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2012 Another Record-Setter For Weather, Fits Climate Forecasts

Layzej writes "The Associated Press reports: 'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes. As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy. Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record in the United States. Worldwide, the average through November suggests it will be the eighth warmest since global record-keeping began in 1880 and will likely beat 2011 as the hottest La Nina year on record. America's heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at "normal." Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012. But the most troubling climate development this year was the melting at the top of the world. Summer sea ice in the Arctic shrank to 18 percent below the previous record low. These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes," said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. "With all the extremes that, really, every year in the last 10 years have struck different parts of the globe, more and more people absolutely realize that climate change is here and already hitting us."'"

336 comments

  1. -1 for linking to FOX news by who_stole_my_kidneys · · Score: 1, Insightful

    there has to be a better source

    1. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Andrio · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hey, if FOX is reporting on Climate change, then you *know* we're in trouble.

      --
      The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
    2. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I disagree. The fact that FOX is covering it is incredibly telling. When "head in the sand" individuals are tuning around in their admission to a problem, it is a good way to convince other "head in the sand" individuals.

      -- MyLongNickName

    3. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Bigby · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would rather here about this from Fox News than most anyone else. Just like I would rather hear about Obama issues from MSNBC and the NFL being the best American sports league from the MLB & NBA.

    4. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So a source that tells the facts of a matter that another might report is bad how?
       
      I can't believe that bigotry is modded up. Oh, wait... yes I can. This is Slashdot.

    5. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Bartles · · Score: 5, Informative

      You guys do understand the difference between a Foxnews article, and an AP Wire article, right?

    6. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm guessing the cheque from the denialists was late this month. This is just a warning shot and normal service will be resumed fairly soon...

      --
      No sig today...
    7. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by jkrise · · Score: 1

      you *know* we're in trouble.

      Yes, we all got the memo... Just a few more hours for the whole World to end, anyways; so what if record temperatures were set? Or Fox news reported the truth?

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    8. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      You guys do understand the difference between a Foxnews article, and an AP Wire article, right?

      If the Fox News article and the AP Wire story are the same, whose the bigot?

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    9. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      there has to be a better source

      The "good" thing about FOX compared to CNN is that there is some level of chaos in FOX, and reports that are decidedly pro-science and sometimes liberal and even left-leaning somehow get through - I've seen a couple of very positive reports about the Occupy movement, on the FOX News website. I can only conclude that the censoring process on FOX is somewhat porous and random.

      Not so with CNN: those guys are systematic to the core, and always, immutably and constantly right-leaning.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    10. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Let's be honest, neither one is known for accuracy.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    11. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't thinks a sociopath like yourself to care. We'll be happy if you don't develop a taste for human flesh.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    12. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by sortius_nod · · Score: 0

      What do I care if you're brutally raped, tortured & murded?

      See, two or us can play the apathy game.

    13. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry. We cannot allow general acceptance of any scientific theory that violates political and ideological tenets of conservatism and libertarianism. AGW requires solutions that violate Conservativr notions of free market principles, and therefore the theory is false. Even if the theory were true, it still violates libertarian free market notions, and thus nothing should be done to mitigate it, as government involvement in solutions is absolute tyranny.

      None of this applies, of course, to fossil fuel extraction, where government cooperation. Is absolutely essential.

      Drill, baby, drill!!!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    14. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by sbjornda · · Score: 1

      However, not to be a denier just a questioner, how can we tell if this is just part of the statistical variations to be expected over time rather than an actual real trend?

      A part of the answer to your question can be found here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html . To get the full impact you need to watch the whole thing right to the very end, 3:15.

      --
      .nosig

    15. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by PRMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening? Or just question how much man contributes to it and by what measures? Realize that in the past Siberia flash froze for some reason (probably not man) and that Iraq used to be the "fertile crescent". So the question is, are we the cause of these events or do they just happen despite us?

      That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting. Saves tons of gas and solves traffic issues. I don't think much would change if I went into the office 3 days a week instead of 5, except the amount of gas I purchase.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    16. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, this is just wrong. Go look up the cause of AGW and then go read up on which metrics governments seek to maximize.

    17. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by mspohr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The denialists have shifted their arguments as the evidence for climate change has become stronger and as we have been subject to daily "weather" that shows that climate change is happening and actually exceeding the "worst case" models.
      At first they were just denialists stating that it isn't happening. As the climate has actually started to change and we have record heat, drought, flood, etc. they it has become harder to deny that climate change is happening. So, they have shifted their arguments to "we didn't cause it and there is nothing we can do about it". They cite a lot of dubious "evidence" (all of which has been debunked by actual scientists).
      There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose) but the denialists take the position that it's not our fault and we can't do anything. As usual, it pays to follow the money and you find the fossil fuel industries behind all of the denialist "science" and find them spreading all of this FUD.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    18. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting.

      Sorry. Not going to happen on any grand scale. You'll will have to shower and dress regularly for some time yet.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    19. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening? Or just question how much man contributes to it and by what measures?

      The denialists keep shifting stance in the much same way the the creationists do. One day they'll be convinced of one thing, then the pesky science shoots it down, the next day it's something else that's the real reason. It's obvious they never do any research, they just parrot the reason du jour, claiming it as absolute truth.

      To answer the question: Yes. When they ran out of reasons why it wasn't happening, they all shifted to whether it was man made.

      Despite the simplicity of the greenhouse effect and the hard numbers about how much greenhouse gas man puts out every year, they have no plausible mechanism for non-anthropogenic warming.

      If pressed these days they usually sidestep it and say "but it was warmer before!", as if the Earth can somehow warm itself spontaneously.

      --
      No sig today...
    20. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose)

      Electricity generation produces more CO2 than telecommuting. A few more nuclear power stations would reduce emissions more than people giving up their SUVs would (I think the "you'll have to drive a really crappy small car!!" argument is also put out by the oil companies to help the people deny...)

      See: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

      --
      No sig today...
    21. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      ...plus if people stayed at home they'd all be using individual air-conditioners/heaters/lights rather than the shared ones at the office.

      That might offset the benefit of them not driving to work.

      --
      No sig today...
    22. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The denialists sound more like scientists to me...

    23. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I would rather here about this from Fox News than most anyone else."

      Like all the people who can't spell.

    24. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Really?

      So why is it that the 'believers' are the ones causing their changes in argument (step by painful step) by showing them the evidence?

      --
      No sig today...
    25. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you think global warming is all the conservatives' fault, you're not really thinking about the problem at all.

    26. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Velorium · · Score: 1

      To be fair, it's actually an Associated Press article reposted by Fox. However as everyone else has noted, that in itself should say something; that it's pretty undeniable/solid if Fox is actually supporting claims about climate change of all things.

    27. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because that is how science works. If science is "painful" to them maybe they shouldn't be doing it. I'm probably more educated in the field than most being a scientist doing other stuff and having read much of the IPCC reports, and I would agree that AGW is currently the most plausible explanation for the observed rise in global average temperature. The rest of the stuff is interesting but not predicted with any accuracy at all (in the models I have seen). For example, from the news article (which probably misquotes the actual researchers), here we see the failure of the model to predict things taken as evidence of its success (wtf):

      "There were other weather extremes no one predicted: A European winter cold snap that killed more than 800 people. A bizarre summer windstorm called a derecho in the U.S. mid-Atlantic that left millions without power. Antarctic sea ice that inched to a record high. More than a foot of post-Thanksgiving rain in the western U.S. Super Typhoon Bopha, which killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and was the southernmost storm of its kind."

      Even with regards to global temps, the fact the "believers" needed to be forced to double check the validity of their sensor readings belies an unscientific attitude.

    28. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by qeveren · · Score: 1

      They'll take any denial that allows them to not actually do anything, and will help them prevent anyone else from doing anything, to fix the issue.

      --
      Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
    29. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Fox gets away with it: an uneducated audience."

      What a joke. For as "intelligent" as everyone here thinks they are, not a one of you has a clue about economics, nor apparently how to add and subtract - specifically when it's related to debt. You know, spending more than you have and borrowing the difference from China.

      Sheer genius. It's bad when the Republicans do it, but perfectly sane and ok when the Democrats do it.

      Get a clue. Your about to get EVERYTHING you deserve.

    30. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      Next you're going to be telling me the president of Exxon has come out on the side of global warming.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    31. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Kjella · · Score: 1

      ...plus if people stayed at home they'd all be using individual air-conditioners/heaters/lights rather than the shared ones at the office. That might offset the benefit of them not driving to work.

      I'd probably use a bit more at home, but since I'd otherwise have to warm it up/cool it down when I get home not significantly more. I'm pretty sure keeping both my home and office heated in the winter takes more than just heating my home while telecommuting on top of the transport benefits. Besides, you shouldn't underestimate that with fewer constraints on the commute people could live closer to other things (places, people, activities) they'd otherwise travel to. I had a colleague that every weekend in the winter would drive many hours to go skiing. If he could work from there, he'd probably just live near the ski slopes most of the winter. Long distance relationships with frequent travel wouldn't need to be if you can take the job with you, that sort of thing. I'd never take a pure telecommuting job though, far too risky I'd be undercut by someone far away in a low cost country.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    32. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Like I said. You're a sociopath. We don't expect you to.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    33. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Gilmoure · · Score: 0

      Everyone well knows that facts have a well known lib'rul bias. This means you can cut them diagonally and they'll drape correctly.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    34. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by SandwhichMaster · · Score: 1

      Or if this article has any merit...

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html

      We could stop shipping crap across the ocean, as it's apparently causing more pollution than all of our cars combined...

    35. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Because that is how science works. If science is "painful" to them maybe they shouldn't be doing it.

      They're not interested in science, they're interested in having an argument to support their belief. They only change when they realize they look foolish and the only change is to a different argument.

      Eventually they run out of 'factual' arguments (remember stuff like "volcanoes produce more CO2 than man"? Sounds factual, except the pesky facts are wrong...) and start using arguments based on false logic ("I was warmer before without man, therefore man isn't causing it this time around...").

      It's exactly the same game creationists play, and it's not science.

      --
      No sig today...
    36. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mindless conservatives may not have caused it, but they consistently restrict or obstruct discussion that would lead to mitigation of the process. Just look at the anti-global-warming pseudo-science being pout out by shills for the fossil fuel companies. Here are just a few:

      The Greening Earth Society: Founded in the late 80’s by Western Fuels - a coal fired power lobby representing numerous corporations—to promote the claim that increasing greenhouse gases are good for the earth. They are best known for a widely distributed “documentary” called “The Greening of Planet Earth” in which it was claimed that global warming was going to turn the earth into a lush paradise of plant life and crop yields. Virtually all of the content at their web site (www.greeningearthsociety.org) and in their publications has been prepared by two or three skeptic consultants (Most notably Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels) and relies on science that has been carefully edited to give the appearance of support for their thesis. Western Fuels and the GES share office space and pretty much overlap in their board of directors, making them all but synonymous with each other.

      The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP): Founded in the early 90’s by S. Fred Singer with seed capital and office space provided by the Unification Church (the “Moonies”). Today SEPP’s funding has come mainly from the fossil fuel industry and various Far-Right foundations including the Bradley, Smith Richardson, and Forbes foundations. The SEPP, which according to its web site advocates a "no-regrets policy of energy efficiency and market-based conservation", has been one of the more vociferous skeptic fronts. They have been active in numerous political lobbying efforts and public relations campaigns aimed at discrediting global warming, the link between CFC’s and ozone depletion, and even lung cancer and second-hand smoke (Singer has also consulted for the tobacco industry). Singer was also the driving force behind the 1995 and 1997 Leipzig Declarations opposing the global warming scientific consensus and the Kyoto Protocol. SEPP claimed that 140 “climate scientists” had signed at least one of them. There were numerous problems with the credentials of many signatories. At least one independent investigation was only able to verify 20 as having any valid climate science background.
      The Global Climate Coalition (GCC): Founded in 1989 by 46 corporations and trade associations representing a number of industries, but mainly auto manufacturers and fossil fuels. They have been involved in numerous well-funded lobbying efforts, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns targeting mainstream global warming science, and several flawed economic studies on the cost of global warming mitigation. In the face of ever mounting evidence they began to unravel in the late 90’s when several members left the coalition (most notably British Petroleum, Daimler Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors). Today they are defunct.

      The Information Council on the Environment (ICE): Founded in 1991 the National Coal Association, Western Fuels, and Edison Electric—all coal or coal-fired power lobbies. They are best known for a public disinformation campaign that made use of four prominent skeptic consultants (Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, S. Fred Singer, and Sherwood Idso), a public relations firm (William Bracy Inc.), and a polling firm (Cambridge Reports). According to internal Cambridge Reports memos the goal of the campaign was to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact”. Based on the research summarized in these memos print and broadcast advertising spots were then targeted specifically at "young, low-income women" and "older, less-educated men from large families who are not typically active information seekers”. Emphasis was placed on districts which rely on coal-fired power and heat, and nationally syndicated conservative talk shows that are

    37. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by yotto · · Score: 1

      I don't think much would change if I went into the office 3 days a week instead of 5, except the amount of gas I purchase.

      And you'd lose your job. :D

    38. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by headcase88-2 · · Score: 1

      I'm kind of impressed they didn't say Obama was to blame for global warming.

    39. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "They're not interested in science, they're interested in having an argument to support their belief. They only change when they realize they look foolish and the only change is to a different argument."

      The type of person that makes up that "they" is found in the "believer" camp as well. These people are largely irrelevant to policy-making as they will adopt the opinions of their peer group consensus or chosen authority figures. As you say, such people are not interested in science, and will not be convinced by arguments from science. This is the same problem with using logic to argue with those who believe in a God. The beliefs are not based on logic/evidence to begin with, but social heuristics.

      Eventually they run out of 'factual' arguments (remember stuff like "volcanoes produce more CO2 than man"? Sounds factual, except the pesky facts are wrong...) and start using arguments based on false logic ("I was warmer before without man, therefore man isn't causing it this time around...").

      Very little of scientific evidence (if any) consists of "facts". Every observation is subject to uncertainty (measurement error, etc), and every theory is subject to even greater uncertainty since it propagates from the numerous observations, often relies on unstated assumptions, and must be compared to a multitude of alternative hypotheses with non-zero probability. In fact, most modern scientists interpret evidence using a logical fallacy due to a misunderstanding of statistics: (see http://i49.tinypic.com/2sbodup.png)

      The actual skeptics (not the followers or manipulators of public opinion) question whether these sources of uncertainty have truly been investigated to the extent that the evidence in support of the theory/model is sufficient to be used to wisely inform public policy. There is plenty of evidence out there (see example above about valid sensor data) showing that the "believers" have indeed failed to accomplish this on their own due to overconfidence.

      The entire debate is largely due to a failure of the climate science community to control those in their field with big mouths from running them to the media while there are still plausible alternatives and major sources of uncertainty to be dealt with. This is damaging the credibility of scientists from all fields.

    40. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      That's only sulfur pollution, not greenhouse gases.

      PS: Try reading your own article next time...

      --
      No sig today...
    41. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      You'd have a point about the believers if the warming mechanism was complex and required years of study to understand or there was a choice of mechanisms to debate.

      It isn't, and there aren't. The greenhouse gas mechanism is pretty simple and the only real source of heat around here is the sun. There's no other mechanism out there that comes close to explain the warming we see all around us.

      So the only question is: Why are greenhouse gases increasing?

      --
      No sig today...
    42. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Next you're going to be telling me the president of Exxon has come out on the side of global warming.

      He's definitely a valuable Team Leader on the Global Warming Crew.

    43. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Noone (except scientists studying it) actually cares about greenhouse gas concentration or anything else like that. What they care about is what effect this would have on their lives were it occurring, and cost-benefit analysis of mitigating any negative effects, which are still largely uncertain. Hence the "debate" (a bunch of arguments based off subjective opinions).

