however it is formulated. By not placing the predictions of future damage far, far above any visible sign of damage now one justifies the human cost and side effects of any measure taken to combat it, and of course transfer a rather lot of political power into the hands of those we elect to take those measures without any possible mechanism for them being held accountable, either politically or economically.
A recipe for disaster.
rgb

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Re:Paren't point by riverat1 · 2012-12-10 14:03 · Score: 1

Sea level is a surprisingly complex topic and not as isostatic as you might think. For instance land that was under the continental ice sheets during the last glaciation is still rebounding from the depression that the weight of all that ice caused (and land to the south that was bulged up at the same time is dropping at the same time). That affects the perception of sea level at those locations. Also for instance the sea level around Greenland is significantly higher than it otherwise would be because of the gravitational attraction of the Greenland ice sheet. IIRC on the order of 10-30 feet. So as that ice melts the sea level around Greenland will actually drop some while rising elsewhere. The same applies to the Antarctic ice sheet. Also ocean currents and prevailing winds affect sea level and changes in them will have a non-isostatic affect.
One more thing, by my understanding SLR has gone from around 1 mm/year in the early 1900's to around 2 mm/year in mid century to over 3 mm/year since the early 1990's. If you are a physicist it might be worth your time to seek out some actual recent papers by physical oceanographers on their findings about SLR.
Re:Paren't point by riverat1 · 2012-12-11 04:24 · Score: 1

a) 16 years is certainly not long enough to measure a climate trend. There is too much noise from natural variation. If you look at graphs of global temperature you see plenty of times where temperatures dipped on longer than a decadal time scale. The long term trend is still up. Climatologists generally use 30 year running means* to describe climate. That's probably a bit arbitrary, maybe 25 years would work but I think 20 years would be getting pretty iffy.
*By definition of the World Meteorological Organization the classical period for climate is 30 years.
b) Climate models are tested by hindcasting all the time, especially using period of detailed climate knowledge since the 1950's. And again, climate models are not even really attempting to predict the last 16 years in the detail you seem to demand. It's that 30 year climate period thing again.
Satellite temperature trends aren't that much different than surface trends.
c) While summer Arctic sea ice has declined by around 2.5 million km^2 Antarctic has only grown by around 0.3 million km^2. (ref.) I'd say that is a significant difference.
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-11 05:38 · Score: 1

By the thirty year standard, there has barely been enough time to resolve any climate variation in the modern post-CO_2 world, let alone ascribe the fractions to AGW and natural variation. Indeed, the entire satellite era comprises just one of these intervals, and IMO that is the only stretch where we have truly reliable global data mostly free from the possibility of a variety of biases that have to be estimated, often badly. In that stretch, nearly 100% of the warming can arguably be ascribed to a single El Nino event, as the UAH LTT data is basically flat from 1979 to 1997, goes steeply up in 1998 to overshoot a 0.3C total rise that more or less is flat thereafter up to the present. One could easily be tempted to conclude that "a strong ENSO causes global warming", based strictly on this data, were it not post hoc ergo propter hoc, like so much of the discussion on both sides (which also begs the question of "what causes ENSO and what modulates its strength", which is AFAIK rather unknown).
As to whether 16 years is too short, I'm sure that I don't have to quote the 2008 report to you, which excluded a 15 year stretch without statistically significant warming at the 95% or better confidence level. It is the stubborn perpetuation of this stretch that is requiring reconsideration of earlier, often egregious, estimates of climate sensitivity. They're coming down, and they'll come down more every year without warming. I know that it is physics-based dogma that solar variation cannot possibly affect climate, but historically there has been a fair bit of correlation between solar state and climate (and there are a few proposed plausible causal mechanisms, which I will not presume to judge) and we are very likely to be at the peak of the lowest solar cycle in 100 years, with the prospect of the next cycle being even lower or the sun entering a Maunder minimum. At the end of this we may know a lot more than we do today -- either warming will resume with a vengeance (as it has a lot of catching up to do at this point) or it will remain flat or even cool. Either of the latter two will force substantial revision of everything -- flat by gradually reducing sensitivity still more but perhaps leaving the GCMs alive, actual cooling might cause the GCMs to be thrown under the bus and rebuilt from scratch.
Remember that there are substantial, poorly understood nonlinearities in the climate system, and that even very small non-CO_2 influences can be amplified. There has been a substantial and (as far as I know) unexplained reduction in stratospheric water vapor content in the current solar cycle, for example. This in turn can actually lower the troposphere (permitting escape from greater depth) and reducing ALR warming. Is this a chance fluctuation (quite possible) or evidence of a process we hadn't anticipated? There is a lot more science undone than done in climate science, because we have so little high quality instrumental data over such a very short time frame -- basically a single "minimum interval" by the very 30 year standard you cite.
Climate models are tested by hindcasting, sure. Can they hindcast the MWP and LIA? Can they explain why there was a warming trend from the beginning of the thermometric era until the present in the absence of CO_2? In other words, can they explain the baseline climate variation over geological timescales? I don't think so. They are attempting to fit/predict local anomalies without anything like certain knowledge of local baseline behavior and where they are literally incapable AFAIK of reproducing it outside of a very narrow time window. As I said, I love models and modelling. It's one of the things I do. But it helps to have a model that first works in the big strokes arena, getting the gross behavior right and THEN worrying about the details. I rather think that current models have this backwards, and are thus confusing signal and noise.
It is easy to fit nonlinear functions with an overcomplete basis in a completely

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Re:Paren't point by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 08:30 · Score: 0

What is the rate at which the Earth is cooling and shrinking? Maybe that
could account for the sea level rise? I don't think any amount of money
spent will stop the Earth from cooling and thus becoming a smaller place to
hold the incompressible water of the oceans.
Re:Paren't point by riverat1 · 2012-12-11 21:17 · Score: 1

... a 15 year stretch without statistically significant warming at the 95% or better confidence level
I read somewhere that the calculated confidence level was around 93% so it's not like it wasn't even close.