    44. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      What do I really care? I'll be long dead and gone by the time it is a real problem, ...

      Unless you're something like 80 years old I wouldn't count on that. As the story points out the effects are already manifesting themselves and it's not like a light switch where it's either on or off. Instead the effects just gradually keep getting worse and worse until you wake up some day and say "What happened?!". And even if we do start to do something about it there will be 30 or 40 years of continuing worsening before the climate catches up with the forcing.

      Lastly the cliche "Think of the children" applies. If you don't care about yourself do you care about your children or if you have none the children of your family and friends, but maybe you don't any of those either.

    45. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Of course the big climate models don't even try to predict such specific weather events in any case. At best what you can get from them is that the probability of such an event has gone up or down because of AGW. If they have predicted an increase probability for something then the fact that it occurs more often is evidence the theory is correct.

    46. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Of course the big climate models don't even try to predict such specific weather events in any case. "

      Fair enough, that is the limitation of our current models. I think we would all agree it would be better if the models were able to predict specific weather events. How specific is necessary before we can place trust in them is an important question.

      "At best what you can get from them is that the probability of such an event has gone up or down because of AGW."

      It is good that the models attempt to predict things, over time they will get better and better at predicting as more variables are more precisely accounted for.

      " If they have predicted an increase probability for something then the fact that it occurs more often is evidence the theory is correct."

      Wrong, this is the fallacy of the transposed conditional I linked to above. It is very, very common amongst scientists (more than 80% of them) and even more common amongst the general public.

    47. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by khallow · · Score: 1

      Why should I?

      You exist in the first place because a lot of people went out of their way to raise you and to build the society you enjoy. It's reasonable that you give something for future generations to have their chance as well.

      Having said that, AGW advocates haven't made a case that we're better off sacrificing today rather than tomorrow. I think it's completely unreasonable to cause so much harm to our society now on the theory that it'll slightly mollify some ambiguous but supposedly vast harm in the future. I doubt many large scale movements of history have presented such a lousy argument for action.

    48. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening?

      Yes. Saying "there has been no 'statistically significant' warming in the last n years" is still denying climate change in the purest sense.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    49. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose)

      Electricity generation produces more CO2 than telecommuting.

      Non sequitur. Reducing commuting would still drastically reduce CO2 output. "But your honor, that guy burned down more houses than I did!" doesn't get you off free.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    50. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      I doubt climate modelers will ever try to predict specific weather events. It's probably not possible more than a few weeks ahead in any event. It comes down to the difference between climate and weather. One way to look at climate is it's the statistical description of weather. Here is the World Meteorological Organization's definition of climate:

      Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the "average weather," or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.

      Weather is too chaotic to predict for any length of time but it is chaotic within bounds. Their will never be at 100C or -100C temperature recorded and there are limits to how much precipitation and wind you can get. Climate describes those bounds and to the extent the bounds shift because of anthropogenic climate change weather will shift to remain within them. Because climate describes the chaos within weather it can not be chaotic in the same way. Chaos in climate comes from such things as the variability of the Sun, long term changes in geological processes and human influences on climate but climate is mostly an energy balance problem and the secondary effects of temperature, precipitation, wind and other things will change in response to changes in the energy balance.

      Climate models, especially regional models, can predict some things like likelihood of long term dryer conditions in the US southwest which appears to be happening but they will never predict with precision something like Sandy or the big Midwest drought this year, just the probability of such an event happening.

    51. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      No, when the Republicans are in power they don't care about deficits either.

      And we're still borrowing most of it from ourselves. China only holds about 8% of US public debt.

    52. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by dryeo · · Score: 1

      If pressed these days they usually sidestep it and say "but it was warmer before!", as if the Earth can somehow warm itself spontaneously.

      Actually the Earth does warm itself somewhat spontaneously. Huge volcanic eruptions happen spontaneously and the continents rearrange themselves spontaneously. Both of these can cause global warming and the Earth has spent aprox. 80% of its life in hothouse conditions.
      The only reasons that global warming is a problem is that our civilization will probably end with global warming and may well end with global nuclear war and Home Sapiens has evolved during ice-house conditions. (Look at how well Homo Neanderthal handled natural global warming.)
      Long term (10's of millions of years) it doesn't really matter, what does matter is that it affects us personally and especially affects our children and there children and so on.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    53. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen what you might call liberal or left-leaning stories on the Fox News website too, but they were always articles without a comments section which were reprinted from AP. Fox News doesn't get the full effect of Fox' policies as the television broadcast does, but it gets a lot of it. Often, I'll search a particularly controversial news story with implications for the Fox viewership (such as Stand your Ground shootings in Florida) and find nothing on the Fox News website despite heavy coverage on other news sites. Fox is systematic to the core, but it does it very well - seamlessly in fact. As Jon Stewart once described it: CNN is bad at what it does. Fox is very good at what it does, and it does it with authority.

    54. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are complaining that people shift their point of view when disproved.

      On the other side you have people preaching about global warming but that would rather see the world burn than allow more nuclear power.

    55. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      I live in Montreal Quebec, Canada. For the past 15 years I've noticed a three day per year delay in the start of winter.
      When I married in 1968, Winter arrived for mid November, and Left in End April.
      Last year, winter started (storm with permenant cold) about 20 December and Spring came in March.
      Today is the 22nd of December, and yes, today, we got our storm and what will be permenant cold until March.

      For Canada, it is great. because we have better crops because of the longer growning season, and because we do not get the absurd heat of summer that the USA midwest experienced.

      Some say that the US desert in Nevada will gradually increase in diameter.
      Lets hope that what we see is an anomaly and that the temperature and growing seasons will return to what they were 45 years ago.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    56. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/extreme-forecast-dead-on-in-2012-hot-and-either-too-dry-or-too-wet-just-as-experts-warned/2012/12/20/f02c8e80-4adc-11e2-8758-b64a2997a921_story.html

    57. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt many large scale movements of history have presented such a lousy argument for action.

      On the contrary, almost EVERY large scale movement in history used a similar argument. Large scale movements are often about asking people to do something society have never done before (and not an easy thing to do - sacrifice). So nobody knows if the future would be better as a result. The promised better future for large scale movements is almost always vague.

      We only praise the large scale movements that succeeded today because hindsight is 20/20. Back when they were still being debated, things weren't so clear cut.

      Even the most popular large scale movements have doubters and naysayers - for example, some colonists sided with the British during the American War of Independence

    58. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by khallow · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, almost EVERY large scale movement in history used a similar argument.

      Well, let's look at a few examples. Major religions? Christianity started as a response to the perceived injustice of the corrupt, religious culture of ancient Judea and spread because it was a vibrant alternative to the religions of the time. Islam started as a response to systemic injustice in the Arabian Peninsula and spread because membership in the religion conferred substantial advantages.

      Communism, anarachism, and similar beliefs spread because they gave a relatively nice alternative to the poor and oppressed of the time.

      Even the most popular large scale movements have doubters and naysayers - for example, some colonists sided with the British during the American War of Independence

      The concrete advantages of that independence movement were self-determination and not having to pay for someone else's military adventurism.

      Many of these large scale movements had hidden costs and gotchas, but again so does the AGW movement which proposes to spend tens to hundreds of billions each year in unaccountable ways to fix nebulous harms. I consider that the actual driver for the movement.

    59. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Major religions?

      Major religions are the greatest examples of my point. Almost all religions promise some sort of wonderful after life... IF you follow the religion (namely its rules, and giving us your money definitely helps). Christianity and Islam and the like believe in an afterlife where everything's wonderful, but you'll only get there if you make sacrifices today. Ones that believe in reincarnation encourage you to do good deeds today so that your next life (the vague tomorrow) is better or at least not get worse

      Christianity started as a response to the perceived injustice of the corrupt, religious culture of ancient Judea and spread because it was a vibrant alternative to the religions of the time. Islam started as a response to systemic injustice in the Arabian Peninsula and spread because membership in the religion conferred substantial advantages.

      Those are simply advantages of being in a large organization. My point is that the beliefs of the religion is those vague promises of a better after life/next life.

      The concrete advantages of that independence movement were self-determination and not having to pay for someone else's military adventurism.

      No, those were not concrete advantages. Again, hindsight is 20/20. They only become concrete when it's after the fact and we saw the results and liked them. Military adventurism? That's just what somebody who is against military spending would say. Somebody who's for it would say "but but but TERRORISTS" or "the US^H^H British empire spends so much on defense and go to war so you don't have to".

      Many of these large scale movements had hidden costs and gotchas

      No, they are not hidden. The cost is always "obey our set of rules and beliefs". Some of them don't just ask for hundreds of billions, they ask for your very life ("fight for the fatherland!" "give your life for god!") for some nebulous better future. It's no different than the AGW movement

    60. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by khallow · · Score: 1

      Major religions are the greatest examples of my point.

      As I noted, they are not. They promise a lot in this lifetime. Else people would switch to the religion down the street which offers that great afterlife plus better real world benefits.

      No, those were not concrete advantages.

      Well, one merely needs to look at the quote you replied to. What is the point of making a wrong statement?

      They only become concrete when it's after the fact

      This is silly. There are risks of failure to doing most things. For example, not starving is a concrete benefit of eating. But suppose you have to travel to eat? What makes not starving a less than concrete benefit? Let's add some risk. You're trapped in a zombie horror flick and the grocery, you're trying to reach, may have been completely looted and burned to the ground. Well, guess what? Not starving still remains a concrete benefit.

      No, they are not hidden. The cost is always "obey our set of rules and beliefs". Some of them don't just ask for hundreds of billions, they ask for your very life ("fight for the fatherland!" "give your life for god!") for some nebulous better future. It's no different than the AGW movement

      And do you fully know what those rules and beliefs are going to be beforehand? Usually not. "Fight for the fatherland!" is great as an abstract idea. But in reality, your "fatherland" might declare war on the rest of the world which is not what you signed up for.

    61. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As I noted, they are not.

      And your note is wrong.

      They promise a lot in this lifetime.

      None of which has to do with the religion itself. They're things any large scale organization can promise you. Sufficient money and/or power can do just as well. Plenty of non-religion people and organizations exist that have very comfortable lives in this lifetime... and some religions might actually hate them for it. You're supposed to give up your own earthly wealth and distribute it to the poor and needy! That's how you build up points to get to heaven! Oh, and you better have made that money in a "moral" way, or you won't get into heaven! Say, the collection box is rather empty...

      Else people would switch to the religion down the street which offers that great afterlife plus better real world benefits.

      This statement actually supports my point: religion is not about the real world present life benefits. Religion is about the after life, the vague things that you just gotta have faith to believe in. If religion was about real world benefits, then yes people would switch religions on the fly like a politician switching stances to get more votes.

      Well, one merely needs to look at the quote you replied to. What is the point of making a wrong statement?

      You assume the quote I replied to was a correct statement. You are wrong.

      This is silly. There are risks of failure to doing most things.

      Ermmm... that's my point. Thanks for agreeing.

      There are risks in most things, and how people judge whether risks are worth taking is to look at history or past experiences. If you tell me starving is bad, I can refer to my own experiences, or watch other people starve and verify that you are right.

      But when you're talking about religion, it talks about the afterlife. Now how in the world can we tell if a religion is correct? That would involve one of us going to the after life and then somehow communicating the experience back, and so far there's no convincing evidence or argument (just like you know, there's no convincing argument for AGW? I'm not sure why you're so antagonistic when we're probably on the same side about AGW)

      And do you fully know what those rules and beliefs are going to be beforehand? Usually not.

      EXACTLY. Do you know all the costs and details and unintended side effects of AGW?

      It takes a leap of faith to believe in a religion
      It takes a leap of faith to belief in AGW

      There's little to no difference between AGW and religion or most large scale movements in history. It's an idea which doesn't have concrete evidence but people believe in it anyway, with heavy doses of faith.

    62. Re:-1 for linking to FOX news by khallow · · Score: 1

      None of which has to do with the religion itself. They're things any large scale organization can promise you.

      Well, then show me the non-religious "large scale organization" that increases your chances of having a old school family (working father, at home mother, and a bunch of kids). A lot of religions offer that.

      It also fills a psychological need. They offer purpose, a powerful and motivating outlook that you're part of something big. You occasionally run into people who would be self-destructive in some way if it weren't for the mitigating influence of a religion. This is not unique to religion, but it is a feature of any religion.

      In addition, you grant above that religion as a "large scale organization" does provide things.

      This statement actually supports my point: religion is not about the real world present life benefits. Religion is about the after life, the vague things that you just gotta have faith to believe in. If religion was about real world benefits, then yes people would switch religions on the fly like a politician switching stances to get more votes.

      No, it would prove your point if no switching occurred. Infrequent switching indicates merely that there are substantial costs to switching (such as losing much of your old social circle).

      There are risks in most things, and how people judge whether risks are worth taking is to look at history or past experiences. If you tell me starving is bad, I can refer to my own experiences, or watch other people starve and verify that you are right.

      But when you're talking about religion, it talks about the afterlife. Now how in the world can we tell if a religion is correct? That would involve one of us going to the after life and then somehow communicating the experience back, and so far there's no convincing evidence or argument (just like you know, there's no convincing argument for AGW?

      As I noted above, it's not all about the afterlife.

      I'm not sure why you're so antagonistic when we're probably on the same side about AGW)

      If all I sought was agreement, then I could get that by only posting to echo chambers that reflect my views. I expect others to disagree with me, often legitimately, and I'm willing to push my argument a bit.

      To summarize my view, sure it appears at first that religion is about an unaccountable, supernatural reward. That's what they push first and foremost. I think it's the catch that grabs people with the psychological need.

      But if we look at why some religions stick around and some go away, we see that religions provide more than that nebulous end game. They're social networks. They often provide stability both at the personal and family levels. They provide some of the benefits any large scale organization can provide (connections, resources, something to do, etc). That's why some religions are thriving and some aren't.

      I just don't see AGW advocacy offering anything like those benefits. It doesn't have the social or stability benefits of a religion. It's not an organization with some use. It doesn't build anything (instead tearing down existing infrastructure). And it seems quite counterproductive by diverting substantial resources away from needs that are more important (for example, bad farming practices and treatable disease), making people poorer (poor people being a common cause of environmental destruction), and misattributing a variety of problems to AGW.

  2. No one has posted yet!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did the world actually end except in my office!?

  3. in other news... by schlachter · · Score: 4, Funny

    on the bright side..."end of the world" forecasts were proven wrong when things seemed to go on as normal today...leading end of the world theorists to re-evaluate their models.

    --
    My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
    1. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      .leading end of the world theorists to re-evaluate their models.

      And here's the problem. The uneducated masses see,

      1. scientific theory like Global Warming
      2. end of the world theory

      in the news and they think "theory this, theory that. One wrong means both likely wrong".

      Most of the population doesn't even know how science works or what is the scientific method. Some may say "but they learn it in school" - they also learn how to complete the square and do long division and how many know how to do that *today*?

    2. Re:in other news... by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 0

      The day is not over.

    3. Re:in other news... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Careful, your contempt of everyone else is showing.

    4. Re:in other news... by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      And here's the problem. The uneducated masses see,

      1. scientific theory like Global Warming
      2. end of the world theory

      in the news and they think "theory this, theory that. One wrong means both likely wrong".

      Most of the population doesn't even know how science works or what is the scientific method. Some may say "but they learn it in school" - they also learn how to complete the square and do long division and how many know how to do that *today*?

      Actually one problem is that they hear GW alarmists claiming that GW will cause the end of the world. Some of them even claim it will turn Earth into Venus! So, naturally they lump GW alarmists in with other EOTW crackpots.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    5. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Be careful why? I'm not the AC you replied to, but I sure as hell have contempt for most of society, and have no qualms about saying as such to others. Hell, if anything I'm proud of it!

    6. Re:in other news... by Onymous+Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because contempt for people causes all our lives to worsen. Have contempt for what people do, go ahead, but distinguish between that and the persons themselves.

      It's very subtle and hard to understand. But I don't wish you harm because you can't figure it out.

    7. Re:in other news... by schlachter · · Score: 1

      speak for your own time zone!

      --
      My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
    8. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look around...

      The US govt is paralyzed with the red party disintegrating.
      The NRA wants commandos in public schools.
      Gangnam style is the most popular meme of the year.
      _and_
      GW is worsening.

      Sure sounds like the end of the world I used to know.

    9. Re:in other news... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Pride and contempt, the causes of basically every interpersonal problem that has ever existed.

    10. Re:in other news... by similar_name · · Score: 1

      Some may say "but they learn it in school"

      Memory argument aside I don't think it's taught well. In many introductory science labs, students fudge the numbers to make the experiment come out right. I always seemed the only voice in the group that insisted we should use the numbers we got and write ideas or a hypothesis to explain why it came out wrong in the summary. Sometimes I got my way and when I did we got an A. It's not that the teachers won't appreciate it, but it isn't really stressed either. At least when I was school many moons ago.

    11. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look it up. It's called null hypothesis testing.

    12. Re:in other news... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      Actually one problem is that they hear GW alarmists claiming that GW will cause the end of the world. Some of them even claim it will turn Earth into Venus! So, naturally they lump GW alarmists in with other EOTW crackpots.

      Actually, it's the heat from all the burning strawmen that will turn Earth into a Venusian-style hell planet.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    13. Re:in other news... by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      If I could still use my mod point in this post I'd give you a +5 Bust Your Gut Funny!

    14. Re:in other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you said sounds like Tyler Durden's line from Fight Club: "You are not your job."

      But, well, actually, you totally are. Granted, what you do and your means of employment might not be the same thing, but in both cases you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills. For instance, being a good mother is a job that requires a skill. It's something a person can do that is useful to other members of society. But make no mistake: What you do -- the useful thing you do for other people -- is all you are.

      There is a reason why surgeons get more respect than comedy writers. There is a reason mechanics get more respect than unemployed hipsters. There is a reason what you do will become your label if your death makes the news ("NFL Linebacker Dies in Murder/Suicide"). Tyler said, "You are not your job," but he also founded and ran a successful soap company and became the head of an international social and political movement. He was totally what he did.

      Human beings don't have claws and fangs like other animals to survive. We survive by with our ingenuity and by changing the environment with our ingenuity, instead of waiting for our bodies to adapt. To require that human beings cease to do everything that makes its life possible e.g. you mother's life support running on non-solar and non-wind energy, is madness.

    15. Re:in other news... by Onymous+Coward · · Score: 1

      ...you are nothing more than the sum total of your useful skills...

      Are you saying that surgeons do more to benefit others than mechanics? Maybe at least you're saying mechanics do more to benefit others than the unemployed? Bothering to say these things means you are ultimately concerned with the what these occupations or people are achieving: benefit to humanity. Which means the thing really being valued is humanity itself. Distilled, it's actually sentience, minds perceiving reality, experiencing happiness or suffering. You care about the welfare of minds.

      Even dogs, for example, have minds, though, it's not just humans. You care about whether a dog is suffering or happy. If a dog were trapped in a burning house and you could safely let it loose, you would. What useful skill does that dog have? Do they benefit humanity more than unemployed hipsters?

      Maybe you're inclined to make an argument that dogs benefit humanity so you can try to defend the idea further. What if you had a dog that was dangerous to all other people and animals, but it was happy being kept in a small cage by itself? It more or less lacks value at that point, but would you really feel good about killing it?

  4. Fits climate forcasts? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    That's funny. I just read an article a week ago explaining that the forecasts were off: "Evidence points to a further rise of just 1C by 2100. The net effect on the planet may actually be beneficial."

    1. Re:Fits climate forcasts? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Way to cite an editorial that provides no sources for its data as if it were a valid point.

    2. Re:Fits climate forcasts? by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      We may live interesting times. Things are going to change, labeling the change "good" or "bad" now could be still premature, but anyway, we are starting in a situation that we can deal with, and going to another that we could or not. And maybe more important, is a trend pretty hard to revert, if things keep changing we could hit in some point of the road a place that is definately bad.

    3. Re:Fits climate forcasts? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Here's a rebuttal of the WSJ editorial. The scientist Ridley cites in the piece reject his analysis.

  5. and it all ends today by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HAHAHAHAH!

  6. People don't view 2012 as a disaster by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.

    We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.

    1. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.

      We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.

      A second dust bowl would be an "event" and it's a possibility if we enter into a many year drought. Hell, Texas alone lost half a billion trees in the current drought and it's at $8 billion and counting. If that drought rolls into next year and they have a dry winter followed by another drought ... well, the topsoil those half billion trees were holding down will be dry and loose. Bad condition worsens and you could be looking at an "event" as meat prices rise in the US.

      You might not remember the dirty thirties but my midwestern grandparents talk about it like it was death for everything.

      --
      My work here is dung.
    2. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by MozeeToby · · Score: 0, Troll

      "This is no worse than the dust bowl and that was almost 100 years ago! I suppose that was due to global warming too!?"

      (Put in quotes in the hopes of avoiding Poe's Law taking effect)

      This is no event that will convince the denialists because there is no event that hasn't be equaled at some point in the planets history. That the extreme events are coming faster and faster will be completely lost on them.

    3. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by blind+biker · · Score: 0

      We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.

      On some level I agree with you. I know that you're mostly right but I still have hope in humankind. I think humanity will have its collective "Oh, shit!" moment when
      - New York City subway is flooded half the time
      - Tornadoes cause tens of billions in damages per season
      - Tropical diseases start killing thousands in North America and Western Europe
      - Northern Europe gets Siberian climate due to the disruption of the North Atlantic conveyor belt.
      - and finally, once a few hundred million Bangladeshis are forced to move into India, triggering a nice nuclear conflict with Pakistan.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    4. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.

      You are absolutely right.

      We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.

      And you're absolutely right there as well. The only place where you err is that you ignore all the other statistical drifts that are going on all around you, some for the better some for the worse. Global warming is just one, and a fairly minor one at that.

    5. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Unless there is some *serious* (like, freeking flooding!) Torrential downpouring here in the plains states before the next summers dry spell, it *will* blow.

      Trenching crews reporting dry soil 4 ft down (over a meter), that can't cling to the trenching blade at all due to its dryness should be important to you, if you like to at food, and live in the US.

      This whole winter, in my area it has: lightly drizzled once. Rained once with 2in precip, snowed once with 1in precip.

      After a protracted summer drought season that killed corn and soy crops.

      If this continues, planting will *NOT* be successful, soil cover will not recover, and seasonal wind changes will blow the top soil, 1930s style.

      So yeah. Tell me about how you are prepared with your air conditioners some more here people. For real.

    6. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by JWW · · Score: 0

      This is no event that will convince the denialists because there is no event that hasn't be equaled at some point in the planets history. That the extreme events are coming faster and faster will be completely lost on them.

      While this is true, it is also true that if we had conditions like the dust bowl, which was a truly terrifying climatic/ecological event, the AGW proponents would be telling us that it is truly the "End of the World".

      As the dust bowl proved, it was not, in fact, the end of the world. Now, there were definitive ecological things that HAD to change to avoid having another dust bowl. Tilling methods changed, crop rotation methods were introduced, shelterbelts were encouraged and future dust bowls did not occur.

      Climate change is much the same. I should note that the solutions to solving the dust bowl were almost exclusively technological advancements. I believe that technological advancement (not legislation) is the only way to solve the Climate Change issue too. And we are working hard on that. Everyone wants things to be fixed now, because that is the lifeblood of political change (i.e. "DO SOMETHING!"). But I really think the more powerful change, and in the end the more impactful ones are the technological changes. We already see, in the US at least, a move away from coal as an electricity source. We see a movement in the automotive industry from internal combustion through hybirds to electirc cars. I predict that within the next 20 years over half the cars will be electric or hybrid, and in 50 it will be well over 80%. Also, over that time advances in Nuclear (yeah, its gotta play a part), wind and (hopefully, man progress is slow on this) solar, will yield far cleaner electrical generation.

      That sentiment isn't really helpful for the folks trying to use Climate Change to get into political office, but it is representative of what is really happening, and as it is, what needs to happen.

      This denialsit/zealot dichotomy in the are of Climate Change is an intentionally created political football. I deal with Climate Scientists periodically through my job and they are much much less "the end is nigh" than the media or the politicians are. They are really thoughtfully dedicated to measuring the current climate and figuring out how it works, and also trying to project what future climate will look like. They also know the science can never really be "settled", that too is a political contrivance.

    7. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      By the time we get to this levels of mass hysteria will be already too late... ok, already is anyway.

    8. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      No because in the preceding decades to that:
      -New york city's subway is flooded a third of the time
      -Tornadoes cause ten billion damages per season
      -Tropical diseases kill hundreds in those region
      -Northern Europe gets new England climate
      -Let's be honest they will have been fighting for decades already.

    9. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      I don't believe I do ignore the others. The drift towards lower violent crime in first world countries is quite noticeable, for example, and has a positive impact on my life. The drift towards a wider percentage of the world being educated and skilled workers has a dramatic influence on my salary, but is also fundamentally positive. The drift towards ownership of capital representing a greater proportion of dividends of work has definitely not escaped my notice.

      Climate change is still critically important because it affects the global food supply.

    10. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know anectdotes aren't data.

      So, here's a little data for you

      Note the hugely impacted area.

      It's dryer than an old woman's cunt out here.

    11. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Here's a nation wide drought map based on soil moisture measurments evaluated agains annual mean values.

      See anything disturbing? I do.

    12. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      This is why its such a problem when false predictions are trumpeted across news headlines. Credibility is a really important thing right now, and as an example maybe about 10% of the people on slashdot Ive seen have any left.

      Every time someone makes a prediction that Global Warming will cause temps to rise 10 degrees next year or something absurd, it hurts the credibility of the entire "AGW" scientific community. And then people wonder why noone takes it seriously!

    13. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      AFAIK the dust bowl was in large part due to the farming practices, not pollution or a drought.

    14. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      No because in the preceding decades to that:
      -New york city's subway is flooded a third of the time
      -Tornadoes cause ten billion damages per season
      -Tropical diseases kill hundreds in those region
      -Northern Europe gets new England climate
      -Let's be honest they will have been fighting for decades already.

      Just to be clear: you're not denying the events, you're arguing that they will be gradual enough for people not to connect the dots?

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    15. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      It was both.

      However, many young farmers here in flyoverland have forgotten about the dust bowl, and pulled out the windbreaks. (So they can till another 2 to 5 acres.)

      The problem with blowng dust is that it is erosive, and once it starts, it damages windbreaks and groundcover that would otherwise hold, and thus continues to blow.

    16. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Yes, exactly.

    17. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      Trenching crews reporting dry soil 4 ft down (over a meter), that can't cling to the trenching blade at all due to its dryness should be important to you, if you like to at food, and live in the US.

      I tried to google for this, but I don't speak English well enough to find all the sysnonyms (trenching, for instance) and variations to find a source about what you are talking about. I am not disputing any of what you are saying, I am just looking for a source, a research report or something like that. Could you help me?

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    18. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      Climate change is still critically important because it affects the global food supply.

      World hunger isn't due to our inability to produce food or lack of arable land, it's due to lack of economic development. And draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions would make that situation worse.

    19. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      CO2 reduction has nothing to do with that.
      You can reduce CO2 by insulating your house, needing less cooling in summer, and less heating in winter.
      How does that influence in any way farming, global distribution of food, or food growing?
      You can replace light bulbs with more power saving forms of making light, again: what has that to do with food?
      You can use a bike to go to work instead of your car, again: what has that to do with food?
      You can replace your SUV by a hybrid or other low gas consumpting car or even an electric one, again: what has that to do with food?
      You can replace your power hungry washing machine with a longer lasting less water using less energy using ... oh, wait, you are still driving to a washing saloon? Again: what has that to do with food?
      WTF I'm tired to hear this myth all over again that saving energy lowers your standard ov living ...

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    20. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Define 10 degrees rise ....
      Peak temperaturs, especially in the cold period of the year, is allready far more than 10 degrees higher than it ws like 30 years ago.
      Peak temperatures in summer, have in my local are decreased. They where higher 10 years ago. But are bottom line higher than 30 years ago.
      Now lets look at the low temperaturs. 30 years ago we had winters with 6 weeks below -20 degrees, down to -30/-33 degrees. Now we habe winters with a week at roughly -10 degrees. But well, most winters it is just around 0 and often even up to +10 / +20 degrees warm.
      What does that mean for the average?
      Well on average it is perhaps only +2 degrees.

      However if you you can not sleep for weeks because it is at night +8 degrees warmer and on daytime +1 or +2 then averages get pretty meaningless.

      The problem is not credibility, but comprehension and grasping the meaning of mumbers.

      If the scientiests say it will be +2 degrees warmer ON AVERAGE, next year, it means: at every sinigle hour, at every single measuring point on earth, every day of the year, it will be roughly 2 degrees warmer than in the historical middle.

      Obviously that won't be the case. Rather it will be the exact same in winter at the southpole (directly at the pole) however it will llbe a bigger difference e.g. at the equator.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    21. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by wierd_w · · Score: 1

      Trenching is kind of a blue-collar word... not exactly proper english.

      It is a verb, specifying the activity of digging a trench, usually to lay buried water pipe, or utility lines.

      A trencher is a deisel powered piece of heavy earth moving equipment that resembles a giant chainsaw. A common brand name for trenchers is "ditch witch". (Though, like "John Deer", they also make a wide range of industrial and agricultural equipment.)

      Specifically, "trenching" is the act of using such a "trencher" to dig a trench.

      In this case, the trencher normally gets all kinds of mud stuck in it, due to its chainsaw like construction. It has been so dry lately, that this does not happen. The trencher comes out merely dusty.

    22. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      Every time someone makes a prediction that Global Warming will cause temps to rise 10 degrees next year or something absurd, it hurts the credibility of the entire "AGW" scientific community. And then people wonder why noone takes it seriously!

      So who exactly are these climatologists predicting a ten-degree rise (on any commonly used scale) in one year? Be specific.

      Or do you judge the predictions made by scientists by the misinterpretations spouted by hysterical cranks? Because if you do, that's your problem.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    23. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by khallow · · Score: 1

      A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.

      Where's the need that requires us to spend tens to hundreds of billions each year and restructure our transportation and power generation infrastructure?

    24. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by khallow · · Score: 1

      This is no event that will convince the denialists because there is no event that hasn't be equaled at some point in the planets history. That the extreme events are coming faster and faster will be completely lost on them.

      Now for the obvious rebuttal. Where is the evidence for extreme weather happening more often?

    25. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      There have been some pretty impressive dust storms in Texas lately too.

    26. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      And I'm tired of people like you waving their hands and parroting the absurd notion that through increased energy efficiency, we can stabilize CO2 emissions. That is obviously mathematically impossible.

      I started writing a lengthy explanation, as well as the relationship between economic growth, carbon emissions, and hunger:m but I realized it's pointless: holding such bizarre beliefs, you either lack even a high school level understanding of chemistry and mathematics, or you simply suspend all rational thought when it comes to politics and ideology.

    27. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      I did not say that by being more efficient we can stabilize the CO2 level. To do that CO2 output must be stopped completely.

      I don't hold any bizzare believes, are you sure you clicked reply on the correct post?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    28. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      My statement:

      And draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions would make that situation worse.

      Your response:

      WTF I'm tired to hear this myth all over again that saving energy lowers your standard ov living ...