I know that it is physics-based dogma that solar variation cannot possibly affect climate ...
Don't be silly. Any climatologist will tell you that's the first thing you have to take into account for the climate. We've had good measurements of insolation since the 1950's and very good satellite measurements since satellites started measuring it in the 1970's (or early 1980's). The simple fact is that the Sun's output hasn't varied enough to account for all of the temperature change. At best it can account for less than 10% of it. On top of that if the warming was caused by the Sun the whole atmosphere would be warming. But in fact the stratosphere has been cooling, a signature of greenhouse gas caused warming.
Climate scientists have calculated what would happen if the Sun went into a new Maunder minimum type cycle. At best it would delay the warming by a decade or so.
Sunspot records go back to before the beginning of the thermometric era and they are a good analog for solar activity. Global temperatures during that time track pretty well with solar activity until around the middle of the 20th century. Did you know that the temperature difference between the low of the Little Ice Age and the middle of the 20th century is only about 1 degree C? It doesn't take that much temperature change to make a significant difference.
Climate scientists are well aware of the various problems with the observations and account for them with error bars and confidence levels.
Under all of that it just keeps nagging me that you can't ignore the physics. The absorption of IR by CO2 is easily demonstrated in the lab. The signature of CO2 absorption is seen when comparing top of atmosphere spectra with near surface spectra. It seems illogical to think increasing CO2 won't increase Earthly temperatures.
I try to stick to the science and name calling is not my style although occasionally I get goaded into it.
Re:Paren't point by rgbatduke · 2012-12-12 06:31 · Score: 1

Don't be silly. Any climatologist will tell you that's the first thing you have to take into account for the climate. We've had good measurements of insolation since the 1950's and very good satellite measurements since satellites started measuring it in the 1970's (or early 1980's). The simple fact is that the Sun's output hasn't varied enough to account for all of the temperature change. At best it can account for less than 10% of it. On top of that if the warming was caused by the Sun the whole atmosphere would be warming. But in fact the stratosphere has been cooling, a signature of greenhouse gas caused warming.
This is what I meant, actually -- that the insolation variation alone is too small to account for the warming. But that's also very likely true over the last 300 years post LIA, and it warmed nevertheless. And yes, I look at the thermal proxy and otherwise temperature records and reconstructions.
And I agree that CO_2 almost certainly causes some warming. Where I disagree is that I do not think that one can determine how much, and I vehemently disagree that the climate sensitivity is as high as has been asserted. I also think that our probable degree of knowledge and confidence is being overstated, although in the working group reports a lot more doubt is expressed than ever makes it out to the public.
Finally, I absolutely agree that the right thing to do is stick to the science. The GHE is certainly real -- clearly visible in TOA vs BOA spectroscopy. However, the CO_2-linked component of this is just one factor in a very complicated nonlinear chaotic system that is never quite in a state of dynamical equilibrium, with a huge degree of natural variability visible in the past that we do understand and cannot (retroactively) predict or convincingly explain. The net CO_2 linked GHE-driven AGW could range from basically zero (nearly completely cancelled in the long run by negative feedbacks or other bad habits like air pollution aerosols) to substantial, but I think its effect is probably being overestimated and certainly being overstated, and is likely to be less than disastrous, or less disastrous than some of the measures being urged to ameliorate or prevent it. I'm not completely alone in this, even among physicists interested in the climate.
My specific personal interest in the science is more in the statistics of it. There is an amazing series of papers by a guy named Koutsoyiannis who has been studying hydrology "forever" out of Athens (Greece, not Georgia). He long ago observed that water levels and periods of drought and flood follow patterns of "punctuated equilibrium" that are describable by what he calls Hurst-Kolmogorov statistics. Those same patterns are clearly visible in the thermal record, and indeed the 33 years of the satellite era are precisely that -- stable temperatures for 15 years, a sudden jump over 2-3 years associated with a single event (an unusually strong El Nino), followed by stable temperatures for 15 years (where by "stable" I mean specficially that there is a great deal of noise and oscillation, but that the linear trend is not resolvable from zero).
Two intervals does not a theory make, but it is very suggestive, especially when those temperatures are very likely to be (in some sense) a projection of a complicated poincare cycle around an occult multidimensional attractor. The interesting question from this point of view is what moves the attractors (and what keeps them locally stable!)
This is a macrodynamics question, not a microdynamics question. I agree that we know a lot of the components of the microdynamics, but there are macrodynamical features that I don't think can be captured in a detailed model because they represent large scale self-organization of the underlying heat flow. Even only within the Holocene, phenomena like the Younger Dryas suggest that there is some serious variability that can be triggered strictly out of internal non-linearity completely independent of CO_2. CO_2 coul

--
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.

Climate != Weather. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 01:53 · Score: 1

We just cannot. We cannot even predict the weather more than a few days ahead. Yet somehow we pretend that wee can predict climate 100's of years ahead. Small flaws in the model could result in large errors. We cannot even be sure that we have considered all the relevant parameters.

This is just a case of GIGO.

Climate != Weather.

Bad Car Analogy: Say your car now has 150,000 miles on it. You know that repair bills are going to increase but as to what exactly will break and when, you don't know.

Cue the end of global warming hysteria by BillCable · 2012-12-10 01:54 · Score: 0

Actually, there's too much money at stake for good science to rule the day. I expect the green energy billionaires to pressure the IPCC to alter their predictions before this report is officially released.

Re:Cue the end of global warming hysteria by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:40 · Score: 0

The IPCC is funded by extremely modest contributions from the World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme. It really has approximately zero connections to the "energy business" in any way. It's run by career scientists who, quite frankly, don't care much about business at all and have little stake in any political outcomes.

Only a Change in Strategy by EmagGeek · 2012-12-10 01:59 · Score: 1

The end goal is the same. They've just finally figured out what the socialists and Marxists have known for a century - that incrementalism is far more effective than "shock and awe" at achieving the end goal, even though it takes a lot longer.

The climate is going to change with or without our help. In the end, it doesn't matter if AGW is real. The climate is going to change, and we had better expend our energies adapting rather than resisting, since, you know, resistance is futile.

Re:Only a Change in Strategy by ledow · 2012-12-10 02:16 · Score: 1

I kinda agree with your reasoning too.
But I'll say the thing that I've said a million times:
As a scientist, it's interesting to find the causes, build a model, predict the future, record data, test your hypotheses, rinse and repeat.
But as a person, and a scientist of any forward thinking, repeatedly saying that the sky is falling is pointless. Even assuming that you can prove it beyond doubt.
Just assume that the worst-case scenario is true, what do you intend to do about it? If there's nothing you can do to fix it, or nothing *practical* you can do at all, then all the scaremongering in the world (backed by facts or not) isn't going to help.
Seriously, we need to sit all the climate scientists, sceptics and believers alike, and ask them what the fix is. Because that's something that I've NOT heard from anyone yet. And if the fix has a worse impact than the problem itself, we probably ARE better off just leaving it alone.
What is the fix? Let's assume we stop all carbon emissions tomorrow. How much does that cost? What do we lose? How many people lose their jobs? How high do energy prices and transportation costs rise? What does that mean for the economy and the guy at home just wanting to get to work to earn enough to live? What other ecological changes might be triggered by that change? How long will it buy us? Will the world still flood? What about ecological impact of the alternatives if they are scaled up *OVERNIGHT* to meet the lost production? How long can we sustain them for?
What if we're wrong and do all this and NOTHING changes? What if we do all this, change the world over to other productions, half the world go hungry or lose their home and STILL nothing changes (the world goes on getting hotter)? What if we spend billions, bankrupt ourselves, destroy the economy, and implement all the fixes we're told will "fix" the problem, and STILL nothing changes?
Sometimes, biting your tongue and hanging on to double-check your answers is the actions of a wise man. We don't see answers to these, and those we do aren't any better than the doomsayers predictions of how AGW will impact us (or are just as dubious as other evidence anyway).
I just have this nightmare scenario in our head where we bankrupt our countries for generations (hell, a few mortgage scams were enough to bring most of the developed world to its knees, imagine what this could do), rip up and abandon perfectly working resources and technology, and it makes NO DIFFERENCE and we still end up dying, flooding, choking, whatever dire consequences are picked.
And meanwhile, some third-world country that didn't have the money to do anything and said "bugger it", and did nothing ends up being a major global power because it had the same ecological impact on us all but they didn't spend a penny trying to fix it.
We *SHOULD* be looking.
We *SHOULD* be predicting.
We *SHOULD* be worrying.
We *SHOULD* be shouting our results from the highest hill.
But not necessarily about just the problem itself. The form, and consequences, of the proposed fixes are sketchy and dangerously under-researched.
Re:Only a Change in Strategy by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-12-10 06:03 · Score: 1

It is interesting how the three tier attack is still possible on forums: first over run with screams, smash with spammers, and then have the suit come in and concern troll, saying that nothing needs to be done. Thermocidal mania lives.

--
Fugue for Aaron Swartz

this seems relevant by buddyglass · 2012-12-10 02:04 · Score: 1

Despite all the (legitimate) complaints about disinformation and scientific illiteracy in the U.S., there's this.

Re:this seems relevant by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-12-10 06:19 · Score: 1

Cherry Picking. Next thermocidal argument? We've already had the death bet, have to keep it fresh genocidal trolls.

--
Fugue for Aaron Swartz

uninformed summary by slashmydots · 2012-12-10 02:07 · Score: 1

The end conclusion of that story was obviously written by someone who doesn't know much about the situation. Yes, a 12 pack of hurricane Sandies won't level Nebraska but a tiny shift like that with droughts and floods and higher temps will kill off so many species of fish, amphibians, coral, birds, etc that it will disrupt the entire animal kingdom. That won't be so good for the world. You'll be sitting there enjoying your lovely new weather and suddenly you can't buy tuna and the prices in the seafood section of the deli triple.