      That's a total non-sequitur. Did I say that "saving energy" lowers anybody's standard of living? No. I said that draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions impede economic development. And you know it too:

      I did not say that by being more efficient we can stabilize the CO2 level. To do that CO2 output must be stopped completely.

      But over 80% of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels right now. To "stop CO2 output", we have to eliminate all that (plus some other sources of CO2). You tell me how we are going to do that in the foreseeable future without harming the economy seriously.

    29. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      We do that by
      a) reducing energy need. If you can craft a car today while producing 20 tons of CO2 no one prevents you to craft the same car tomorrow by producing only 10 tonns of CO2. This simply means you USE HALF THE ENRGY, so you produce half the CO2. The only 'economic' which is harmed now is energy producers (how many people exactly work in that sector?)
      b) by switching to CO2 neutral energy production. Neither the car in example a) nor the manufactor nor the driver cares if the energy needed to produce it is created from wind or coal.
      In the long run, but forseeable time frame, lets say 40 years, we have to phase out all CO2 producing energy production.
      I form my part don't see a problem with that. Neither economical nor thechnological.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    30. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      a) reducing energy need. If you can craft a car today while producing 20 tons of CO2 no one prevents you to craft the same car tomorrow by producing only 10 tonns of CO2

      You're back to claiming that energy savings are going to do it. You cannot reduce the energy used by devices year after year; they can only be 100% efficient. Energy savings buy you a few years even if you could do it across the board.

      (Your statements about energy savings are so out of touch with basic math and physics that one has to wonder whether you paid any attention in high school at all.)

      by switching to CO2 neutral energy production ... In the long run, but forseeable time frame, lets say 40 years, we have to phase out all CO2 producing energy production.

      Of course "we have to". But to get there, we need tons of innovation, production of solar cells, production of nuclear power plants, etc. All of that takes tons of energy, R&D. If you mess with the energy supply now through forced carbon emission reductions, that is going to take longer, making the problem worse. Worse yet, developing nations are not going to develop as fast, leading to faster growth in population.

      Kyoto was harmful, and it's good that it failed. Instead, efforts against global warming should be based on education and R&D. Countries should also eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and start charging more for licenses for resource extraction.

    31. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      (Your statements about energy savings are so out of touch with basic math and physics that one has to wonder whether you paid any attention in high school at all.)
      Sorry, who pissed into your cereals this morning?
      What nonsense do you write?
      Why is it that a german car manufactor only needs half the energy to craft one in comparison with an american one? Why is it a german washing machine uses only a quarter of the energy an american uses? Because the laws of physics are much harder on your side of the Atlantic! Thats the only explanation.

      Of course "we have to". But to get there, we need tons of innovation, production of solar cells, production of nuclear power plants, etc. All of that takes tons of energy, R&D. If you mess with the energy supply now through forced carbon emission reductions, that is going to take longer, making the problem worse. Worse yet, developing nations are not going to develop as fast, leading to faster growth in population. Carbon reductions are not forced, they are agreed on. Thats a difference. And you seem not to understand that we do the reductions by efficiency gains, not by simply switching off a coal plant.
      Sorry, end of discussion. You are not qualified for this topic. You just repeat nonsense after nonsense and don't even try to grasp my standpoint.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    32. Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster by stenvar · · Score: 1

      And you seem not to understand that we do the reductions by efficiency gains, not by simply switching off a coal plant.

      We have an exponential growth in energy usage. You cannot offset that by efficiency gains, even if you made every single process (manufacturing, travel, etc.) on the planet 100% thermodynamically efficient, i.e. as efficient as possible; it's mathematically impossible.

      Why is it that a german car manufactor only needs half the energy to craft one in comparison with an american one?

      (Citation?)

      Bangladesh's economy is even more energy efficient. It's easy to increase energy efficiency if you accept a lower standard of living. Germany hasn't found a magic bullet in terms of energy efficiency, it just sits on a line between the US and Bangladesh in terms of possible tradeoffs between energy efficiency and wealth.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gdp-energy-efficiency.jpg

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity

  7. Waiting.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Waiting for the (Republican) denialist hordes to show up, demanding Yet More Evidence.

  8. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That ice age was the expected result of the "natural cycles" you idiots like to babble endlessly about. The fact that we're going the opposite direction should have you seriously concerned.

  9. Short-term forecasting by __aagmrb7289 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought none of the climate change models allowed for accurate short term forecasting? I've been told not to expect short term forecasting (as in, the next five years, the next year, and certainly not the next few months) to be accurately predictable from the models and predictions of climate change experts. Are we working off predictions made ten years ago? I guess I'm confused as to why 2012 was perfectly on track with predictions.

    1. Re:Short-term forecasting by Cassini2 · · Score: 1

      If in the 1980's you were predicting that the world would get noticably hotter in the 2000's, and if almost every year in the 2000's had record global temperature highs, then you might conclude that your 20 to 30 year long-term climate models aren't doing too badly.

      Yes, the models in the 1980's weren't all that accurate, and the modellers new it. However, they have had 30 years to refine those models. Ignore the science at your peril ...

    2. Re:Short-term forecasting by kenboldt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Place more importance on model output than empirical evidence at your peril...

      I present to you the temp anomaly from the recently leaked IPCC AR5 draft.
      http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png

      please excuse the url source, it is where I happened to find the figure.

    3. Re:Short-term forecasting by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I thought none of the climate change models allowed for accurate short term forecasting? I've been told not to expect short term forecasting (as in, the next five years, the next year, and certainly not the next few months) to be accurately predictable from the models and predictions of climate change experts. Are we working off predictions made ten years ago? I guess I'm confused as to why 2012 was perfectly on track with predictions.

      They don't. What they allow is overall statistical predictions. They cannot predict that a year will be warm or cold, only that on average these years will be colder than that (with a certain degree of probability).

      However, certain years will fit better into that statistical model than others. If you predict a .1C rise over 10 years, and next year is .01C warmer, it fits exactly with the prediction. That year is nearly meaningless, of course, next year could be a .05 rise followed by a .03 decline and the model could still be accurate over time. The only thing that you can predict with any accuracy using such models is the averages over an extended period of time, which is why when either side points at events in a single year to show evidence for or against global warming they are acting unscientifically (mind you, that may be the best way to convince people, but it's not science). You can still estimate if a year is going to be warm or cold using short-term models, but those aren't particularly relevant to the subject at hand (being by definition short-term).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    4. Re:Short-term forecasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surprise , surprise, we have a hot summer and all of a sudden this singular data point proves the long-tern forecast. Just wait. In a year or two when we have another mild summer, the cc folks will be screaming "WEATHER DOESN'T EQUAL CLIMATE" again.

    5. Re:Short-term forecasting by kenboldt · · Score: 2

      Interesting, posting of fact is worthy of being down-modded.

    6. Re:Short-term forecasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep in mind it is not (usually) the climate researcher's making such claims. It is the media.

    7. Re:Short-term forecasting by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      That's just the denialists talking. The current models can pretty much predict down to the week. There are some new systems that should be able to predict the day to day weather better than current standard meteorological methods. Within 10 years they expect to be able to predict the differences of weather from minute to minute on a 1 square meter resolution world wide. It's all very interesting stuff you should do some google searches.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    8. Re:Short-term forecasting by expatriot · · Score: 1

      Downmodding valid for fake data. The frequency of the big lie is a classic denialist strategy in climate change and lots of right-wing thinking. For an response (from the non-idiots) see http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/19/vaclav-smil-no-global-warming-in-past-ten-year/

    9. Re:Short-term forecasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please provide a source to the "down to the week" predictions. Also, what do they predict?

    10. Re:Short-term forecasting by kenboldt · · Score: 1

      That "fake" data came straight from the people that are supposed to be the authority on climate change, the IPCC. I'm neither a denialist, nor a right-winger, but it is good to see that ad hominims get more mod points on this site than facts.

    11. Re:Short-term forecasting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Precisely.

      Every time it gets cold the skeptics claim there is no global warming, and every time it gets hot the AGWers claim the end of the world is nigh. It is all bollocks.
      Look at the claims in this article they are all individual facts taken completely out of context that prove nothing that is claimed.

      e.g. 2012 likely be a hotter La Nina year than 2011. There are no such thing as calendar ENSO events. ENSO patterns normally form around November and break up around May/June. The 2010/11 La Nina was the strongest on record. The La Nina we are in at the moment is very weak. So it will likely be warmer than weather influenced by the 2010/11 and 2011/12 La Ninas regardless of whether the global temperature is warming or cooling in the long term.

      The US Surface Temperature was hot this year. The AMO and PDO are both positive now and during such times the Mid West tends to have droughts and be very hot. This is the same weather pattern as during the 1930s and 1950s. The thing is while this is happening the positive PDO tends to result in more La Ninas so the global temperature is cooler. This is why the US was hotest last century during the 1930s, when the global temperature wasn't rising.

      The claim that the severity of Sandy was caused by global warming is completely unproven. The IPCC stated that warming temperatures would cause an increase in the severity of Atlantic Storms. However, that was based on one flawed paper which was withdrawn and IPCC withdrew that claim from their report. They currently believe that it will cause less intense storms, more frequently and that they will travel further East and.away from New England. Sandy was a fairly ordinary post-hurricane season storm. It ran into a weather system coming off Greenland and was whipped up and driven West into cold air coming south from Canada.

      This weather pattern also caused increasing melting of Greenland Ice sheets and the melting of artic sea ice. Such a pattern has also occurred strongly once in the 1890s and once in the 1930s. It is impossible to make trend conclusions about 3 events scattered randomly over 120 years in a complex weather system when you can't even control for any of the variable. The arctic ice is smaller than average some years and larger than average some years. The change do to global warming will be the shrinking in the average over time, not the random fluctuations year to year.

      The rise in the surface temperature will not be proven by cherry picking infrequent events to suit a belief. It will be proven by the global surface temperature data over decades. During the 80s and 90 the AGWers referred to this data constantly, because it was constantly rising and supported their cause. It doesn't raise constantly all the time, or at a constant rate however. So now that it isn't rising like they said it would they now try to claim anything else is evidence they are right, so long as it distracts people from the global surface temperature data. So that they can win the spin war with the skeptics in the media.

  10. Mississippi River and empire by revscat · · Score: 4, Informative

    One of the largest threats to global warming (for America at least) is the continued lowering of water levels for the Mississippi River. Historians can correct or amend me here, but empires rise and fall on the strength of their rivers. The US is no different, and should the Mississippi fail then there will be serious strategic and economic threats to the security and health of the nation.

    Not good.

    1. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

      Is that Stratfor link the Anonymous version?

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    2. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Historians can correct or amend me here, but empires rise and fall on the strength of their rivers.

      That's a new one.

      Drawing conclusions and basing predictions on one variable will usually lead one to error.

      Pointing a finger at one cause makes good TV and talk radio, but reality and history are much more complicated than that.

    3. Re:Mississippi River and empire by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Where the statement's logic is bit broken, is that we no longer have dependencies on rivers for moving people and goods. While rivers are still economically cheaper than other modes of transport for "some" items, items can travel by other means (often much faster, sometimes much cheaper).

      A secondary part of your statement would have to do with agriculture. This of course is impacted differently and harder by rivers drying up. That is why we have a Government that pays people not to farm, yet maintain their farms (not the only reason for subsidies mind you, just one.) Assuming all of the rivers don't have issues at the same time, the US can maintain agriculture.

      Long winded answers aside, the statement is not completely true any more. Early last century, it would have had much more merit.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    4. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe talk to whomever is selling the Great Lakes water to China to halt their drainage of those lakes and rivers downstream.

    5. Re:Mississippi River and empire by wierd_w · · Score: 2

      .... river water is *routinely* diverted for municipal watershed use, and for agricultural irrigation supplies.

      Dry rivers == dehydrated cities and dead crops.

    6. Re:Mississippi River and empire by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      The US is no different, and should the Mississippi fail then there will be serious strategic and economic threats to the security and health of the nation.

      The Mississippi can be saved, but only at the cost of its upstream neighbors, which will lead to a mini civil war over water rights.

      But the fact is, the American people are subsidizing all that shipping on the Mississippi river anyways.
      If we took that money away from the Army Corps of Engineers and just paid it directly in the form of higher living costs, not much would change.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    7. Re:Mississippi River and empire by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      We made newer rivers.

      They're called railroads.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Jeng · · Score: 2

      The good news bad news thing about that is we'll just pump more water out of the ancient aquifers that will never be replenished.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    9. Re:Mississippi River and empire by AdamHaun · · Score: 1

      Thanks for posting the Stratfor link. Really interesting stuff.

      --
      Visit the
    10. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you are ignorant of the huge amount of material (food and industrial items) that is shipped in massive bulk on the Mississippi. If that route is significantly reduced, either we use more trucks or ship less tonnage; either one increases prices and drops availability.

    11. Re:Mississippi River and empire by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      Kind of. The Mississippi is great. But we do have trains, planes and automobiles.

      From an agricultural standpoint yes it would be a problem but even then the Mississippi itself I don't think is responsible for too much of our food.

      If it dried up prices would rise but not catastrophically. And in the case of petroleum products probably less than speculation and international demand drives up prices already.

    12. Re:Mississippi River and empire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where the statement's logic is bit broken, is that we no longer have dependencies on rivers for moving people and goods. While rivers are still economically cheaper than other modes of transport for "some" items, items can travel by other means (often much faster, sometimes much cheaper).

      Definitely faster, but almost as definitely not cheaper. Inland barges currently ship 15% of our nation's freight. That would be a lot to replace at a higher cost.

      A secondary part of your statement would have to do with agriculture. This of course is impacted differently and harder by rivers drying up. That is why we have a Government that pays people not to farm, yet maintain their farms (not the only reason for subsidies mind you, just one.) Assuming all of the rivers don't have issues at the same time, the US can maintain agriculture.

      Long winded answers aside, the statement is not completely true any more. Early last century, it would have had much more merit.

      We are more than ever dependent on centrally produced agricultural products, and most of that is in the Mississippi and Colorado River drainages, both of which are facing serious issues from drought and overuse already.

    13. Re:Mississippi River and empire by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      It would take 58 standard semi trucks to replace 1 typical Mississippi barge and there are 15 barges in the common tow setup so that's about 870 trucks. It takes 15 rail cars to equal 1 barge or 225 rail cars for a 15 barge tow. In terms of the number of people required and the fuel used barging is much cheaper than trucking and it's cheaper than rail too.

  11. I want global warming!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live in the North and I want global warming!

    It is snow and slightly above 0F right now...

    I WANT F>>NG GLOBAL WARMING!!! PLEASE!!!

    1. Re:I want global warming!!! by gagol · · Score: 1

      I live near Maine, and I definitely NOT want any warming. I want to enjoy ice fishing more than a few weekends a winter and for one is glad to see tourist coming up north for winter sports. GW hurts my local economy.

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
  12. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Science is not a religion, it is not less valuable when it gets updated. Your belief not withstanding.

  13. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it. Now, the same idiots

    [citation needed that these are the same people]

    are telling us about global warming (whoops...climate change).

    Boy you sure are clever. And alone. Climate science and models have progressed extensively since 1975.

    The earth goes through cycles....and it is billions of years old. 5-10 years of data is but a blink in cosmic time.

    Those cycles you speak of normally take thousands of years to progress, giving larger life forms enough time to migrate and evolve and gradually change their patterns so that they can, you know, survive. When you start to see those averages change more quickly, you should be worried about the larger life forms (hell, bacteria and cockroaches will probably benefit). But, you know, I'm asking you to pull your head out of your ass and yet even when Fox News reports that things were pretty shitty this year, you dismiss it with parroted narrative.

    You're a serious part of the problem when others are trying to discuss rational ways to curb this disturbing trend. But, hey, you read a TIME magazine article in 1975 and that makes you smarter than people who devote their lives to this.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  14. "Hottest La Nina Year" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice qualifier there.