Re:uninformed summary by iggymanz · 2012-12-10 05:58 · Score: 1

The end sentence was written by someone who has watched change over 50 years: major cities have gone bankrupt, economies shift from agrarian to industrial, global superpower fall while another is rising......a change that happenes over a century is far different from the ocean rising two point some feet tomorrow, and temperature gradually changing over the decades. Life will move, adapt, change as it always has.

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Just sit back and chill !! You can't do anything about it !! NO !! You CAN'T !!

Not as long as the disinformation campaign is running in the USA, no.

That disinformation campaign wouldn't work if not for the alarmist Chicken Littles all going over-the-top batshit crazy with their alarmism and ruining the credibility of anyone trying to speak calmly about climate change.

herd culling postponed by noshellswill · 2012-12-10 02:17 · Score: -1

Less than a yard you say? Damme, and I was counting on AGW to cull the improvident, over.populating herd. I guess sometimes the Bangladesh and Charleston riff-raff need to be tolerated.

OH LOOKIE!! GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!!1one! by fyi101 · 2012-12-10 02:29 · Score: 1

Overall, hardly a doomsday scenario.

Look Ma! "Only" 3 degrees rise! Less strong storms, some more rain over here, some less rain over there... I'm sure farmers can just move, and populations will freely follow, with our current situation of open borders worldwide and such... I guess now the IPCC is no longer the CENTER OF THE ILUMINAT--er... CLIMATE CHANGE CONSPIRACY, now it's a reputable scientific report, yeah I think we can *cough* spin *cough*, I mean clearly demonstrate the "change" in "climate change" to be nothing but a small nuisance, why, less strong storms? Maybe it's an improvement! Except, you know, the part about coastal regions... But it's not like some of the most economically important cities are located near the coast, no siree... I mean, what's a meter more in rise than previously expected? Like 3 feet, right? No biggie.

Sadly, you have a point by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:36 · Score: 0

If anyone doubts that science and plain common sense can be ignored by our fearless leaders, consider that our congress critters are willing to call pizza a vegetable.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45306416/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/pizza-vegetable-congress-says-yes/

Less bad? by GameboyRMH · 2012-12-10 02:40 · Score: 1

After so many stories came out this year of revised data showing effects worse than previously predicted? I really hope they're not holding back for fear of being labelled "alarmist" by the denialists.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel

That's right, ya punk by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 02:44 · Score: 0, Flamebait

It was a scheme to transfer wealth from the weak and helpless First World to the almighty and influential Third World. Too bad it didn't actually work 'cause nobody gave a shit... If only those meddly kids and their dog hadn't intervened!!! Well, back to the Evil Plan drawing board...
Also, your mom says you forgot to take your meds, again. Remember the incident with the tinfoil? We don't want another "tinfoil incident", do we?

Doomsday by gmuslera · 2012-12-10 02:45 · Score: 1

Without taking into account all factors, you can't decide if this change in sea level or climate will be good or bad. Will be change. That kind of change could mean that some animals or plants will have better odds of survival, other could have worse. Mankind could adapt to the temperature/sea level change (maybe at a bigger cost that it would cost to prevent it, or maybe not), but some other parts of the environment won't. And we could depend directly or indirectly on them, and it could hit us far harder because dealing with the other changes.

Somewhat worries me that that considered cost on all of this is always economic. If i.e. rice or wheat gets globally affected (because a disease carried by a bug that had a bloom because the change, to put a very simple chain in) millons could starve to death. Mankind could adapt, but the cost should take lives into account.

Re:Doomsday by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-12-10 06:20 · Score: 1

Death Bet. Already been used by a previous thermocidal troll, please rotate among lies so that people think there is actual substance to denialism, as opposed to a rewarmed version of creationism.

--
Fugue for Aaron Swartz

Younger Dryas by zdevex · 2012-12-10 02:46 · Score: 1

This article doesn't seem to address what I have been told was the actual greatest danger of global warming, a Northern Hemisphere Ice age.

Popularized by The Day After Tomorrow, the science behind the northern hemisphere entering a mini ice age as a response to large amounts of fresh water melting into the North Atlantic, from ice sheets such as Greenland, is quite sound. I believe it is the leading theory as to what caused The Younger Dryas.

The basic principle rests on the fact that the North Atlantic Deep Water Current, which brings warmth to the Northern Hemisphere, relies heavily on the salinity of the ocean water. Making the water too fresh, as in from melting all the ice, would stop the current and cause a mini ice age. My understanding is that from the time this current is shut down to when the higher latitudes are uninhabitable is thought to be less than half a century.

Re:Younger Dryas by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-12-10 03:17 · Score: 2

This article doesn't seem to address what I have been told was the actual greatest danger of global warming, a Northern Hemisphere Ice age.
That's because this has been pretty much shown to be an unlikely scenario.
The media loves it, of course, because "New York buried under a hundred meters of ice!" is a lot more exciting than "the world warms up slightly over the course of a century," and the media thrives on excitement. But it's hard to find a climate scientist these days who thinks that this is a very realistic possibility.

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

It's been a political issue since the 1970s by hessian · 2012-12-10 03:19 · Score: 0, Troll

The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.

Try the 1970s consensus that warming was occurring:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html

This has always been a political issue which exists as a proxy for denial of the actual underlying problem, which is overpopulation.