    1. Re:"Hottest La Nina Year" by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      An accurate and meaningful qualifier.

  15. Coal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Long ago, during the carboniferous era, so named because that's where all the coal comes from, primitive trees grew and died for 60 million years. These dead trees, over millions more years, turned into coal deposits. When a tree falls in the forest, who eats it? In the carboniferous era, nobody. The carboniferous era ended when fungi evolved that could eat dead trees. After that, and continuously to this day, dead trees are decomposed by fungi, and there is NO MORE coal. Meanwhile, in the last 150 years, humanity has burned 50% of the coal that was deposited by all those dead trees. The CO2 that these trees took 60 million years to form into coal is being returned to the atmosphere in a few hundred years. OK, got it? When those trees were alive, CO2 levels were much higher than they are today. The trees sucked the CO2 out of the air over 60 million years. Now we are burning the coal and returning all that 60 million years of CO2 back into the atmosphere in less than 200 years.

    I don't have anything to contribute to this thread. Just pointing out the facts. There isn't any point in the governments of the world deciding to stop emitting CO2. It's already too late.

  16. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Really,

    You think an ice age is preferable to a gradually warming climate?

  17. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.

    Yes, but that was when they measured temperatures using a few dozen thermometers spread around the country and wrote the data in little log books using pencils. They also hadn't developed any decent methods for gathering historical temperature data.

    Now we've got weather satellites providing real time, worldwide temperature data with a resolution of a few meters. We can measure polar ice coverage from the sky, polar ice thickness from underneath, Greenland's glacier flow rates, etc., etc. We also have millions of years of temperature/CO2 data from ice cores in the Antarctic, all cross referenced with other data sets like ancient tree ring data so we can make fairly accurate guesses about past temperatures.

    --
    No sig today...
  18. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.

    You were also listening to disco at the roller rink. Shows what you know.

  19. *sigh* here goes: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Climate change doesn't really bother me. What bothers me are people that willfully choose to live in higher risk geographical locations. I have a short list of populated areas I feel are acceptable loss zones:

    Coastal areas - prone to flooding and destructive wind
    Seismic areas - prone to destructive ground shaking
    Desert areas - prone to being uninhabitable
    Flood zones - prone to destructive wetness
    Tornado zones - prone to destructive wind

    I am forced by the homeowner cartel to pay a higher premium for their supposed right to live in these statistically disastrous zones. I think New Orleans should have been quarantined by the US military and condemned. All the money spent to rebuild a coastal town below sea-level would be better spent burning in a big pile to stay warm.

    I might be the only person that gets the popcorn ready at disaster hour.

    1. Re:*sigh* here goes: by NatasRevol · · Score: 0

      So ~90% of the world should move.

      Please, tell us where 7 billion people should move to that would include none of your issues.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    2. Re:*sigh* here goes: by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      In the case of New Orleans, it's the major port city at the mouth of the Mississippi and the 5th largest port in the US. For the time being at least it probably costs far more to move all of the existing infrastructure upstream and for ocean going ships to go further upstream to the port than it costs to rebuild New Orleans in place.

  20. Sure, let's panic... by bradley13 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That would be the same 2012 that continues the trend in the IPCC AR5 report, which shows temperatures lower than predicted by any of the models. That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?

    That would the the same 2012 with a drought that joins many others from the past 80 years. Guess what, droughts happen periodically, and this one was very much a local phenomenon within central North America.

    We just survived the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Whew. Quick, let's panic about something else!

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Sure, let's panic... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?

      No, some people would be upset if AGW didn't cause mass upheaval, giant floods, starvation, and general destruction of civilization (as scientists have predicted).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Sure, let's panic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Only a few fringe crazies would be upset if the ridiculous Conservatives turned out to be right this one time.

      Sadly the sky-fairy people haven't had the successes that go with being part of the reality based community. It turns out that you can't do any meaningful computation using superstition instead of the material world.

    3. Re:Sure, let's panic... by 12WTF$ · · Score: 1

      If you ever need to draw a line in the sand, the Mayan Long Count date of 13.0.0.0.0
      works just fine as the date marking the end of the world as we know it.
      Never will we see cheap oil nor normal climate. Ever.

      Methane clathrate release from subsea and permafrost will increase atmospheric warming dramatically within years not decades.
      If 2C by 2100 (IPCC 2007) was a problem to be solved by your (great) grand children, how does the accelerating changes make you feel?
      3.5C by 2100 (UNEP 2009), 4C by 2060 (HCMR 2009),
      7C by 2100 (GCP 2009), 3.5C by 2035 (IEA 2010),
      >5C by 2050 (UN 2010). If you are paying attention that was 2 years ago.
      Try 5C by 2017 as a current estimate...

      Climate change is not a problem for 2100 but means near term extinction *[AMEG]
      in the northern hemisphere by 2031 and 2047 in southern hemisphere.

      *AMEG: Arctic Methane Emergency Group
      Extinction of ALL multicellular life, not just Homo defectus.

      PANIC!

      --
      Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
  21. Re:Of course climate change is happening by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Global temperatures have not risen - they have risen more slowly than predicted. Well, that's me convinced!

    --
    -- Using the preview button since 2005
  22. Science is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    I see science never made it into the 21st century. Everything is now based upon surmise and anedoctes

  23. How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really,

    You think an ice age is preferable to a gradually warming climate?

    I don't think you understand just how gradual a natural climate cycle has been for Earth. Look at this graph of antarctic temperature changes. Notice how it is windowed to -6 to +4 degrees Celsius within today's temperature and how long those changes normally took. If we speed that same change that took 10,000 years up to 200 years and it only ever increases, what exactly do you think will happen to Earth?

    Animals and humans aren't going to have time to adapt or evolve in predicted scenarios.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Synerg1y · · Score: 0

      Adapt or evolve? I own an AC thank you very much. It's the species and the ecosystems that would be in trouble... and well everybody who doesn't own an AC, which is most of the world's population.

    2. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      guess we finally found a use for all that nuclear waste

    3. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      " I own an AC thank you very much."

      Slavery is not legal anymore .you need to set that AC free. I don't care even if they were a troll, Owning an Anonymous Coward is just not right.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    4. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by jhoegl · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Screw food.. Ill live off the decaying corpses of the malnourished!

      Oh wait...

    5. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are an example of why I want humans to go extinct. The most self-serving species with the knowledge and appreciation of life that will wantonly destroy it as long as their homes are a constant 70 degrees year round.

    6. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      It's never too late to start with yourself AC... or you can submit and serve quietly, thanks.

    7. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by grumpyman · · Score: 1

      I agree, though I'd think human can adapt but not sure about animals/plants and the rest. Obviously we rely on the entire eco-chain....

    8. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      Yeah! Screw food.. Ill live off the decaying corpses of the malnourished!

      I got dibs on the brains!

    9. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another problem is this: Animals and plants have historically adapted to rapid climate change by shifting their ranges north and south. If it gets hotter, the southernmost populations might die off, for instance, and the northernmost populations might slowly move north. But now humans have restricted many species to a fraction of their former range. This makes adaptation more difficult, since there's less "wiggle room".

    10. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " I own an AC thank you very much."

      Slavery is not legal anymore .you need to set that AC free.

      Apparently someone's never been to Iran.

    11. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, dont like desolate places where no sane person would live. That includes Afganastan, Iran, Sudan, Pakystan, etc... All of the wasteland countries.

    12. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Guys like you don't realize how utterly dependent our civilization is on those species and ecosystems. If they go tits up we may not be able to maintain enough of a civilization to power your AC.

    13. Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually it isn't so much individual species (which could, in principle, relocate) but entire ecosystems that are going to have trouble adapting quickly enough.

      They'll adapt one way or another, but not necessarily in a way that's beneficial to many of the species of plants and animals that we're kind of dependent on.

  24. I don't see a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From my point of view I get to do away with winter, grow tropical crops, and possibly get beach front property. I really don't see a problem here.

  25. Re:Blame AL Gore by fredrated · · Score: 1

    Thanks for proving that the mentally ill still have access to the internet. However, you haven't proved that it is a good thing.

  26. "Real-life video"? Jesus... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes

    Or "reality," as us old geezers prefer to call it.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:"Real-life video"? Jesus... by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      Do they have this "reality" in hi-def 3D yet?

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:"Real-life video"? Jesus... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think it's being sold as the global warming experience nowadays.

    3. Re:"Real-life video"? Jesus... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but you need to wear glasses, and it gives me a head ache. Screw it I'm gonna go watch TV.

    4. Re:"Real-life video"? Jesus... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Old geezers driving around in their RVs get to see a lot more. Us poor working shlubs paying for your retirement have to see this all happen on the news.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    5. Re:"Real-life video"? Jesus... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do they have this "reality" in hi-def 3D yet?

      Only if you keep both eyes open at the same time.

  27. Re:Of course climate change is happening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    agree...the story is bogus. how can temperatures be rising as predicted when all of the predictions are way above where we are. when will the doomsayers get it through their heads that easily falsified statements like that don't help 'the cause'.

    of course climate changes...of course CO2 has an impact...of course the oceans are rising...none of this leads the the outrageous predictions that have been made. Sea levels rising on the order of meters? Temperatures going up 7C? We're just left scratching our heads.

  28. Hottest years on record by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1

    For how many years in a row, now, has each year been the hottest year on record?

    1. Re:Hottest years on record by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      depending on how you build averages, zero years, since 1998

    2. Re:Hottest years on record by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      For how many years in a row, now, has each year been the hottest year on record?

      According to the media, every year. Never mind that 1988 was hotter in the midwest than 2012, and 1930 dustbowl was hotter than the drought and lack of rain in 1988.

      Really, it was a bumper crop for most stuff where I live in Southern Ontario. Some places didn't get rain here, or were just outside the belted zones. And got hit hard just like in '88 but for others this was an awesome year for apples,wheat, rye and soy.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:Hottest years on record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >1988 was hotter in the midwest than 2012
      A localized region had higher temperatures. GLOBAL AVERAGE temperatures are higher so your post is just another evasion by a denialist.

      >1930 dustbowl
      Again, another localized record.

    4. Re:Hottest years on record by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      By both the NASA GISS and NOAA (and I think the updated HADCRUT4 data too) temperature records both 2005 and 2010 were warmer globally than 1998. Remember 1998 was the year of an exceptional El Nino.

  29. Clearly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes,"

    Even thought the "record keeping" started in 1880...

    Hmm. 132 years of records vs. 4.5 billion years of weather...

    Pretty convincing changes.

    Not.

    1. Re:Clearly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      30 seconds of thought to type up a slashdot comment vs decades of a career spent researching global climate.

      Pretty convincing argument.

      Not.

  30. "eighth warmest"? by rseuhs · · Score: 0

    If the "hockey-stick" curve were real, we should have the warmest year every year. The "eight warmest" year pretty much proves that while it is probably a little warmer than usual, we have reached a plateau and not some alarmist temperature explosion scenario.

    1. Re:"eighth warmest"? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      If the "hockey-stick" curve were real, we should have the warmest year every year.

      It's not a curve. It's a set of points on a graph which, when you smooth out the yearly fluctuations, shows a long-term trend (the clue is in the words) of increasing temperature.

      By your logic I could declare that winter's over and we're in for an early spring if it's a degree warmer tomorrow than today.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:"eighth warmest"? by blueg3 · · Score: 2

      Not at all. You have a problem with graph scales, which is fair, because everyone who draws a graph apparently sucks at graph scales.

      The hockey stick graph is over a fairly long time scale. As a result, variations on a short time scale are invisible. It makes global warming look like a very fast temperature increase. It is, compared to the historical rate of temperature increases over long time scales.

      On shorter timescales, there's a huge amount of variability -- seasonal, year-to-year, El Nino cycles, etc. The effect of global warming is relatively small on these time scales, resulting in some years being particularly hot and others being not so hot. Incidentally, this graph is pretty popular, too, and looks like a gradually-increasing noisy sinusoid.

      The influence of global warming on short timescales, relative to the influence of other effects, is small enough that if you pick appropriate endpoints for a graph, you can say all sorts of inaccurate and misleading things about trends. ("In the past 13.5 years, the average temperature has actually decreased!") You'll see those graphs a lot, too.

    3. Re:"eighth warmest"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a little analogy to explain away your fallacy.

      1. Put a pot of hot tap water on the stove
      2. Drop some ice cubes in the pot
      3. Turn the heat onto high
      4. Tell me the temperature of several points in the water volume, with accuracy, by the second.......Yeah I didn't think you could. Complex systems are like that.
      5. Bet against me that the water will eventually boil away until there's none left and the pot starts to fry and stink

  31. Hundred-year flood and other extremes... by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 1

    Fox has usually been on the side of the "climate change deniers", so this change where Fox is even reporting on the topic is news in a way. However, not to be a denier just a questioner, how can we tell if this is just part of the statistical variations to be expected over time rather than an actual real trend?
    .
    Sort of like the "hundred year flood", is there a "hundred year freeze" or a "hundred year overheat" which marks the extreme cold or hot temperatures one would expect to find once in one-hundred years just from normal statistical fluctuations and a normal distribution?
    .
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100-year_flood

    1. Re:Hundred-year flood and other extremes... by dr2chase · · Score: 1

      You have to be a little careful about the skew from urban heat islands (yes, I know this is a denialist meme, but it is also a real effect, and you would not hear "white roofs" and "white parking lots and streets" proposed as a mitigation if it weren't) but we're getting many more high temperature records broken than low temperature records. You would expect these to occur in about equal number on a yearly basis (strictly speaking, on an 11-yearly basis because of sunspot issues, and there's also weighting that comes from El Nino/La Nina events, but the guys who report all this data are experts and take this into account).

      You've got to be careful about interpreting a lot of this data casually; flooding has been observed to get worse in urban areas, and (according to a presentation I attended recently) this has almost everything to do with pavement and not much to do with climate change. A few years ago we had a 50-year rainfall paired with a 200-year flood.

  32. Should we be fixing the cause? by Kwyj1b0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Disclaimer: I am honestly not trolling here. I really wonder about this.

    TL/DR version: Can we really change our behavior, or just start planning for a worst-case scenario?

    Should we be trying to combat climate change in the sense that is it really possible? I think that, as a species, we would rather let people in the future (even if they are future versions of ourselves) deal with the problems rather than take hit in the near term for long term benefits.

    Coupled with the fact that the most populated countries have a majority of their population relatively poor, I think it is impractical to expect them to stop burning fossil fuels and force clean energy solutions that might be more expensive/impractical (I believe that the industrialized nations consume most of the energy now, but with India and China becoming more economically important and successful, they will also start consuming more energy).

    I saw the article about Thorium reactors a few days ago, but I doubt that we can stop burning things for energy in a short term. With all the infrastructure and interests of powerful groups to keep us on fossil fuels (In the words of comedian John Oliver: BP going green? Only in their logo), I don't expect major change in the near future.

    Maybe I am too cynical and need to have hope for the future, but I wonder if we shouldn't start planning backup mechanisms to permanently help people when changes happen - right now, we seem to be doing short-term "deal with this disaster now" fixes.

    1. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not trolling either .... Only the willfully blind deny that the world climate is changing, I think the real question is is it anthropogenic? Your question supposes that "the cause" is entirely anthropogenic. I personally think the AGW doom-sayers are suffering from all too human hubris. I think we're on a natural climate change trend that has been slightly accelerated by the growth in human populations (1Bn 200 years ago and headed for 8Bn this century) inevitable contributions to green house gas emissions.

      But even supposing that the AGW doom sayers are dead right. What they are forgetting is that it the population that's the chief contributing factor not the burning of fossil fuels, that's just a drop in the bucket. 7.2 billion people breathing out CO2, farting out methane, clear-cutting forests for various reasons, poisoning the oceans plankton and algae .... sorry folks we're screwed unless we embark on mass genocide and return to a pre-industrial agrarian culture world wide. Somehow i don't see that happening ... so maybe it's time to stop playing the blame-game and start looking for a technological solution to the problem, instead of suggesting that reducing fossil fuel carbon emissions would work anyway.

    2. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are going to cause an extinction of an unknown number of species. The diversity of life will take a hit. Life will be drastically different and although new forms will thrive in the available niches so many others will have been lost. The unstable nature of the fabric of the web of life will reveal itself should things become so far out of balance. So I would add to the list of things we should be working on is genetic modification and building a DNA bank of as many species as possible along with more efforts in cloning, along with finding out how to manufacture a viable 'womb' environment.

    3. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Shagg · · Score: 0

      Disclaimer: I am honestly not trolling here.

      What makes you think that's allowed? I'm sorry, but you have to troll for one side or the other in order to participate in the global warming discussion. That's one of the rules, as far as I can tell.

      --
      Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
    4. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Realistically? Check out the CO2 emissions during the Kyoto treaty here. The treaty parties managed to take it down a few percent while all the other countries that didn't give a shit more than doubled their emissions. And the Kyoto II negotiations have practically collapsed with only the EU and a few other small states agreeing to a new treaty, meaning 90%+ of the world population didn't. And the main increase is going to come from people wanting cars, there's a little over a billion cars in the world today but if the world had the same car density as the US there'd be something like six billion. And they're not going to give a crap about the rich countries telling them they can't have cars because of the pollution.

      Some seem to think we can research our way out of this problem by improving energy efficiency but for the most part we just use it to consume more. More efficient light bulbs? Have more light on and longer. More energy efficient TVs? Buy a bigger one. Faster computers? Play Crysis instead of Wolfenstein 3D. Make more efficient aircraft and people want to travel further and more often. I recently read an article about a guy commuting with an airline, he did not want to move and he was important enough the company would pay for it so he traveled 1000 km a day four out of seven days a week. I'm sure there's plenty people in the US too that would like to have everyone else drive a Prius and lower emissions and oil consumption so they can continue to drive an SUV.

      That said, I don't think there'll be any abrupt collapse so the doomsday preppers are probably going to be disappointed. It'll just gradually get worse until finally everybody can agree that it's bad enough that something has to be done. And I don't think that solution will involve first and second class citizens depending on how much their country has polluted in the past, you're never going to cement the idea that Americans should have two polluting cars and huge emissions while Indians should ride a bike and have low emissions because they've polluted so little in the past and we should now freeze time. Usually I just get bizarre replies like that China has higher emissions than the US, to which I can only reply that the US has way higher emissions than Norway. It's a meaningless comparison but it keeps getting made.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Kwyj1b0 · · Score: 1

      I think the real question is is it anthropogenic? Your question supposes that "the cause" is entirely anthropogenic.

      While I do think so, my final point (like yours) was whether we should be trying to "fix" it or start looking for recovery solutions (i.e. assume the climate will change on a global scale causing effects like ocean rise, extreme weather - irrespective of the cause - and start looking at survival methods). Right now if a place floods people are evacuated. Once the waters recede, they go back to the same place and rebuild. That is like a band-aid - fixing one local problem, rather than relocating them (and telling them that if they choose to go back, no one is coming to save you next time).

    6. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to 'fix' it you need to go after power companies. Cars are but a drop in the bucket compared to what those guys crank out every single day. Coal is *the* #1 creator of co2. Guess what they heat up to turn those turbines? Water vapor is almost as bad as co2 in being a greenhouse gas.

      The only reason the US went down on emissions last year is because NG spot price went below coal per therm.

      Last years drought had more to do with the jet stream than anything. Upper Canada and Alaska had record water/snow falls. Because the jetstream was pushing all the moisture there. It also has to do with the mega storm that crushed new york. Nature abhors a vacuum and that storm came in and plugged it up. You are starting to see the jet stream right back over the midwest and the subsequent storms that follow it. Last year was also a record low in tornadoes because of it. It may have been hotter. But it had little to do with why it did not rain. Lack or over abundance of co2 is not going to change the rainfall levels much. Heat might by pushing the storms elsewhere. However rainfalls are really tied to where the jet stream is. If it wasnt you would see the storms pop up and then stop over somewhere and petter out. Instead you see them sweep from one side of the country to the other following the low/highs and jet stream.

      China/India are going to have to get their emissions under control or they will just straight up have a quality of life problem. That problem is caused systemically by poverty. You can buy a 2 cylinder 'car/bike' for 100 or so bucks US and has 0 emission standard. A 'real' car (with few emission standards) are 10-30k+. If you make 100 bucks a month you are not saving up for the 30k car... You will never buy it. You get the 100 dollar bike instead (think of riding a lawn mower motor on a bike).

    7. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Recovery solutions would only work in the sense as your survival methods. Right now we don't know what is going to happen where.
      Albeit looking at the geography of the USA I would assume it will stay pretty dry in the center, due to the western and eastern mountains.
      So bottom line it is pretty difficult to make up 'concrete' plans, nut general "what to do in circumstance X" plans would be wise.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by khallow · · Score: 1

      That is like a band-aid - fixing one local problem, rather than relocating them

      Ever wonder why people use band aids? Because sometimes the band aid is good enough. This is an example where it is. There will always be local disasters. Might as well do routine disaster recovery rather than abandon land due to bad risk management policies.

      This would be a non-issue, if the US weren't paying (via heavily subsidized flood insurance) people to build in flood areas.

    9. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      ... 7.2 billion people breathing out CO2, farting out methane ...

      Logic Fail! The CO2 and methane emitted by animals (including humans) is all carbon neutral because the source of that carbon is already in the carbon cycle. Plants which form the base of the food chain absorb that carbon from the atmosphere. Animals release it again when they metabolize those plants. It doesn't change the net amount of carbon in the carbon cycle.

    10. Re:Should we be fixing the cause? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Changing behaviour IS part of planning for the worst-case scenario.

      Expect more hurricanes hitting New York, expect more flooding, expect more drought, expect more extreme winters and more extreme summers.

      There's no turning back in the short term.

      However everyone can make a difference. Money is what talks here. Boycott the companies which spread shit around, which waste resources and which are not helping.

      And as a PS I think the carbon tax stuff is idiotic. It does nothing to the problem, it's just another parasitical financial derivative to make a small group rich.

  33. Oh jee-wiz by m1ndcrash · · Score: 0

    Does every year have to set a record breaking temperature? It goes up and down and it will continue doing so for at least another 4.5bn years, according to Mr. Putin, and we know we can trust KGB. This retarded panic over global warming, sorry I used the legacy term, climate change, started with Al Gore trying to impose taxes "on air". He was pretty fucking successful at that. So worried about ecology, fossil fuels, etc? Hire hippies, plat some fucking trees - problem solved.

  34. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

    The problem in stopping this trend costs money, and the trend hasn't directly cost us any money yet, though the superstorms coming through these last few years have. The big question is will it be reversible when people finally do start throwing money at fixing the planet.

  35. Data not conforming to predictions by PerMolestiasEruditio · · Score: 1, Informative

    Leaked figure from IPCC AR5 report shows just how far off even updated IPCC model predictions are:
    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png
    note that the grey bands are nothing more than an attempt at IPCC arse covering in light of failed predictions, the temps are consistently riding the low side and even outside of the coloured prediction bands, and most importantly the temperature trend is much much lower than predicted.

    The IPCC's models are massively over estimating the impact of increased CO2 - unsurprising when they assume large positive water vapour feedback that don't appear to operate as they assume in practice, and temperature suppressing aerosol impacts that appear to have been overestimated too. They also don't have the capacity to model other dominating effects (like PDO and AMO oceanic cycles, solar variations etc), and have shown no ability to model or explain historical variation covering a 3 C band during the current interglacial - including eras like the Medieval, Roman and Minoan warm period and the little ice age.

    An honest question: how many years of no temperature rise would it take for the catastrophic CAGW thesis to be rejected? We've had about 15 years of near stasis, and recent results show that the heat isn't 'hiding' in the ocean - it simply doesn't exist, though CO2 continues to rise. So just how many more years are needed for the IPCC to let go of the millenialist thermageddon fantasy and bring the temperature rise predictions back to a more realistic level (seems likely to be about 1-2C rise for a CO2 doubling).

    1. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by rolfwind · · Score: 2

      An honest question: how many years of no temperature rise would it take for the catastrophic CAGW thesis to be rejected? We've had about 15 years of near stasis, and recent results show that the heat isn't 'hiding' in the ocean - it simply doesn't exist, though CO2 continues to rise. So just how many more years are needed for the IPCC to let go of the millenialist thermageddon fantasy and bring the temperature rise predictions back to a more realistic level (seems likely to be about 1-2C rise for a CO2 doubling).

      http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm

      Click on the intermediate tab after finishing beginner.

    2. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by kenboldt · · Score: 1

      the skeptical science site is about as reliable a source as FOX news. Both are rubbish and you would do well to avoid using either of them as sources.

    3. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      the IPCC is about as reliable a source as FOX news. Both are rubbish and you would do well to avoid using either of them as sources as they are agenda driven political organs.

    4. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by kenboldt · · Score: 1

      I agree completely

    5. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 1

      We've had about 15 years of near stasis, and recent results show that the heat isn't 'hiding' in the ocean - it simply doesn't exist, though CO2 continues to rise.

      Please stop making up "facts" and pretending they're real. It's trivially easy to find actual data on the subject. Fact: every single year from 2001 on has been hotter than every single year on record prior to that, with the sole exception of 1998. No, the climate did not magically stop getting warmer in 1997.

      --
      "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    6. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      As we don't know what the causes where for the Medieval, Roman (never hearded about that one) or Minoam warms periods, we obviously can not modle them.
      But if you know why they occured, go and fetch your noble prize.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    7. Re:Data not conforming to predictions by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      ... note that the grey bands are nothing more than an attempt at IPCC arse covering ...

      That statement just shows you fail to understand how science shows calculated uncertainty in their work. It's a standard scientific practice.

  36. This just in.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The earth's climate is not static, more news at 11.

  37. I blame Qatar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative
  38. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Sabriel · · Score: 1

    Not what the GP said. Please visit http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ (in this case, Strawman).

    And as it happens, a cooling climate *is* preferable to a warming climate, because it's much easier to counter. All you have to do is burn extra crap to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (or use methane, it's even more potent). But to counter warming, you've got to *reduce* atmospheric CO2/CH4/etcetera, which means you're working against the direction of entropy. Much harder task. Especially when everybody else is increasing their emissions instead.

  39. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Informative

    [citation needed that these are the same people]

    I believe the problem here is that even it these had been the same people, when researchers proposed that Earth might be returning into a new ice age, their claims were refuted within two years or so and the whole thing - at least within the scientific community - was declared a failed idea. The newer suggestion that the temperatures are in fact rising too quickly has been found to be nearly impossible to falsify, and it's more than a quarter of a century now. So if the GP is trying to make us believe that the evidence is ambiguous and not pointing in any specific direction, he should think again.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  40. the bigot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    is yours. you can have him.

  41. Yay Humans! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I personally prefer being a few degrees warmer rather than buried under a huge glacier.

    The earth is not and never was constant. 2x10^2 years of climate records is a very small sample size compared to 4.5x10^9 years.

    We really don't understand why there were ice ages and warmer periods in the past - we obviously didn't cause them with rush hour traffic 100,000 years ago. I'm very tired of hearing people claim to understand it all, yet fail to present any evidence as to why.

    Chaos, turbulence, fluid dynamics... these are hard things to describe mathematically. When a professor I had from the environmental science department declared that the energy output of the sun is constant, I lost all respect for him and all other "scientists" that refuse to accept that they are not given the right to make up whatever they want and call it a fact until somebody disproves it. It is supposed to be the other way around - you are probably wrong until you are proven to be right. Sunspot cycles? Coronal mass ejections? Nope, the math is easier if we call it a constant, so let's just ignore that variable...

    You don't know everything. Get over it. Or believe whatever hype you choose.

  42. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe if you had a clue.... Temps have been rising CINCE that ICE AGE... Oh wait, that truth gets in the way of your dilusionary comment.... sorry...

  43. NO SKIING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody talk about all the skiing they're going to do on record levels of fresh snow over the Xmas weekend. 8 feet, with fresh on top, anyone? Only Deniers go skiing on climate change denying snow. We should just close the mountain passes so nobody can look at it and have doubt about AGW strike their hearts.

  44. The math nerd in me says by Frontier+Owner · · Score: 0

    Lets take the derivative of today's temperature cycle and make a forecast for next week. 130 years of data may make a predition for the next year or so, but without having gone thru a full cycle, how can we know where we are in the ice age cycle? Are we at the top of the temperature range? obviously, we aren't at the bottom. Are we extending this peak? Statistically, no one has answered that. All I have seen is, on average we are .1C hotter than we were 10 years ago and I should buy another $100 worth of carbon credits with my next flight because if the temperature rises another .1C, a polar bear will be inconvenienced hunting for seals. Like my old draftsman says. "Figures don't lie, but liar's can figure."

  45. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A longer-term climate pattern like glacial-interglacial cycles on the order of 10k to 100k years doesn't matter much if the next century is the problem. Even if an ice age began tomorrow it would take thousands of years for the ice to crawl its way to most inhabited areas. The possibility of another ice age still exists in the long-term, but there are more pressing problems.

  46. Troll much? by s.petry · · Score: 2

    If we are dumping shit everywhere and burning carbon because it's "cheap" we can do something about it. Stop burning carbon and move to renewable and nuclear energy is something right? Heavier regulation and requirements for recycling and fines for polluters is something right? Reducing the stripping forests is something right? Severely limiting strip mining is something right?

    It's hard to say if you are trolling or just an idiot. Claiming there is nothing you can do about it is worse than claiming a problem does not exist in my opinion.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  47. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're a serious part of the problem

    How does a person's opinion make them any more or less serious a part of the problem? Wouldn't that be determined by their actions? Do they drive a hummer 100 miles to work everyday? How about ride a bike 3 miles? Do they waste energy on heat rather than just put on a sweater? Can you tell much about a persons actions based on a few words that they wrote?

    When I see comments like "i kan reed" jump immediately to personal attack, "you idiots", without really addressing the point at all then I wonder why the "troll" and "interesting" mods aren't the other way around.

    I present my opinion: there is no rational way to curb this trend. I mean, sure, half the planet could decide to live like cavemen. But I'm guessing most of the people that jump to personal attacks assume it will be the other half, not themselves. "Why should I give up my iPhone, giant TV, and SUV?" Right?

    While I agree that change cycles have historically been over much longer time spans, what makes you so sure that larger life forms won't be able to adapt or migrate over the span of hundreds? Some species have been around a very long time. Turtles, alligators, etc. and these are substantially more complex than bacteria.

    Having a "rational" discussion usually means you have to talk to people that don't 100% agree with you. Calling those people idiots, telling them they are alone, or insinuating that they are a larger part of the problem than yourself is a great way to kill that discussion you wanted. But hey, whoever saw a rational conversation on slashdot...

  48. Re:Global HAARP by HaZardman27 · · Score: 1

    I would have figured someone like you would be hiding in your Faraday cage bomb shelter today in anticipation of the end of the world.

    --
    Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
  49. Support Global Warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I live in Canada and its bloody cold here! Please support global warming by removing the muffler from your horseless carriage please!

  50. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by roc97007 · · Score: 0, Troll

    The thing that makes me suspicious is that the same people -- James Hansen in particular -- were the major alarmists for an ice age back then, as they are for global warming now. What Hansen got out of it then, and what he's getting out of it now, is power. I think there may be a root cause that we haven't explored yet -- that people need for this to happen because they are elevated in money, stature, and power as a result.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  51. Re:Global HAARP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess you are wrong about 2 things now.