--
Futurist Traditionalism

Re:It's been a political issue since the 1970s by hey! · 2012-12-10 09:17 · Score: 1

The link you provided doesn't seem to support your conclusion that global warming was a politically driven issue in the 70s. What it shows is that the state of research back in the 70s is a political issue for *us today*. That doesn't somehow magically go back and taint the motivations of researchers forty years ago.
The graph in the article is interesting by the way. The number of global cooling or neutral papers grows through the decade, they're just outstripped by the growth in warming papers. What you are looking at is the beginning of the emergence of the global warming consensus, which took place largely without the public or media noticing.
As for overpopulation, I think that's a red herring. Exactly how would you go about using global warming to deny an overpopulation problem? Who actually worries about climate change who isn't also concerned about overpopulation?

--
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.

Failure to consider...soil accumulation by PortHaven · 2012-12-10 03:28 · Score: 1

Places like Florida are in danger, because it's flat, and built over with cement.

But I am curious about soil accumulation and natural biosystems. The 1 meter rise, does it account for a century of soil growth?

My old hometown of New Haven was built in the late 1600's. The town "green" is now almost 1-2 meters higher than it was in the 1700's. Thanks to bio accumulation. Most can see this happen. We had an area that we put dirt and gravel on. Over two years, weeds grew and were chopped down. We probably added a 1/2"-1" or more of top soil over those couple of years. This is a natural biological system.

Problem is, we cement over everything and prevent that natural process.

Re:Failure to consider...soil accumulation by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-12-10 06:22 · Score: 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation That's right, when it doubt, just use a word you don't know, and hope no one knows how to google.

--
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Re:Failure to consider...soil accumulation by riverat1 · 2012-12-10 06:35 · Score: 1

The increase in elevation at New Haven probably has as much to do with post-glacial rebound as it does with bio accumulation.
Re:Failure to consider...soil accumulation by PortHaven · 2012-12-10 11:53 · Score: 1

You are correct, correct term I should have used was biomass accumulation. Sorry, I was typing quickly. Bioaccumulation is more properly used for the concentrating of agents in the body that are not passed out the waste systems. (Usually heavy metals and toxins stored in fat cells.)
Oh, the cries....thankfully, you were smart enough to understand from context. Hoorah!!!
bio accumulation vs biomass accumulation, so you are right. I should have had my period to denote the abbreviation of bio. accumulation. I apologize....I figured my context was sufficient.

I'm detecting a trend... by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 03:30 · Score: 0

...by the time we get to IPCC 2020, it'll either be a projection of roses and paradise, or maybe they'll move into catastrophic global cooling :)

Seriously, all you highly intelligent motivated reasoning alarmists out there, the biggest damage that was ever done to your position was the wild exaggeration and apocalyptic doom mongering. Yes, it has been fairly pointed out that there is a contingent of skeptics who scare monger about the "New World Order", and the UN controlling everyone, but that trope hasn't benefitted the CAGW crowd nearly as much as they've been harmed by their own end of the world rhetoric.

Yes, it is both technically and feasibly possible for humans to do stupid things to the environment and effect local climates. Urban Heat Island effect is an obvious one. But screaming, "if you don't listen to me about your SUV the oceans are going to rise 6 meters next week!", well, that just undermines your credibility. Not all warmists do this, but instead of being marginalized, these activists are lionized, and that is actually hurting any possible case to be made about further climate research and the pursuit of falsifiable science.

Re:I'm detecting a trend... by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 06:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Seriously, all you highly intelligent motivated reasoning alarmists out there, the biggest damage that was ever done to your position was the wild exaggeration and apocalyptic doom mongering. Yes, it has been fairly pointed out that there is a contingent of skeptics who scare monger about the "New World Order", and the UN controlling everyone, but that trope hasn't benefitted the CAGW crowd nearly as much as they've been harmed by their own end of the world rhetoric.
Funny, I hear a lot less end-of-the-world rhetoric than I hear accusations of end-of-the-world rhetoric.
Also, the biggest damage to widespread knowledge of the truth wasn't done by alarmism, but by shills for Big Oil writing opinion pieces in influential newspapers and magazines.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:I'm detecting a trend... by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-12-10 06:24 · Score: 1

Then there is just the classic lying about what credibility is. Slashdotters are going to realize at some point that being a disease reservoir for thermocidal mania is going to undermine their credibility.

--
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Re:I'm detecting a trend... by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 06:46 · Score: 1

Thermocidal mania?
Yeah, you just got a whole bunch of apocalyptic credibility now :)
Re:I'm detecting a trend... by hsthompson69 · 2012-12-10 06:51 · Score: 1

Here's the rub - there's no reason to reduce our CO2 emissions of there is no catastrophic effect. Only a sufficiently catastrophic consequence would justify the economic hardship one must impose upon the world's poorest through the mitigation of CO2 emissions.
But screams of "omg, the sea rise is accelerating and Florida will drown!" simply seem like hand waving, not science.
Now, if you don't believe that human CO2 emissions are going to cause significant harm, great, we're probably on the same page...but I don't think you've thought your defense through very thoroughly.
Re:I'm detecting a trend... by Mashiki · 2012-12-10 09:11 · Score: 1

Funny, I hear a lot less end-of-the-world rhetoric than I hear accusations of end-of-the-world rhetoric.
Really? I mean, there's at least one list that I can think of off the top of my head. Never mind the on-going hysteria and end of the world rhetoric that we've been hearing for the last 25 years.

--
Om, nomnomnom...

No ice age [Re:The political construct...] by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-12-10 03:45 · Score: 5, Informative

The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.

Nope. The political angle has been apparent for quite some time - I figured it was an attempt to stop the developing world from advancing. Say to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage.

So, to be clear: you believe that Manabe and Wetherald's landmark 1967 paper (which built on Manabe and Strickler 1964) that calculated the amount of warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gasses, was work that was actually done "to prevent China and India from becoming the dominant players on the world stage"? Do you have any evidence for this whatsoever? Can you find some 1964 references saying that politicians were seriously worried about "China and India becoming the dominant players on the world stage," much less were instructing scientists to make up data to prevent it?

... I recall in the 1970's when we were all headed to the next ice age - the computer models all kept falling into something called "white earth" and never warmed up again.

That's been debunked ages ago. The "next ice age" played well in the media-- it made Time and Newsweek--but it was never a scientific consensus. Check out "The myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus" in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 , or the discussion and links here: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/18/now-out-in-bams-the-myth-of-th/

...One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.

Sorry, but this is the way science happens: the overall physics is understood, and then the details are slowly filled and the error bars are refined and the calculations get better.

Let me remind you that the overall physics of the effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had been remarkably constant. Today's best estimate of the warming effect is still within the error bars of Manabe and Wetherald's original 1967 calculation, and if you plot their predictions against the actual measured temperatures, using the measured values of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the data fits perfectly.

We have pretty good confidence that we know the physics of the greenhouse effect. Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"-- it's been physics that's been well understood for over a hundred years, and the same overall calculation with the same net result, to within the error bars, for close to fifty years.

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:No ice age [Re:The political construct...] by Black+Parrot · 2012-12-10 04:04 · Score: 4, Informative

...One of the reasons people are skeptical or even deniers is all this bullshit that they can't get the models and prediction straight. If you keep changing your story, people won't believe you. It's that simple.
Sorry, but this is the way science happens: the overall physics is understood, and then the details are slowly filled and the error bars are refined and the calculations get better.
It's a terrible, terrible thing when scientists try to improve their predictions. They should just make something up and stick to it in the face of all countering evidence, like cranks do.
I'm sure the GP poster will be reassured to learn that creationists also recognize the validity of this argument. Great minds think alike, and all that.

We have pretty good confidence that we know the physics of the greenhouse effect.
We can even measure the earth's reduced thermal radiation at the frequencies absorbed by greenhouse gasses, compared to when measurements were first made around 1970. See this article, second plot from the top.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:No ice age [Re:The political construct...] by NEDHead · 2012-12-10 04:22 · Score: 1

Had I mod points today, sir, you would get them.
Re:No ice age [Re:The political construct...] by thomasw_lrd · 2012-12-10 04:53 · Score: 1

I normally wouldn't post this, but oh to have mod points today. You really need to be modded up. So much useful information in your post.

--
21st Century Renaissance Man
Re:No ice age [Re:The political construct...] by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 07:42 · Score: 0

Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"
Did you actually read the summary we're commenting under?

GIGO + bias + stupid assumptions about the future by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:09 · Score: 0

Do their predictions have me release my Space-Based Solar Power And Desert Irrigation gizmo around the year 2015? Or 2025? 2085 maybe? Wouldn't want my silly meddling to interfere with their crystal ball...

--libman

Plant a tree. by conspirator23 · 2012-12-10 05:37 · Score: 1

There is only one method known to science available today which will reliably remove carbon dioxide from the atmostphere for long-term sequestration, but it is entirely feasible in both centralized and distributed models, which is reforestation. I won't get into a ton of details about the value of individual effort vs. collective effort vs. policy activism. Long story short, you're wrong.

Are you sure... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 05:57 · Score: 0

Your assessment seems based on several questionable assumptions, including but not limited to the following.

a) just because planets are numerous, there have been many capable of providing the necessary environment for the development of life.
---> (keep in mind that ours allowed us to develop of the last 1/3 of the entire existence of the universe)
b) life actually did develop on many of these abundant incubators
c) that the existence of life necessarily implies a level intelligence along with a physical structures necessary for the manipulation of its environment
d) that the development of these attributes by other lifeforms would result in a similar disregard for their environment of origin
---> (even other cultures here on earth have displayed more sense previously)
e) that it's actually possible to successfully develop and implement all the knowledge and technologies necessary to colonize another planet, move and subsequently sustain life elsewhere
---> (contrary to popular belief, man isn't anywhere close to this level of sophistication)

You must have swallowed the Blue Pill.

Re:Are you sure... by arisvega · 2012-12-10 10:52 · Score: 1

Your assessment seems based on several questionable assumptions, including but not limited to the following.
(list of several questionable asumptions)
Yes, it kind of is: that is because here I am only considering the DNA-based thing that lives in three spatial dimension, and one (linear and one-way) temporal direction, replicates, feeds, and where the only 'magic' is the quantum behavior of matter/energy, and the elaborate yet stochastically developed protein folding.
Of course you need life to make life, and there might be a host of other things going on- I may maintain that life may very well be an "Intelligent Shade of Purple", or some multidimensional entity, or that life 'knows' how to evolve itself, but I cannot really conduct reproducible experiments on those otherwise very intriguing notions.

--
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.

Track record by dumky2 · 2012-12-10 06:48 · Score: 1

Great point. I would add that confidence in models comes from a track record of verified predictions.

--
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.

Considering how wrong they've been in the past ... by kawabago · 2012-12-10 06:54 · Score: 1

... I don't see any improvement. Andrew, Katrina and Sandy were just ordinary weather? Desertification of the American south isn't a problem? What happens when Atlanta runs out of water completely?

A Consistent story [Re:No ice age] by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-12-10 08:05 · Score: 1

Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"

Did you actually read the summary we're commenting under?

Yes. Did you read the actual article being summarized? Here is a direct quote:

"The field of climate research has advanced since the IPCC's last assessment report, released in 2007, as computers have grown faster and models more complex. In fact, these developments make what insiders say the IPCC's message will be all the more astonishing: The new forecasts, they say, will be more or less the same as the old ones, just more precise."

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 08:21 · Score: 0

Makes me feel so much better knowing that you don't give a fuck, and that it won't affect you much. :)

You will pay for everyone else anyway. Whether you like it or not. In taxes, higher prices, unavailable commodities, more robberies (due to more poverty), overpriced rents as the bankers try to make up for the old property they can no longer sell, resource wars...What if you have to move a second time due to feedback loops getting tighter and tighter? How are you going to pay for that? Remember - not allowed to sell the old house, it's now unsellable.

To be honest, you types ought to be lined up against a wall. I'm serious; people like you are a danger to civilization and should be removed. This is not an ad hominem, it's reality. You even profess not to give a crap about your GGG granchildren. Horrible people, are the deniers and lazies. You haven't thought anything through.

The parent post is anything but insightful.

Re:Considering how wrong they've been in the past by Troed · 2012-12-10 08:21 · Score: 2

Andrew, Katrina and Sandy were just ordinary weather

Yes.

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/cei/step6.ytd.gif

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/gw_hurricanes/fig33.jpg

--
it's in my head

If you think 1M rise over a century is Doomsday by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 08:46 · Score: 0

Then you have no friggin clue what "Doomsday" means.

Re:I still don't get it... (correction) by Tablizer · 2012-12-10 09:17 · Score: 1

(Correction: Incandescent, not "incidence".)

--
Table-ized A.I.

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 09:18 · Score: 0

...ruining the credibility of anyone trying to speak calmly about climate change.

Oh come on now, be realistic. Some of the people "speaking calmly" have been some of the greatest screamers of DOOM HAS COME!!!eleventyone111!!!!! Especially over the last 25 years, I personally like the ones that went on about the end of all life by 2005, that was back in the early '90's.

This just in by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 10:14 · Score: 0

World-wide rises in temperature more dramatic than expected. Also, swaths of currently arable land expected to become too dry to support agriculture.

But it's no big deal really!

I'll be dead by then.

I hope.

the value of "more precise" modeling by khallow · 2012-12-10 10:14 · Score: 1

If you want more precise models, you just take more significant digits off the calculator or computer program. They can still be just as wrong as they've been before, but you got more number to play with.

If you want more accurate models, well you need more data against which to test that model. That requires time traveling into the future at the usual rate in order to collect that data.

Now this might just be a translation error (the original article was in German apparently), but I think the actual details of the story back me up. We read of more computing power, "better" models (probably meaning finer mesh sizes). We don't read of more data.

The last part of the article is interesting.

The IPCC's predictions concerning precipitation, on the other hand, may be more conservative than in the previous assessment. Computer models certainly show a clear trend: In places where it already rains a great deal, it will rain even more; and where it is currently dry, it will grow even drier. That's the theory, at least. The only problem is that, so far, these forecasts have not matched reality.

According to the models, subtropical regions, in particular, are expected to grow drier, with new arid zones appearing in the southern United States, South Africa and Mediterranean countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain. Real measurement data from the last 60 years, though, show no such trend toward aridity. Those regions do experience frequent dry periods, but not more often than they have in the past. One possible explanation is that the slight global warming that has occurred so far is not yet enough to cause observable changes in precipitation.

Model not matching reality to the degree needed is traditionally a sign of an inaccurate model. It may be that the models get better as time goes on. But why should one expect divergence in the short term and accuracy in the long term?

I was wrong. by TapeCutter · 2012-12-10 10:54 · Score: 1

I searched and found the draft is "in confidence and not available to the general public".

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by t0rkm3 · 2012-12-10 11:13 · Score: 1

In short, everything will be same as humanity has had it for the majority of our existence. The GP is right, the world won't change a whole lot.

Call me when you get someone to figure out how the NIMBYs will get over thorium breeder reactors...

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY !! CAN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 11:44 · Score: 0

In case you hadn't noticed,
(a) land is finite, and
(b) in many places, it's getting pretty crowded already.

Reducing the amount of land that's available for humans to live on is not a trivial inconvenience.

doh by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 12:24 · Score: 0

But those tides exists today relative to the current mean sea level... so the previous poster's point is still valid and your post is just FUD.

Amazing .... on slashdot, where techies rule, there is a fear that we cannot build 1 meter high ridges of dirt and rocks over the next century ... but we can go right on posting about a future of electric cars run on "free" solar and wind power, commercial space flight, warp drives, quantum computing, etc .... which is it? Are we capable of great technological leaps or are we dumber than stone-age men?

not quite by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 12:39 · Score: 0

The only reason people like you think climate change is politically driven myth is because you weren't paying attention *before* it became a political issue.

You may not realize just how old some of us are and how much attention we have been paying.

Many of us were paying attention LONG ago when left-leaning planet-hugging movement started. We watched as the left screeched that the planet was becoming overcrowded and we would be out of food and energy by the mid 1980's ... all of that nonsense was wrong and failed to occur. And yes, we watched as these lunatics predicted to imminent onset of a new ice age and proposed that we cover the antarctic ice with carbon to heat things up ... good thing we ignored them. And we watched while these watermellons (green on the outside, but red on the inside) rose to positions of power in academia and government (Obama's science advisor John Holdren was one of these whack jobs; HE even proposed putting sterilizing drugs into the drinking water to sneakily reduce the American population). We've been watching while men like Al Gore scream that we are "killing the planet" and causing the sea levels to rise ... and watching while they buy expensive seaside mansions that each consume more energy than the homes of several middle class families.

The young fall for this stuff PRECISELY because they have not been around long enough to see the ENTIRE play and become familiar with the cast members.

that fiddle plays more than one tune by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 13:02 · Score: 0

Climate change fanatics play that phony fiddle even better than their critics

First, the number of "climate scientists" was always extremely small... so when a handful predicted cooling, that small group was actually a significant portion of the pool. Was there a global cooling consensus? ... maybe not (scientists never used to use the insane idea of "consensus" as evidence for anything in science), but if they'd been as politically active as they are now and had the press backing them up, probably so. Now that there are billions of dollars on the line, and billions being spent annually on "global warming"/"climate change" the number of "climate scientists" have ballooned and it's easy to compare the numbers now to the numbers in the 1970's and pretend this is proof that cooling was always a fringe idea held by a few.

Second, please find a new talking point. Counting the number of published scientific papers is dishonest in relation to climate matters; the e-mail leaks proved that the global warming fanatics took over the whole "peer review" and paper publishing process, blocking anything they disagreed with. The entire field is now invalid ... it's like steroids in baseball ... any stats from the field are now warped and need an asterisk. The distortion is permanent; there's no way to go back and correct for all the papers that were never proposed and the work not done because it was becoming obvious that all the money and careers were to be made promoting the idea of warming

Third, the best science falls into two camps: [a] serious people who do the mind-blowingly tedious day-to-day "small" science work that fills in little holes in between the giant leaps made by those who became famous, and [b] those who ignore consensus and make the big discoveries. Those who become the enforcers of "consensus" opinions tend to populate the dusty halls of agencies, academies, and societies; they never do anything of true value, often end-up looking stupid when the consensus they spent careers defending was proven wrong, and their names are remembered, if at all, in association with foolishness and fossilized thought.

Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one (truly literate people notice that the very word itself gives this away)

try again by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-10 13:23 · Score: 0

Sorry, but this is the way science happens: the overall physics is understood, and then the details are slowly filled and the error bars are refined and the calculations get better.

Sorry, but no. This is not how science works. Science does not make hyperventillating overwrought screams of imminent disaster unless societies repent of their sins and change their ways while persecuting "skeptics" (heretics) and then, every time errors are found in the stone tablets, chiseling-in new revelations or commandments and saying "move-along, nothing to see here". Science follows a method... and that method has no steps that include [a] public relations [b] politics [c] proclamations of "truth" before all the work is done and the results are in [d] elimination of any dissenters. Science is an open and rigorous process that does indeed produce ever-changing results but those results should always be increasingly accurate and a hallmark is that the bad ideas are as openly and honestly discussed and exposed as the valid updates. If modern "climate scientists" were legit, they'd have driven the guys exposed in the e-mail dumps from the field and shunned them, just as scientists in other fields have discredited and shunned their former colleagues after they were exposed as having rigged processes.

Today's best estimate of the warming effect is still within the error bars of Manabe and Wetherald's original 1967 calculation, and if you plot their predictions against the actual measured temperatures, using the measured values of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the data fits perfectly. We have pretty good confidence that we know the physics of the greenhouse effect. Scientists has not been "keeping changing your story"-- it's been physics that's been well understood for over a hundred years, and the same overall calculation with the same net result, to within the error bars, for close to fifty years.

50 or 100 years is but the blink of an eye relative to a planet that is billions of years old. Oh, and people have been predicting that space aliens would attack us, possibly within several centuries, for about that same time-frame ... while the aliens have not yet invaded, they ARE withing the "error bars" of the people who predicted the event ... so I guess you're making your plans for the invasion, right?

Real science, please, or keep the "global warming" in the socialist political halls where it belongs and where it got much of its original support

Re:try again by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-12-10 15:30 · Score: 1

In general there is little point in debating anonymous cowards, but once your post starts going off about putative predictions of invasions of space aliens, it's pretty clear that there's no content left in the discussion.

--
http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Relatedly... by perceptual.cyclotron · 2012-12-10 14:15 · Score: 1

I predict a meter/day of trolling posts (let's say 12 pt font) to CC updates within the next year (or are we there already?). I don't even know where to start with my mod points...

Past predictions by Anonymous Coward · 2012-12-11 05:28 · Score: 0

The past predictions of the IPCC "models" are not happening so what makes this any more likely to occur?

Their models are seriously flawed and are not reliable at all.

Slashdot Mirror

Draft of IPCC 2013 Report Already Circulating

306 comments