  52. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    Maybe if you had a clue.... Temps have been rising CINCE that ICE AGE... Oh wait, that truth gets in the way of your dilusionary comment.... sorry...

    Time rate of change. An important construct. Think about it.

    And do check those spellings....

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  53. Re:Full Planet, Empty Plate by stenvar · · Score: 1

    A shift will need to take place in the priorities of those in the "First World" regarding water usage, diet, food and crop priorities, etc;.
    The overly consumptive lifestyle we have been used to will need to become a thing of the past.

    That's been the prediction since Malthus and it has never come true. Agricultural productivity has been growing so fast that arable land will increasingly become disused over the next few decades.

    Even if the prediction were true, it wouldn't make much of a difference. As meat and other food products become more difficult to produce, their prices rise, and people would switch to something cheaper.

  54. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    he should think again.

    Or just think. First time hurts, after that it gets easier.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  55. His point is valid. by sidragon.net · · Score: 1

    With regards to earth, rape, torture, and murder have already happened. There's no sense to talking “what if” scenarios. It's done, and now we have to live with it. Even if we cut carbon and methane emissions to zero, and plant trees over millions of acres, we'll still have to cope with the consequences for our bad behavior.

  56. Not according to the IPCC, gang. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Inadvertently reported the real truth. If the leaders of the global warming mob aren't really sure, why should I be? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/18/chilling-climate-change-news/

  57. Yes! by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    I loved the weather this year. It was our best year yet. If you're from the north country you'll appreciate global warming. Thank you to all you SUV drivers!

  58. Europe is no longer part of the world, AP reports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records."

    I guess, AP didn't get the memo that this past week Russian weather has been setting cold records both in the European part and in Siberia (-40 F). The year isn't over yet, you know...

  59. Re:Global HAARP by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    Without even one mention of these ionospheric heaters that ARE in use all over the world by every capable government in the first 38 comments available to this article leads one to believe that slashdot itself has been usurped and the comments posted (readable) are a continued effort to smokescreen the absolute truth of this global warming man-made disaster. If this confrontational comment is correct, no one in the general public reading slashdot will be able to view it, remarkably. WAY TO GO (here's to your form of censorship) SLASHDOT

    Took you a while to wake up this morning. Must not have palmed your meds last night.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  60. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you are an imbecile.

  61. Really HOT here in Alaska by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    -51 on my front porch this morning. Been below 0 for over a month with the exception of last week for 2 days above 0.

    I for one, welcome a few years of global warming!!! It's just going to cycle again, and again. Remember in the 70's they wanted to melt polar ice because of "Global Cooling" so don't listen to the hype. Even if it is changing, we are just along for the ride.

  62. Pick your data - everyone else does by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Temperatures have risen since 1900.
    Temperatures haven't risen in the last sixteen years.
    Temperatures went up like crazy for about ten years.
    Temperatures were going down in the 1970s.

    Alarmists and skeptics can both find real, valid data to support their arguments. On the other hand there are a few alarmists who blatantly cherry pick the data: the obvious case being Mike Mann and his notorious hockey stick.

  63. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by professionalfurryele · · Score: 1

    You know you don't have to rely on Time magazine and unnamed researchers (I actually know which ones you are referring to in so far as the ones proposing global dimming would have a significant effect, although Time couldn't get them to go on record to say what they wanted so they had to invent a source - 'climatalogical cassandras'). You can read the peer reviewed literature. You know the problem with doing that? As far back as the 1970s researchers were, broadly speaking, predicting global warming. There wasn't a consensus and they was plenty of doubt, but more thought the greenhouse effect would dominate.

    You might want to go take a closer butchers at those cycles, the thing that amplifies them from little changes in temperature to big swings is CO2, precisely the gas we are now dumping into the atmosphere.

  64. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you look back at what was being published in the serious scientific journals during that time, you'll find that global cooling never had the scientific consensus. Articles did get published, of course, but the majority of articles were about warming. The consensus was always that there is a warming trend. "Global cooling" was mostly just a media phenomenon.

  65. Global warming isn't real. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Global warming isn't real.

    Also, global warming is real, but it's a completely natural occurrence, not man-made.

    Also, global warming is man made, but it's beneficial.

    Also, global warming isn't beneficial, but it's too late to fix it.

  66. Headline Misleading: models are cherry picked by rubycodez · · Score: 0, Troll

    of the thousands of climate models generated, most are discarded and a few chosen that conform to what the weather has been doing recently. The draft IPCC climate report for 2013 has been released and they are retracting much of their alarmist nonsense because reality has disappointed, and even their cherry-picked models haven't panned out

    1. Re:Headline Misleading: models are cherry picked by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      The conclusions of the AR5 draft report are not significantly different than those of the AR4 report in 2007.

  67. Too much momo by Randall311 · · Score: 1

    Can't stop this train called climate change now... Join the party or hide in the corner worrying about the end of all things. We all know that human kind will be on this planet for but a short while. There is no use worrying about things beyond our control. Life is too short. Now go outside and enjoy your +5 degrees centigrade above average Christmas!

  68. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by budgenator · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sorry to burst your bubble but the warming has stalled about 15 years ago while CO2 levels in the atmosphere keep rising, every year the chances that this could be a statistical fluctuations in a long term trend diminishes, all you have to do is look at IPCC AR5 draft figure 1-4 to see how badly the models have failed to predict reality; as Richard Feyman said "When actual observations over a period of time contradict predictions based on a given theory, that theory is wrong!"

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  69. You are right, but still oh so wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We now have a lot more data, covering even more years into the past.

    What that data tells us, however, is that the earth is NOT warming up significantly. There was a slight rise in temperature, but for the last ten years there is an actual fall of temperature overall.

    Maybe that is because of our awareness of global warming, maybe that is just happening without our influence. FACT is that the last ten years have seen decreasing temperatures on average. There is no warming anymore. We're cooling off.

    Now what?

    1. Re:You are right, but still oh so wrong... by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      ... but for the last ten years there is an actual fall of temperature overall.

      What a ridiculous statement. Here's the data. No year since 2001 has been colder than the warmest year from 2000 on back except for 1998. 2005 and 2010 are basically tied for the warmest temperature in the record, The slope of temperature rise in the 2000's is less than it was in the 1980's and 90's but it's still positive.

  70. long-term accountability by Onymous+Coward · · Score: 1

    People blather on one way or another about climate change.

    I think we should keep track of who holds which positions.

    Though maybe we'll all be too busy with suffering the effects of global warming to have time to tell people I Told You So.

    Leads me to wonder what the prediction markets say on climate change.

  71. Manbearpig is alive and well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trust us on this. We wouldn't lie to you about a thing like global warming, even if it does lead to massive concentration of power in our hands.

  72. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by budgenator · · Score: 0

    Real Climatologists don't used weather satellite data, at least for temperatures, only deniers like Roy Spencer

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  73. Your loss... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your loss = someones gain.

    Speaking as a western Canadian, 2012 has been a pretty great year as far as weather goes. We had plenty of rain during the summer which gave the landscape back it's lovely green color that has been missing for some time(as in a couple decades worth of mild and not-so mild droughts), and winter came right on schedule with a healthy amount of snow. Last year was pretty decent too as I recall.

    Sky is still up, ground is still down. Not seeing the downside here...for us at least. ;)

  74. re: its too late... by mevets · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is a meme big carbon has been pushing for a while, and is likely nonsense. We have seen, with moderately little effort and in a reasonably short time, significant rejuvenation of the great lakes, replishment of the ozone layer, reductions in acid rain and particulate emissions.
    None are worthy of a âoeMission Accomplishedâ banner yet, but we already experience the benefits of the work in progress.
    In each case, the conventional wisdom was that the damage wasnâ(TM)t reversible and the efforts would be herculean.
    The herculean effort was over-riding the well paid campaigns to suppress any effort to address these problems. In retrospect, executing all of the advertising professionals and Phd-for-hires would have saved a lot of time, money and damage.
    People have a history of innovation, and I doubt that this is beyond us. We have to get fat, dumb and happy out of the way.

  75. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

    Don't you think that your "data set" is a little bit laughable? Yeah, interpolating through ten points with seasonal variations, that's the way to go. See you in two decades.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  76. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by DoomHaven · · Score: 2

    You need to understand the following to understand why the turnaround. From 1960-1990, 2-3% per decade less sunlight as reached the Earth's surface. In that same time period, global average temperatures maintained or increased. So... despite the fact that the Earth received less energy from the Sun for 30 years straight, it never cooled as expected.

    I'll let that sink in for a moment. Climate is driven by the Sun's energy. The Sun's energy is reduced. The climate, with less energy from the sun, should get colder. But, it didn't.

    Now, the trend of global dimming is reversing. And, the climate is warming up faster than it should purely from global brightening. Many scientists believe that the ice age we should have gotten in the 1970s and 1980s was masked by global warming happening back then. But, now, we just have global warming.

    I won't lie: there may be people who are jumping of the bandwagons to keep them in the spotlight. I don't know this James Hansen. The one thing to point out is that at least is willing to change his views to match the evidence. Unfortunately, that's a very rare thing today.

    --
    "Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
  77. Does moving around money fix the problem? by Tangential · · Score: 1

    The most amazing part of the whole AGW movement is that developing remediation technologies is a topic that is almost completely off the table.

    For some reason, its fine to plan out lots of new taxes and move money around the planet while simultaneously throttling back selected economies but it is unthinkable to actually work on reasonable technologies that could capture and use carbon.I find it hard to believe that a world that could put a man on the moon in a decade couldn't come up with efficient ways to deal with existing greenhouse gases while developing alternatives to them.

    --
    Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
    1. Re:Does moving around money fix the problem? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      *We* are doing that. It is called CO2 sequestering.
      Otoh, plenty of capable nations don't. /me looks irritaded over the atlantic

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  78. Re:Lets play spot the warming trend by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

    We don't talk about facts and history when talking about global warming. Were talking about the future and fortune tellers and the future is hotter and full of death and destruction.

    --
    Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  79. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Bryansix · · Score: 1

    People constantly confuse Science with Scientists. Science is a process for understanding the world we live in. Scientists are fallible human beings who are motivated and controlled by a wide variety of variables and who make mistakes just as often as they make real breakthroughs. Then you get to add politics into the whole mix and you can see how fact and truth are easily distorted.

    Point in case. This was not the hottest year on record but it was the hottest "La Nina" year. Well "La Nina" is just a scientist made up phrase to describe when the certain parts of the ocean are cooler or warmer. Its meaningless in this discussion.

  80. Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In statistics this is known as the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy (sometimes called the ex post fallacy). To understand the fallacy, imagine you fired five bullets at the side of a barn and then drew a bulls eye around them.

    To avoid this problem, you must establish your criteria ahead of time and then evaluate results against the a priori criteria. For 30 years, the key statistic that has been chosen to measure global warming is global mean surface temperature anomaly. It is now clear that observations have deviated from model to such a degree as to raise serious questions about the skill of the models. In fact, over the past 16 years the trend in global mean surface temperature anomaly is indistinguishable from zero.

    You can't now say "but wait, look at record high temperatures set of Tuesdays in odd numbers latitudes. See, its worst than we thought!" This is nothing but ex post cherry picking and has no statistical validity.

  81. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

    in 1975, when I was in High school. The thing that makes me suspicious is that the same people -- James Hansen in particular -- were the major alarmists for an ice age back then

    Strange isn't it, that despite all the AGW deniers in the world, not a single one has put this "fact" on Wikipedia, with a citation.

    Silly old Wikipedia seems to be of the opinion that James Hamsen was studying Venus right through the 1970s.

    Clearly roc97007 must be entrusted as the world's fact keeper.

  82. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

    FYI, the rest of us are actually living 37 years after 1975, not 5-10. On a more serious note, despite a few predictions of cooling in the 70's the majority of the climate community still endorsed global warming. (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11643-climate-myths-they-predicted-global-cooling-in-the-1970s.html) Funny enough, the cooling theory was based on human particulate pollution outweighing the human caused greenhouse effect. Good thing we got a handle on pollution right?

  83. Re:Global HAARP by budgenator · · Score: 1

    I figured that the Mayans used significant celestial events for the under pinning of their calender, and the end of their calender's epoch is suspiciously on the day of the solstice. The solstice is an actual event, where the sun is directly overhead at solar noon on the latitude of one of the tropics which occured at 11:12 UTC in Namibia; I happened to have slept through it. If the world was going to end, the end would have started at 11:12 UTC, by my reckoning.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  84. This is something we can change. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is the space station far enuff away from our planet to be safe from all these events? How far out can we go in it and still come back?
    Like when it is safe again.

    Knowing that we are in danger of being wiped out some time in the near future from one or all of these things sooner or later. The Global warming, and our abuse of water , air and land. Add into this mix. Less food , more people, hate, vilance, evil, greed, lust, and liers. Who in there right mind would want to help out such a race.

    Then lets add to the facts that our money systems have been holding us back for years now. We have come up with other systems that work. But the rich and powerful people want let this happen. :(

    We are in a new erra. As of today we are in the erra of
    inlightenment.

    We now know we can not change any thing that we have done. We may have even speeded it up some. So lets not waist any more time. If we are to become more than what we are. We will have to work together on this. "BUILD" the world a really big space ship in space now, that can save us in the future. And be looking dam hard for us a new home. Because we have truely messed this one up in so many ways with our advances. And I really feel for our kids we will be leaving here when we die. They will need a merical to say the least.

    I have seen us doing things to make things better. Again it is only the rich who can go there. Wind power, Solar power, and other clean energy sourses. And I think I am right when I say this. "It is to late to change things now. So lets keep an eye on the best people we know of. The ones who work hard for that spot on the ship. Teachers, preachers, Builders, You get what I'm saying. I am no brain scientist and I am not that smart. So there wouldn't be a seat for me. But that isn't the point. We know what can happen will happen. It is up to us to give our kids "H.O.P.E." (the ship) We can't just leave them with our mess. Lets leave them a ship. So when worst comes to worst. And we all may be dead. Our kids will know we were not dumb. We seen the destruction that is yet to come.
        It's a no brainer.

       

  85. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

    I believe the misconception that there was no warming since 1998 comes from it being tied with 2005 for having the hottest surface temperature on record. 1998 was especially hot due to the century's strongest El Nino event. But even when you pick 1998 as your starting point, there is still a warming trend over the past 15 years. I'll see your blog's .gif with a peer reviewed paper: http://www.aussmc.org/documents/waiting-for-global-cooling.pdf

  86. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    That's really what you're going with? Google "james hansen" "global cooling" and 1971. This is hardly a secret.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  87. Stop bothering me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It still is not a proof of cause, it does not prove the long term predictions, and there is not much we can do about it anyway except stop existing.

    Why do you liberals take so much joy in "proving" anthropomorphic climate change? The earth is changing, not much we can do about it, why don't you nerds go back to playing your computer games? I am.http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/12/21/1552258/2012-another-record-setter-for-weather-fits-climate-forecasts#

  88. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can you convert that paper into an infograph? I'm so damn lazy.

  89. And a broke clock shows the right time twice a day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get back to me when a single climate model correctly predicts more than 1 year.

  90. were you born yesterday? by stenvar · · Score: 2

    If we are dumping shit everywhere and burning carbon because it's "cheap" we can do something about it.

    And how are "we" going to do that? Do you think China or India or Africa or Russia give a damn about what "we" decide? European and American voters get irate if their economies aren't growing fast enough; do you think they're going to reelect any government that's going to spend tons of money on reducing carbon emissions?

    "We" can't even bring ourselves to helping refugees, or living up to our international aid commitments, or making many our drug patents available for generic use overseas, actions that are trivial compared to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. Look at the lack of results of Doha or all the other previous conferences. "We" have been importing cheap "shit" from South America and Asia, knowing full well that the way it is produced is destructive of the environment and rain forest, and nobody gives a damn.

    It's hard to say if you are trolling or just an idiot

    The idiot is you, because you believe that global warming is somehow different than all the other issues that we have failed to act on. With the current political situation in the world, everybody looks out for their own interests first. Given the current political situation, there is nothing any government can do to reduce global carbon emissions meaningfully.

    Carbon emissions will fall on their own when technology makes burning coal and oil obsolete. I think that's going to happen within a few decades. But it will happen with or without government intervention.

    1. Re:were you born yesterday? by Tagged_84 · · Score: 1

      We in Australia are doing something about it with a carbon tax, hopefully our ways will spread to other countries! We even have a global emissions trading scheme about to start where a company can use green power in other countries and get accredited for it, which should also help push for global change.

    2. Re:were you born yesterday? by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      As the effects of climate change worsen the moral imperative to do something about it will strengthen. I think eventually we will reduce our carbon emissions to a reasonable level (which is probably close to net zero). The question is how long will it take? If the effects of climate change are bad enough it could be partly from a drastic reduction in the human population (which may be a good thing but it sucks if you're one of the reducees).

    3. Re:were you born yesterday? by s.petry · · Score: 1

      What you are saying in essence is not that there is nothing we can do about it, but rather you have a defeatist attitude. I gave prime examples of what can be done, you simply go to fallacy as an answer. Not much can happen as long as people like you are around claiming that any attempt to correct issues is futile. As I said before, I believe that attitude is worse than denial.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    4. Re:were you born yesterday? by stenvar · · Score: 1

      What you are saying in essence is not that there is nothing we can do about it, but rather you have a defeatist attitude.

      No, what I am saying is that enough nations fortunately are still sane enough not to agree to such limits.

      Not much can happen as long as people like you are around claiming that any attempt to correct issues is futile.

      Good, and I hope it stays that way.

  91. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    There was never an ice age expected in the 1970s to 1980s. The next ice age is still a few 10 thousand years in the future (if there is one comming at all).

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  92. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    It is absolutely not meaningless in this discussion as a "La Nina" year is a COLD PERIOD.
    So we just had the warmest cold period, ah ha ....

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  93. id by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I cannot believe people can be so stupid, I see bunch of lost sheep confused by climate propaganda. What is worst, it works on most of the sheep ! It only proves that bunch of sheep thinks scientists can by voting decide by how many degrees Earth will warm up. You are idiots and nothing can help you !

  94. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by budgenator · · Score: 1

    It's not a blog's gif, it's a graph from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 5, it's current unlike your 4 year old peer reviewed paper.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  95. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

    I'll give it a shot cause I'm now on vacation

    t | ___/__
    e | __/__
    m|_ /___
    p | /____
    --- year

  96. The hope for the future is geoengineering by Su27K · · Score: 2

    Learn to control the weather, if it's broken, then fix it. I fully agree that people's behavior will not change, it's a lost cause, which is why we should start R&D on geoengineering as early as possible.

  97. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by skine · · Score: 1

    This video from Potholer54 on YouTube is pretty good at summarizing the story about scientists predicting an ice age in the 70's:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU_AtHkB4Ms

    Basically, Time and Newsweek published that there was an impending ice age, since a few scientists said that their data showed that the Earth was cool at that moment. One of the scientists even said that the period of cooling was about to end.

    Of papers published in scientific journals between 1965 and 1979, there were zero that predicted an ice age, seven that predicted global cooling, and 44 that predicted global warming.

    On top of that, even restricted to newspapers and magazines, the vast majority predicted global warming. That people only seem to mention the two magazines that say that there is going to be an ice age is a pretty obvious indication of cherry picking.

  98. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

    Yes I'm going with that because your claim is bullshit. And that's also the reason it doesn't and never will make it into Wikipedia.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=11

  99. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

    Indeed, unlike my link which was published in the past, your link was published in the future. Coincidentally, that's when we'll find out who's right. If AGW deniers are right then they get to laugh at scientists. OTOH if AGW is occurring as the greedy grant chasing scientists claim, our kids are all fucked...from our POV anyway. Maybe tropical resorts in Canada will all be worth it. I do know one thing about the future, no matter what happens in 2014 when the report is published, AGW deniers will say its bullshit because there's a cover-up or its bullshit because previous predictions weren't on the nose.

    But as my buzz wanes, I'll get to the point...why keep throwing dubious charts around when we can take reasonable steps that that actually sound like great ideas to everyone that's not going to be put out of business by abundant clean energy to avoid worst case scenarios based on the best knowledge available at the time instead of spending millions (billions?) trying to discredit researchers. Will funding renewable energy really destroy the economy or will it just destroy OPEC/Exxon's shareholder value while creating a whole new industry? I say we find out!

    PS: I spent a good 15 minutes trying to find the source data for your chart, searching numerous AGW denier sites. If you still feel like debating some schmoe on the internet, please include a link to the "leaked" report before it gets "covered up". Thanks - MGMT

  100. Re: its too late... by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The ozone destroyers, acid rain and particulate emissions all have relatively short lifetimes in the atmosphere. All it takes to to reduce the damage they caused is to reduce or eliminate emissions of the things that caused them and they wash out in a few years (or decades in the case of ozone destroyers). That isn't the case with CO2 or more generally carbon in the active carbon cycle. Once it is there it takes thousands of years for natural processes to reduce the level significantly. That means on human time scales it's close to irreversible. Even if we do things to actively remove carbon from the carbon cycle it's hard to imagine we could do it any where nearly as fast as we put it in. Once we stop adding carbon to the cycle the changes will start slowing down after 30 or 40 years but even then it will take hundreds of years for the ice caps to catch up with the forcing. The other thing that's irreversible is species extinction. Once they're gone, they're gone.

    So you're right, we have to overcome the efforts to suppress addressing the problem but that just stops it from getting worse (after a few decades). The changes already wrought won't go away anytime soon.

  101. Global warming, nothing more but a weather change/ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I personally think global warming is pure nonsense and that it's all just simply a weather shift/change that we are all going through. I strongly believe that these weather extremes will eventually stabilize for now however, we're in for a wild ride.

  102. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    No! Temperatures have not been rising since the last ice age (that ended around 10,000 years ago). That's just another meme on the contrarian side. Temperatures reached a maximum during the Holocene climatic optimum around 8,000 years ago and have been slowly declining since. (Holocene temperature graph)

    The natural climate drivers of the Milankovitch cycles and other things indicate the slow cooling should be continuing with the onset of the next glacial cycle at least 5,000 years and perhaps as much as over 20,000 years away. But recent research has found that we've probably delayed the onset of the next ice age indefinitely because of global warming.

  103. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    The thing that makes me suspicious is that the same people -- James Hansen in particular -- were the major alarmists for an ice age back then ... (emphasis added)

    Oh really? Citation definitely needed for that! But I doubt you're going to find anything. Hansen, an astrophysicist, didn't switch from studying Venus to studying the Earth until around 1980 well after the ice age "alarmism" came out.

  104. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    Now, the same idiots are telling us about global warming (whoops...climate change).

    What you don't realize is that global warming is a subset of climate change which also includes changes in precipitation and winds and who knows what else.

  105. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by DoomHaven · · Score: 1

    Fair enough, but there was an expectation of a cooling trend.

    --
    "Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
  106. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    Excellent!

  107. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    No they use all of the data including Roy Spenser's which although showing the lowest anomaly of the various temperature records isn't that far off from the other satellite record and the several surface records.

  108. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Must have been an american thing ... no one ever claimed something like this in europe.

    For what reason should there have been a cooling trend?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  109. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 1

    He might be remembering the propaganda of Carl Sagan who was always talking about Nuclear Winter on his science programs. It was a pretty popular theme to talk about the coming ice age, even into the late eighties. Indirectly it lead to many nuclear test band treaties. In any case much hype about something that didn't come about, in some part because of the hype.

  110. It is clear by Sqreater · · Score: 1

    that this is not perverse; it is natural. Man is doing this and it is the inevitable result of his intelligence. Nature is learning that intelligence in a species is pathological. The experiment in intelligence is showing that it is better to have dumb animals that do not change the environment than smart animals that do. The smart animals end up wiping themselves out in biological short order. The sustainable "human" was the Neanderthal.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
  111. RE; Another record setter by nudibranchOne · · Score: 1

    "Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records."

    "Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80ÂF set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment."
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/30/bitter-cold-records-broken-in-alaska-all-time-coldest-record-nearly-broken-but-murphys-law-intervenes/

    LOS ANGELES -- Southern Californians awoke Thursday to record cold with sub-freezing temperatures in the mountains and deserts, but forecasters said a slight warming trend was on the way.
    http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/20/5066818/s-calif-winds-ease-as-cold-temps.html

    Winter cold record broken in Kuusamo
    http://yle.fi/uutiset/winter_cold_record_broken_in_kuusamo/6424159 ...

  112. Re:Blame AL Gore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good job, asshole.

  113. Re:Of course climate change is happening by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    If you paid more attention to the time frames attached to those predictions you wouldn't be scratching your head so much. Meters of SLR and 7C of temperature rise predictions are the end result a century or more from now, not in the next decade or two and then only if we continue BAU.

  114. Re:Blame AL Gore by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    If people are rejecting the message simply because they hate the messenger rather than paying attention to the reality behind the message then they're doing it wrong. Very little of what Gore has said has been found to be wrong.

  115. Re:Lets play spot the warming trend by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    Your graph cuts off in 1950 and so doesn't show the last 60+ years of temperatures.

  116. Re:And a broke clock shows the right time twice a by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    Get back to me when you understand that climate models don't even try to predict year by year temperatures.

  117. Hurricane Sandy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy."

    Comments like this make the article sound like it's trying too hard. In a world with no global warning, there would be nothing unusual about a hurricane like Sandy. There is plenty of climate change evidence without trying to sensationalize the story by mentioning the latest media-circus hurricane, tornado, or blizzard.

  118. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by budgenator · · Score: 1

    IPCC AR5, draft, is going to be difficult to cover up.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  119. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

    Sorry to burst your bubble but the warming has stalled about 15 years ago while CO2 levels in the atmosphere keep rising, every year the chances that this could be a statistical fluctuations in a long term trend diminishes, all you have to do is look at IPCC AR5 draft figure 1-4 to see how badly the models have failed to predict reality; as Richard Feyman said "When you've got morons talking about something they don't understand, you get something hilarious"

    FTFY. Anyway this explains it.

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  120. 16 years and counting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It has been 16 years (and counting) that CO2 has gone up (about 8-10%) and the temperature has not. How long will it take before proponents of the CO2 causes global warming theory admit they are wrong? 20? 30? 50? Never?

  121. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If your high school used Time Magazine as a science text, that explains your lack of understanding of both the difference between a weekly popular magazine and scientific journals, and what is going on in the atmosphere.

  122. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The original Time and Newsweek articles are available to be read here and there around the net; it's clear they represent no consensus among scientists in general, nor even among the scientists quoted in the articles. There are two or three individuals who are propounding the global cooling theory, and the rest of the interviewees are saying things like "If those guys are right, then it will be bad" or "Yeah, too much particulate matter in the air will do that, so it's a good thing we're cleaning it up".

    To ice that particular cake, the guys who were the proponents of the global cooling meme, were of course global warming skeptics last time I looked, a couple of years ago. So it's nice to see rightwing logic at work.

  123. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.
    Now, the same idiots

    [citation needed that these are the same people]

    are telling us about global warming (whoops...climate change).

    .

    At no point in the past 50 years, has the number of publications predicting a cooling climate been any more than a fraction of the number predicting a warming climate.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/1970s_papers.gif

  124. 16 years without warming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and now weather is the last straw.
    Did you know, that there is no increase in extreme weather events ? Where shall it come from after 16 years without warming. ?
    Read IPCC AR5 draft at wattsupwiththat.com.
    Did you know, that temperature trends in the US are inflated by 92% due to poor station siting ?
    Did you know that aerosole cooling has been much lower than assumed in the past neccessitating that CO2 warming has been much less ?
    Did you know that climate sensitivity - the central issue of AGW - is therefore (and not only therefore) much lower than expected ? Follow Nic Lewis at wattsupwiththat.com.

    As a side, unbelievable to see Rahmstorf quoted as an authority. Read the painful dissection of his "papers" at climateaudit.org or his own climategate emails.

  125. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The warming stalled 15 Years ago?

    The fucking summary calls 2011 and 2012 as consecutive hottest years on record?

  126. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by CaptainLard · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the link. I perused a few chapters and it looks legit. I also read the sections that Alec Rawls highlights as the "Lead story from the Second Order Draft". His claims are 1) Climatologists finally admit there is some unknown amplifier increasing the suns effect on GW and 2) Other authors are liars because they still claim that human activity is the cause despite the possibility of an "unknown mechanism"

    To me this smacks of the ol' "cherry pick a seemingly inconsequential potential loose end to singlehandedly refute a 50 year body of work with a mountain of evidence backing it up". Just like when fox news (ironic perhaps given how they are the source for this story) breathlessly shouted that GW is a hoax because a Himalayan glacier grew slightly in 2011. Nevermind any analysis on what the cause might have been or the fact that virtually all other ice on the planet is receding. It does produce talking points such as "Tax funded AGW is treason when its a FACT that glaciers are EXPANDING!". Technically true but completely off base (as fox is wont to do IMO).

    Here is how I see the cherry pick is applied by Rawls: The line he took is from the aerosol chapter in a section talking about the theory of cosmic rays amplifying changes in the sun based on a few observations. Then he implies the theory or one similar to it means the true cause of GW is the suns variance according to the scientists and thus they are liars.

    HOWEVER...

    The quoted section is actually only refuting the theory that cosmic rays have a significant effect on GW. The observed properties of the theory (cosmic ray induced free ions alter cloud properties) is too weak to have a significant effect on anything, closing with: there is no observed trend in cosmic radiation in the last 50 years to match the warming trend. Section 8.4, the one actually devoted to solar radiation measurement and observation, concludes that solar output has not varied much in the time empirical data was available and if anything, improvements in measurement techniques and additional data suggests that previous reports over-estimated the effect of solar radiation on climate change.

    The bottom line is, IPCC AR5 is not a smoking gun against AGW. It unequivocally states that our planet is undergoing a significant warming trend in every geographic region from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere. There has been significant research in many aspects of climate science, many of which have a medium to high degree of confidence. The conclusion of the report is this: there is current global warming, almost entirely due to human activity. Period. There is no logic bomb hiding in section 136.4.16.347.4.a subsection 13 appendix B or anywhere else. There will be nothing to cover up. It will not be difficult to throw up a website with the cherry pick attack though. Look I can even do it with your posts:

    CO2 levels in the atmosphere keep rising, every year the chances that this could be a statistical fluctuations in a long term trend diminishes

    going to be difficult to cover up.

    And speaking of websites, "stop green suicide"? WTF? we're all going to die because $80B has been spent on research? Gimme a break. Even if that figure is correct, Exxon pulls in 6x that in a year. The US will recover from banks losing $trillions and spends close to another trillion on the military each year. I might believe it if the site was called "stop scaring the executive board"

    In closing (yes believe it or not I'm going to wrap this up) I would like to sincerely thank you for this thread. This is the most research I've done on AGW to date. I looked at all of the denier's evidence and gave it an honest chance (BTW, I couldn't find anything to corroborate your original "theres no warming" post which got this whole train moving - that chart may well be somewhere in the report but if so I think its a safe bet it was taken out of context). What I have now I believe is a more balance

  127. Re:in 1975, when I was in High school by budgenator · · Score: 1

    You might have fun at Wood for Trees , comparing the different temperature records against each other can be enlightening.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds