Global Temperatures Are Close To 11,000-Year Peak

ananyo writes "Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years, a study published in Science suggests. Researchers have reconstructed global climate trends all the way back to when the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from the most recent ice age. They looked at 73 overlapping temperature records including sediment cores drilled from lake bottoms and sea floors around the world, and ice cores collected in Antarctica and Greenland. For some records, the researchers inferred past temperatures from the ratio of magnesium and calcium ions in the shells of microscopic creatures that had died and dropped to the ocean floor; for others, they measured the lengths of long-chain organic molecules called alkenones that were trapped in the sediments. From the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest, they report (abstract)."

Comments

If only we could figure out..

[helobugz]

If only we could figure out how the cave men managed to make the earth cool off for the last ten millenia...

Re:If only we could figure out..

[mspohr]

They had a very limited ability to burn hydrocarbons.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They didn't. It was cool to begin with, and slowly warming up. Also, by 10000 BP, there were no cavemen anymore. Also, when there *were* cavemen, they were not the only ones living here. See, there weren't enough caves for all the people.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

This will be modded down because it conflicts with the meme worldviews of many here (even this itself as a successful prediction carries no weight with these quasi-sentient meme carrying cogs) but do we want to reverse it?

You would risk inducing another ice age...and for what benefit? Slowing sea rise over a century or three?

By introducing great government controls (economy doesn't care why) you will slow down technological development. How stupid would ancestors of 100-300 years ago have been to put clamps on industrialization? Would we be better off with, maybe, year 1900-level tech today?

Absolutely, murderously not. Mass-murderously. Mass-murderously squared.

Yet the difference between now and 300 years from now will be far greater than now and 300 years ago. DO NOTHING HAT GETS IN THE WAY OF A POWERFUL ECONOMY.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[oh_my_080980980]

Actually you would modded down for an inane post and nothing else.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[GodInHell]

By introducing great government controls (economy doesn't care why) you will slow down technological development. How stupid would ancestors of 100-300 years ago have been to put clamps on industrialization? Would we be better off with, maybe, year 1900-level tech today?

You mean like the hundreds and thousands of laws we put in place to control and limit the abuses of industrialization - from labor rights, to tarriff controls to bar dumping, to environmental controls to prevent pouring spent lubricants into our lakes and rivers, etc. I think it seems to have worked out pretty well when we've, say, stopped industry from hiring 8 year olds - even though it is absolutely provably true that their little hands ARE better at fitting into tight spaces between trapped gears to release them -- and other dangerous tasks in tight spaces.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[SilentStaid]

Less CO2.

Taco Bell was a little less common, you see.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[flayzernax]

I don't know it sounds to me like he has the plot to Deus Ex: Human Revolution down pat.

It's at least a good question to ask even though he states it as a fact.

I think there are some people out there who fear what 300 years may be like from now. It's to bad because without judgment because you know we cannot predict the future so well yet. It might be good.

The answer is to know and make our own choices. I would probably draw the line at violating freedom for the advancement of technology.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[GameboyRMH]

By introducing great government controls (economy doesn't care why) you will slow down technological development.

Limitations on experimentation on humans and even the most basic pollution controls do as well, we should get rid of those too! ALL GLORY TO THE ECONOMY, MAMMON WILL DELIVER US FROM DESTRUCTION!

Re:If only we could figure out..

[kenh]

Cow farts are the scourge of today, I guess the cavemen had to deal with Dinosaur farts "back in the day'...

Re:If only we could figure out..

[i kan reed]

That's not what your graph says? I'm confused. Am I just being obtuse and you're saying we'll burn all of it?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Nixoloco]

Maybe he meant we still have a limited ability in the sense that we will eventually run out of them.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[i kan reed]

Yep, and it'll suck if we can't synthesize plastics anymore when that happens.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll still have plastics but they'll be from a different source than old oil. Corn has been modified to produce plastic instead of starch. Plastics can be synthesized from other organic molecules and we can produce those by fermentation from agricultural waste. Heck, when the program to reduce the human population really gets going we'll have lots of organic material to synthesize plastics from. Well, what doesn't get run into the soylent green factories, anyway.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

Only who can prevent forest fires?

You pressed "you", referring to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is you.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Grayhand]

If only we could figure out how the cave men managed to make the earth cool off for the last ten millenia...

Not sure how they cooled the Earth but the discovery of beans and the resulting release of methane ended the last ice age.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[NatasRevol]

I want a DO NOTHING HAT.

What color do they come in?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

To hell with fermentation, we can produce synthesis gas from basic thermochemical processes like gasification (pyrolysis + carbon gasification) and run that through known catalytic processes (Fischer Tropsch, Methanol Production) to produce ANYTHING that we get from oil with MUCH greater efficiency than wasteful water consuming and exceptionally-touchy-to-their-operating-condition fermentation processes.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid you're off by about 25 million years.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

I think it seems to have worked out pretty well when we've, say, stopped industry from hiring 8 year olds

Well, it's worth noting here that we in the developed world have created a few generations of rather incompetent workers as a result. I've run into people in their early twenties who have never held a job before. In such situations, an employer takes on a big risk by hiring such people.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[dsvick]

In reality you'll get modded down because right after you say that you'll get modded down you go on to insult the very people doing the modding.

And, what the hell is a "DO NOTHING HAT" and how did it get in the way of a powerful economy?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[OakDragon]

Maybe he's a Creationist, you insensitive clod!

Re:If only we could figure out..

[OakDragon]

I demand all my new-hires in their early 20s to have 10 years of experience in widget production. It's not my problem if you whiled away your pre-teen years by going to school!

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that hiring an eight year old with no experience is less risky than hiring a twenty year old with no experience?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[frank_adrian314159]

I've run into people in their early twenties who have never held a job before. In such situations, an employer takes on a big risk by hiring such people.

And your solution is to start giving people on-the-job training starting at 8? I'm sure that will reduce risk a lot. Are you really this stupid, or are you just acting retarded to make a point?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Jeremy Erwin]

You jest, but have you ever read Ruddiman. W. F.: 2003. 'The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago'. Climatic Change 61: 261–293

The anthropogenic era is generally thought to have begun 150 to 200 years ago, when the industrial revolution began producing CO2 and CH4 at rates sufficient to alter their compositions in the atmosphere. A different hypothesis is posed here: anthropogenic emissions of these gases first altered atmospheric concentrations thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 and CH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began an anomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago. (2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases based on natural forcing can be rejected based on paleocli- matic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago. In recent millennia, the estimated warming caused by these early gas emissions reached a global-mean value of 0.8C and roughly 2C at high latitudes, large enough to have stopped a glaciation of northeastern Canada predicted by two kinds of climatic models. CO2 oscillations of 10 ppm in the last 1000 years are too large to be explained by external (solar-volcanic) forcing, but they can be explained by outbreaks of bubonic plague that caused historically documented farm abandonment in western Eurasia. Forest regrowth on abandoned farms sequestered enough carbon to account for the observed CO2 decreases. Plague-driven CO2 changes were also a significant causal factor in temperature changes during the Little Ice Age (1300–1900 AD).

Re:If only we could figure out..

[tmosley]

It would be nice if they had held a part time job while in high school. But I guess that is the devil.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[tmosley]

Because you must either have ALL regulations, or NONE. Dandy logic you got there, sparky.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruminant burps, not farts are the primary methane source from livestock.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

The result of Western labor laws is that the dangerous manufacturing jobs were moved to cheaper labor overseas as soon as the factories were in place and the governments were complicit. It took a few decades, but we are now seeing the negative effect on Western income levels.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[OneAhead]

Agreed, but it still will cost more than twice as much as making the same plastics from oil. Replacing oil with renewables for a lot of energy production purposes (most importantly heating and ground transportation) is much cheaper than replacing oil with renewables for the purpose of producing plastics.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

old, tired meme. not funny.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[sycodon]

New hires in their twenties should have at least 10 years experience in shouldering increasing responsibilities, keeping schedules, working independently, and handling money.

Used to be that way

Re:If only we could figure out..

[icebraining]

By the time child labor was outlawed, the industrial base had been built up to the point that child laborers weren't needed, and were vanishingly rare.

Actually, reality is more interesting; in the UK, child labor was still common, so much that one of the most important groups for the Factory Acts (which restricted it) were the owners of the mechanized factories, who sought to eliminate their still relevant competition (as well as protect the children, I'm sure).

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Vancorps]

Where do you get your information from? Child labor was extremely common and still is today in other countries without such strict labor laws.

For my grandfather it wasn't an option, he stopped going to school when both of his parents died during the flu pandemic of the late 20s. He dropped out after third grade and spent the rest of his years working. When he turned 18 the war was brewing, he signed up and then toiled in the same paper mill when he got back. He probably spent 50 years of his life working at that mill.

The whole labor movement was a movement for a reason, it wasn't just children being taken advantage of, that's why you saw the formation of unions at the same time. Lassez Faire capitalism only works to an extent, then you end up with rivers literally on fire and the public good is no longer being served. This isn't a liberal or conservative approach, Republicans created the EPA afterall.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Vancorps]

The problem is that people are arguing about the wrong things. Instead of arguing about global warming we should be arguing about how to mitigate the effects. Crazy weather is a common byproduct of global warming and it has huge economic effects here and now. Think about the money the state of FL invests every year to keep their beaches from receding. Raise that water a few more inches and see how much harder it gets.

I have every faith that 300 years from now we'll still be around, how many people had to die to get us there is a huge looming question. If we continue to bury our heads in the sand about the issue then we'll ultimately cause more harm. Will good come of it afterwards? Absolutely, once things are destroyed we have a tendancy to build them back up and build them better. It's a heavy price to pay when we could invest in technology now instead of going to war and end up with workable solutions to move forward with. Instead we'll continue to fund the military industrial complex along with the healthcare debacle that everyone refuses to actually deal with as well.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[dkleinsc]

By the time child labor was outlawed, the industrial base had been built up to the point that child laborers weren't needed, and were vanishingly rare.

This is incorrect, and in an important way.

First off, the timeline: The first attempts to restrict child labor in the US were as early as 1837. By 1900, about half of the states in the US had banned child labor entirely. In 1916 and again in 1922, Congress passed child labor bans, but they were struck down by the Supreme Court. In 1938, most child labor was banned once and for all, and this time it passed constitutional muster due to FDR's appointments to the Supreme Court.

The really interesting period, then, is between 1900 and 1930, when child labor was legal in some places and illegal elsewhere. So it might surprise you to find out that in 1900, with child labor illegal in half the states in the US, approximately 1 out of 4 boys and 1 out of 15 girls was working. Same time, same technology, same markets, and where child labor was legal it was pretty common.

Another thought: Most clothing sold in the US today is in part manufactured with child labor. There's no technological reason for this whatsoever, but the corporations that manufacture clothing are just too cheap to pay adult wages to do the work.

The markets often decide, but they can and do make the wrong decision sometimes. Unless you think child labor is OK.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[geekoid]

I don't.
People forget that we are approaching a feedback loop. When that happens, it will be 200 degrees on the planet in less then 50 years... and still rising.

50 years from the runaway beginning, not 50 years from now.

" once things are destroyed we have a tendancy to build them back up and build them better."
we were able to do that becasue we had cheap and easy energy.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[geekoid]

still is, non of which counts as work experience.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[geekoid]

Yes they did..OTOH Nixon would be considered a liberal by today's pubs.

Think about that.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Vancorps]

I'm quite aware of that, it says something about where modern conservatism has gone today.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to sell your children into slavery to help the nation.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[sycodon]

Based on my observations and interactions with twenty somethings...it isn't standard these days.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[denvergeek]

I want to mod you down for being one of those "This will be modded down" pussies.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[denvergeek]

I see the same thing as well, but I wander how much the previous generation said the same thing.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[denvergeek]

My grandfather the migrant farm worker might disagree.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[blueturffan]

I could just as easily say that JFK would be considered a conservative by today's democrats. It's not about "modern conservatism" or "modern liberalism", it's about an increasingly polarized society. Both sides are so concerned with being right and making the other guy look bad that neither one is willing to make the hard decisions that are in the best interest of "We the People".

We've got plenty of politicians, it's statesmen that we need.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Vancorps]

I'm not sure how you could make that argument about JFK. The whole country has shifted starkly to the right. This leaves people that used to be in the middle looking like extremists on the left. I might add, the very same people since there have definitely been a lot of politicians that have made careers out of it.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

Its much quicker to replace a defective 8 year old.

Anyway I kid, I kid...

Re:If only we could figure out..

[flayzernax]

Agreed. Even if we can't come to a complete consensus on the cause we might want to consider climate engineering anyway if its within our reach even through laws.

But right now I'm frustrated with congress for not subsidizing more diverse energy solutions on the grid in our budget, like Germany is doing.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[riverat1]

What people like you have yet to figure out is that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Earth's environmental systems. If you destroy the environment you will destroy the economy as it currently exists.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[darth_borehd]

This sounds funny until you look at the math. The average cow exhales 50 gallons of methane per day. There are about a billion head of cattle in the world. That's 50 billion gallons of methane per day.

Still think it's a waste of time to study this?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[riverat1]

I'm as alarmed as anyone about about global warming but I don't think runaway warming of the kind you describe is really possible. After all we didn't have it when CO2 levels were in the 1000+ ppm levels in the past. The things that are likely to happen are bad enough.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

You're saying that hiring an eight year old with no experience is less risky than hiring a twenty year old with no experience?

Well, having a responsible parent around does help a lot. And back when there wasn't a minimum wage, the risk of employing those kids could be balanced with significantly lower pay. Someone who lives with their parents can afford to be paid less than someone who doesn't (and most such young adults don't live with their parents, even now).

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

One isn't "sold into slavery" when you work for pay. Equating honest, paid work with slavery is just another example of the cognitive dissonance that surrounds this subject.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[dbIII]

The point of a minimum wage is that it is supposed to be that significantly lower pay. Then as workers get more productive they are supposed to be rewarded for it. That's the promise of capitalism even if it's not always the reality.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Tagged_84]

Only in the way we currently manage cattle! Check this out, very very interesting! http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

Re:If only we could figure out..

[flayzernax]

Sometimes these do good things. Sometimes they don't. Colonization is still an issue in the undeveloped parts of the world. And environmental controls don't do a damn thing about that except make it so the displaced people have clean water for a few extra years.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[angel'o'sphere]

The runaway effect will come from arctic and oceanic CH4, and has nothing to do with historical CO2 levels million years ago.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Blaskowicz]

1000+ ppm was so many eons ago that the sun didn't shine as strong as today, I think. Even days were quite shorter because the earth was spinning faster back then. These high past CO2 concentrations were possibly the outcome of the biopshere regulating it that way, and many millions years later the biosphere regulates it much lower giving us conditions still supporting life.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[A nonymous Coward]

I'm afraid you're off by about 42 million years, and whoosh to boot.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[angel'o'sphere]

Would we be better off with, maybe, year 1900-level tech today?
Pollution by burning coal was immense at that time. People died in London every winter into the thousands due to smogg.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[angel'o'sphere]

That's the promise of capitalism even if it's not always the reality.
That is certainly not the promise of capitalizm.
Capitalizm allows you to do with your capital what ever you want, thats all. E.g. own land own a factory or just bribe a politician (cough cough).

Re:If only we could figure out..

[shikaisi]

Even days were quite shorter because the earth was spinning faster back then.

No, the days were shorter then because they hadn't invented Daylight Savings Time yet, duh!

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Skrapion]

Although I applaud you for trying not to pick sides, in this case it really does appear that the conservatives have been growing increasingly extreme.

Thankfully, XKCD compiled some research to make this trend clear:

http://xkcd.com/1127/large/

It takes a bit of time to comprehend that graph when you first see it, but once you grok it, take a look at the 'centre right' population in the house. They've been completely supplanted by the far right. So have the conservative liberals. The same trend is visible in the senate, although not to the same extreme. The left-leaning population, on the other hand, hasn't had a significant amount of extremism since before the great depression.

And these scores aren't based on how people identify, they're based on their roll call, and then their votes are compared to their peers to see how similar they are to each other. Dig into it a bit. It's really interesting.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[riverat1]

You may be right but from what I've read it's a lot more likely to be a long drawn out process than an all of a sudden release (although it would be rather sudden on geological time scales). Mostly what I've heard from climate scientists is that a complete runaway of temperatures to Venus like conditions is not likely and many think it's not possible.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[riverat1]

Back in the Carboniferous era was when much of the fossil fuel deposits were laid down by the biosphere removing carbon from the atmosphere so it was responsible for a large drop in concentrations as well

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's a heavy price to pay when we could invest in technology now instead of going to war and end up with workable solutions to move forward with. Instead we'll continue to fund the military industrial complex along with the healthcare debacle that everyone refuses to actually deal with as well.

We have a solution and it doesn't even require investing in technology. We should. Less oil usage would be great, but we don't need to do it to prevent global warming.

There are other, more effective options. http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

But you should know the parties switched there agendas, Republicans used to be Democrats, and vise-verse.. Using Republican or Democrat as a means to get thru to people that are today's nut right wingers, or nut left wingers, is passing off false information. Even the nut Right Wing media says JFK was a Republican, primarily so they have excuse to like him, since he dubbed himself a Democrat, and the things Democrats did while he was President are things Republican did not that long ago.

And if the labor laws allowed children to work, especially the poor, or more specifically single parent homes, there would probably less violence, and or criminal activity. Obivously you would require regulations which take up resources, but would be needed to make sure that the work they are doing is safe. I do not believe you can be a paper boy anymore unless you are of age, and if not, that falls under child labor, you putting the kid at risk with moving vehicles, cracked sidewalks, ect. (I am being sarcastic about that)

The Unions, were and are communists, if you didn't join, as a labor worker, or as a business they set out to destroy you. They do the same thing to this day. They destroyed a lot of industry with there demands, health, pension, you gotta to be joking considering what workers make in wage.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[TapeCutter]

Cow burps come from grass and eventually turn back into grass. Land use is the real biosphere problem with cows.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[drinkypoo]

Republicans created the EPA afterall.

Oh good, the EPA. Look at what a marvelous job they are doing.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right, were just born into slavery ;p

Alas, very few people, maybe 20% of the world in total truly know what it is to own their own property in a real sense. The illusion is deep and with all these new DRM and IP schemes its just getting a tad bit shallower for some.

But yeah, most $30,000-60,000 income makers own very little in a legal sense. Compared to people the governments won't even touch. Or people in the government who own millions worth in a much more legally technical sense.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[flayzernax]

That is a really interesting idea, not sure why you felt the need to post AC.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

Alas, very few people, maybe 20% of the world in total truly know what it is to own their own property in a real sense.

Which is pretty good considering how much of the world has poor laws on ownership of property.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[RockDoctor]

A professor of polymer chemistry said "Oil is FAR too good to burn."

Or so my father tells me, referring to his college chemistry courses in the 1950s.

It was a tired old aphorism then.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[gzuckier]

The flaw in your argument is that those 8 year olds enter8ing the work force weren't all that terrificat being employees either.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Nutria]

and this time it passed constitutional muster due to FDR's appointments to the Supreme Court.

So what you're saying is that FDR politicized the Court?

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

As I noted before, they have parents who could make sure they show up on time and keep them disciplined. They haven't gone feral yet (a common problem with 20 year olds who haven't seen work before) and they also are of an age where they can learn things.

I'm not pining for the sweat shops and union-busting of the Gilded Age in the US, but I think it is profoundly foolish not to encourage young adults to work and learn something useful.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[dkleinsc]

Actually, no, John Jay politicized the Court when he was appointed the first Chief Justice in 1789 after being a noted and influential Federalist politician. FDR changed the composition of the Court in the same way that all his predecessors had, by making appointments, and because his politics had more in common with Teddy Roosevelt than they did with Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, or Herbert Hoover, the decisions made by the court in 1938 were different than the decision in similar circumstances in 1916 and 1922.

Generally speaking, the Supreme Court represents the political views held by presidents and senators over the past 25 years or so. The only time it didn't was when the nation was less than 25 years old.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[khallow]

Crazy weather is a common byproduct of global warming and it has huge economic effects here and now.

No, it is speculated to be, but no one actually has collected enough evidence to show that. And we would expect crazy weather anyway even if AGW didn't have an effect.

I have every faith that 300 years from now we'll still be around, how many people had to die to get us there is a huge looming question.

It's worth noting here that no one has come up with an effect of AGW that would kill a lot of people. What currently kills a lot of people from natural causes are things like dysfunctional governments and societies, and lack of preparedness. That's stuff that would kill people whether or not AGW has an effect.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[Nutria]

There's a big difference between "echoing current thought" and politicizing the court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Procedures_Reform_Bill_of_1937

Re:If only we could figure out..

[angel'o'sphere]

Runnawa to Venus like temperatures is indeed very unlikely. After all Venus is much bigger than earth and has a much bigger amosphere and is much closer to the sun.

However when the global warming really starts, the CH4 exhaust from melting perma frost areas will be very quickly. Start will take max a decade. Every year the point where perma frost turns into "only winter frost" will move a few hundret yards at first and then a few miles per year to the pole. The CH4 released by that will accumulate and accelerate the moving of the isoterms to the nourth or south.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[riverat1]

Sorry to be such a pedant but Venus is about 0.95% the size of the Earth. The atmosphere is much denser but I'm not sure it's that much bigger in size than Earth's.

I basically agree with your assessment of what happens the the permafrost melts although some of it will decompose aerobically releasing CO2 rather than CH. I'm not sure it will happen as fast as you think it may based on what I've heard scientists say about it but even they say there could be non-linear processes they don't know about so you may be right.

Re:If only we could figure out..

[OakDragon]

old, tired meme. not funny.

Yeah, but imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!

Re:If only we could figure out..

[flayzernax]

I suppose you make good point there hehe...

Re:If only we could figure out..

[angel'o'sphere]

You are right about Vesnus. Figured that a few days ago. I found a nice page showing all solar system bodies sorted by size. And was surprised that Earth is on rank 4 or 5 and Venus is a bit smaller than earth.

The releas process of CH4 and CO2 from permafrost is ofc accelerating and non linear.

Simple mind experiment: today we release enough CO2/CH4 to increase the temperature by 1 degree celsius. The temperature increase will not be instantly, it will take perhaps 3 or 4 years to let the atmosphere heat up enough. While the temperature is a little bit increasing, lets say 0.25 degrees. Some permafrost areas are already melting (either melting indo the depths, because they don't refreeze in winter) or melting towards the pole (likely refreezing in winter, but releasing CO2/CH4 in summer).
So be fore even the 1 degree heat up is reached we are already releasing _more_ greenhouse gases which will lead to an even further/higher temperature limit.

It is like putting a pot of water onto an electric oven that was just switched on. The first minutes the plate under the pot is not really hot yet. But it is already warming the water a little bit. After a minute or two the plate has its max temperature ... but meanwhile the water is already a bit warmer (not much, perhaps hand warm). So the time to heat the water from 30 degrees to 40 degrees is much shorter than from 20 degrees to 30 degrees.

Effects like this you usually have in every real life physical system. What I mean is: the reaction is usually trailing behind the action.

Regarding permafrost, melting a bit of it takes up a huge amount of energy. Hence the atmosphere is heated up much less during this process than it would if nothing was needed to be melted.

Hm, that is probably unclear. Put a 1 cubic meter (or yard) big ice block into a glass house. When the sun is heating up the glasshouse the ice block will start melting. So at 12:00am the temperature will be not as hot as it would be, if there was no ice block. In other words, the greenhouse effect we are talking about "looks weaker" than it is, because a huge deal of the energy goes into melting of the ice.

After the ice is gone, all energy will go into heating the greenhouse. And on top of that the molten ice is now partly as water steam in he greenhouse increasing the greenhouse effect.

Most recent?

[JeffOwl]

I thought we were still technically in an "Ice Age" that started about 2.5 million years ago.

Re:Most recent?

[mcgrew]

No, it's an 11,000 year cycle that follows Earth's perigee and apogee. We're already at the warm spot, which makes AGW worse. We're not due for another ice age for another 9,000 years or so.

Re:Most recent?

[JeffOwl]

I think you and I have been given two different definitions of "Ice Age" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

Re:Most recent?

[DragonWriter]

I thought we were still technically in an "Ice Age" that started about 2.5 million years ago.

There are two different frequently encountered uses for "ice age" that conflict; the less-technical one of which is for what is more-technically known as a glacial period within what is, in the more technical use, known as an "ice age".

If someone says "most recent ice-age", they are reasonably unambiguously using the less-technical usage.

Re:Most recent?

[drakaan]

Best graph ever for lengthening arguments about man-made vs naturally-occurring global warming...

Re:Most recent?

[A bsd fool]

The "less technical" meaning is meaningless. Basically when the media or average person says "ice age" they mean glacial maximum, or more personally, ice sheets extending from the pole to... wherever they happen to live.

We will be out of the current ice age when Greenland and even Antarctica are ice-sheet free... Which is the normal (average) state of the planet. Cool glacial periods, like the one we're in now, are the exceptional periods vs. the rule Average global temperature, geologically speaking, is about 10C higher than present. The cool periods when ice sheets are possible tend to only last a few million years at most, separated by warmer (than now) periods lasting a hundred million years or longer.

The next glacial maximum may be 50,000 years off. If we cut CO2 concentrations to 2/3 current levels, the next glacial maximum may only be 15,000 years off.

Re:Most recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

The next glacial maximum may be 50,000 years off. If we cut CO2 concentrations to 2/3 current levels, the next glacial maximum may only be 15,000 years off.

I'm ok with the next glacial maximum being 50,000 years off, given that we still have a retarded amount of snow on the ground in Minnesota.

Although I'd be ok with cutting CO2 emissions if we were allowed to hunt down and kill that fucking groundhog in Pennsylvania that keeps extending our winters.

Re:Most recent?

[ryanmc1]

Amazing graph, thanks for pointing it out.

Re:Most recent?

[dreamchaser]

Wrong, we are still IN the last 'Ice Age'. We are in a period known as an 'interglacial'. For much of Earth's history there was little or no ice on the planet at all.

Re:Most recent?

[dpilot]

Bill Murray tried and failed. It didn't go well for him until well after he gave up.

Re:Most recent?

[RabidReindeer]

Perigee and apogee? For a solar object, it's perihelion and aphelion. And you get one of each every solar year, by definition. Unless you know something Kepler didn't.

Re:Most recent?

[Mashiki]

No, it's an 11,000 year cycle that follows Earth's perigee and apogee. We're already at the warm spot, which makes AGW worse.

Really? 11,000 years ago was about the time that humanity was just hitting it's high peak and making all the grand pushes in development. And even at that in the "short" geologic timescale of the last 100,000 years we're not even close to a high peak. This story is just a pile of bunk.

Re:Most recent?

[DragonWriter]

The "less technical" meaning is meaningless. Basically when the media or average person says "ice age" they mean glacial maximum

Well, actually, they probably mean glacial period, which includes -- but is not limited to -- the glacial maximum.

Re:Most recent?

[symbolset]

In the context of this story: http://imgur.com/8PudKkh

Re:Most recent?

[angel'o'sphere]

There are no "ice age" cicles as far as we are aware of.
We don't know why we have "ice ages" and more precisely clacial periods.

Your cycle time is wrong anyway, the only significant cycle si roughly 24,000 years and linked to the earth precision.

With appo/peri (for the sun it is called helion, not gee, for mars some call it ares) you likely mean closest and farest point form the sun. However that you have once each year ... obviously. And not in an absurd long cycle.

Re:Most recent?

[mcgrew]

Perihelion happens in January, in 11,111 years it happens in July.

Re:Most recent?

[mcgrew]

The cycle is which hemisphere is summer at perihelion. Now perihelion is in January, in 11000 years it will be (and was 11k ago) in July.

Re:Most recent?

[A bsd fool]

I don't think they do. If they did, they would be saying the current ice age, rather than the "last" ice age, as we are in a glacial period RFN, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Re:Most recent?

[angel'o'sphere]

If that is so, it still has nothing to do with global warming. Summer and winter btw. are determined by the tilt of the earth axis and not by perihelion or apohelion.

Right now on the northern hemissphere is winter when we are at the apohelion (closest point to the sun) obviously on the other side of the planet at the same time is summer.

Re:Most recent?

[mcgrew]

Right now on the northern hemissphere is winter when we are at the apohelion

Exactly. In 11000 years it will be reversed.

Re:Most recent?

[angel'o'sphere]

Could be, I'm not aware about such a cycle, but on a first glance it is possible ofc.

However it would not influence any global warming and certainly would not lead to new glacier periode (ice age).

Re:Most recent?

[mcgrew]

But it would. The North pole is ocean, the south pole is on a continent, and there's more land mass in the northern hemisphere than the southern. See Milankovitch cycles.

Re:Most recent?

[angel'o'sphere]

I would what? Sorry, I lost track.

Yes, if the winter/summer side changes there are some differences.

E.g. if northern hemisphere would be at aphelion, the summer would be hotter and the winter colder.

For the south it is opposite, the summer is colder than it is right now and the winter warmer.

For the total energy hitting the earth it is no difference.

Figuring how the net outcome is, I mean: does it accelerate global warming or not, is a bit difficult.

Perhaps it would, but that is in .... how many thousand years?

Industrial revolution came too early

[mcgrew]

We're at perihelion now, already where Earth is at its hottest. In a few hundred or thousand years they'll welcome global warming... if global warming hasn't killed everyone by then.

We're at the worst possible place to add to the warming.

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[Anonymous Coward]

That, and we're coming into the Sun's "hot" cycle. Still, according to the research, in the greater climate cycle, we're supposed to be cooling off... which is fucking frightening when you consider just how much we've warmed up.

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[i kan reed]

Er, you know that Perihelions happen every year, right? That the kinetic energy of the earth doesn't vary year-to-year? This is physics 101 stuff.

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, what they probably are referring to is the timing of perihelion with respect to the seasons, or other parameters. Those do cause variations in the amount of solar energy arriving at the surface, and how it is distributed on the Earth. Look up Milankovitch cycles.

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly didn't read the article. It's not talking about orbital perihelions. How did this trash get modded up and the grand parent who actually read the article get modded down?

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[Anonymous Coward]

That the kinetic energy of the earth doesn't vary year-to-year? This is physics 101 stuff.

Well, yes, but once you get beyond physics 101, you realize that it does actually change from year.

On a macro level, the changes are so small as to be not noticed, but they do actually happen. Even losing one atom during that year causes a change in kinetic energy.

I have absolutely NO idea why I suddenly felt so pedantic about that subject. Heh.

Re:Industrial revolution came too early

[mcgrew]

I wasn't clear... worse than not clear. Perihelion happens in January, in 11000 years it will happen in July.

Oh No!

[0123456]

Temperatures were higher than today for 2,800 of the last 11,300 years! Clearly we're all about to die if we don't ban SUVs!

Re:Oh No!

[Synerg1y]

Sure, why not, at least the roads would be a better place.

Re:Oh No!

[0123456]

Sure, why not, at least the roads would be a better place.

That is true.

Re:Oh No!

[Anonymous Coward]

Temperatures were higher than today for 2,800 of the last 11,300 years!

Your racist so-called "math" is not welcome in this political discussion.

Re:Oh No!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep your laws off my (auto)Body!

Clear bias against the oil industry

[History's Coming To]

These studies only show what they do because most of the world's scientists are funded by the anti-oil lobby, who have so much money that the oil industry find it difficult to compete. Imagine if you were on an environmental archaeologist's research salary - that's got to be in the tens of thousands of dollars a year, why on earth would you accept the measly hundreds of thousands of dollars that the oil industry can afford to pay their researchers?

(That's sarcasm, by the way.)

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[0123456]

Why would the oil industry be opposed to a scare that's mostly been used to close down coal mining?

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[ByOhTek]

because obviously the man-made climate change crowd is stupid, and therefore they don't realize that hundreds of thousands of dollars per year are better than tens of thousands of dollars per year, and don't realize they could be doing better!

And if they they aren't smart enough for this simple math, how can we ever trust them with the more complex math required to analyze their data?

(also sarcasm)

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[History's Coming To]

Because demand for oil will drop as we switch to non-fossil fuels like fission, fusion or (heaven forbid) wind/wave/tidal/solar? Because they have to keep the shareholders happy, which isn't necessarily correlated with any kind of foresight or long-term common sense? Because it's all about money, rather than preserving the environment which makes the concept of money possible? I don't know, I'm as mystified as you.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Coal and oil aren't good substitutes (power stations don't run on oil much anymore these days and there are precious few coal-powered cars), so there's no obvious reason for the oil industry to support moves against coal (compare that to coal vs. gas, which do conflict).

The oil industry's logic is that the sort of people who oppose coal probably oppose oil as well, so coal and oil are more or less in it together.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[ilguido]

Well, but the oil lobby never lobbied to sell their oil, they do not need to. They actually lobby to get more oil/gas and to leave less oil/gas to the competition (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya wars etc.). Heck, more funds for green power companies means less competition in the oil extraction business, so the only guys who are screwed by this situation are those from the nuclear power lobby. Those cannot compete with the oil and green lobbies.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't take a vast money machine to convince millions of young people to tattoo and pierce themselves in weird places. It doesn't take a vast money machine to convince everybody in academia that AGW is fact.

In both cases, all it takes is peer pressure.

Just because corporations prefer to use big money campaigns as their tool, doesn't mean it's the only tool required to instill a mass belief or activity.

Now, I'm not saying that AGW is or isn't real. The debate over the GW part is pretty much over. It's the 'A' that still looks more like religion than science. There are probably literally a handfull of people who actually have opinions formed on science. They're sitting in universities looking at models run on supercomputers. Everybody else is using these people as priests, even if they didn't ask to be priests.

That's the way I see it, and no oil industry lobbyist paid me. I wouldn't even know where to find one.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

It is all about money. The late Ted Kennedy wouldn't support clean energy, once it was determined that it would spoil his view of Cape Cod, and lower his property value. Everyone wants green energy, until it is in their back yard.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Chris Burke]

There are probably literally a handfull of people who actually have opinions formed on science. They're sitting in universities looking at models run on supercomputers. Everybody else is using these people as priests, even if they didn't ask to be priests.

And for those of us who want to form our opinions based on science, but aren't climatologists, looking to the people who are and actually do study and understand climate science and asking them is wrong... how exactly?

For any other non-controversial field of science, this wouldn't be controversial either. Nobody says we're treating particle physicists like "priests" when we go with their best working picture of the microscopic universe with the understanding that this picture may change. How is that like a priest?

And for the record, while I do take what the climatologists say as a provisional truth, I would be delighted if they came out one day and said they were wrong all this time and it turns out there's nothing to worry about. So far, so bad.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[History's Coming To]

Nobody says we're treating particle physicists like "priests"

Whilst I agree with your comment in general, you're about a week behind the times on that one.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[dave420]

You're doing yourself a great disservice. There are more than "a handful" of actual real scientists doing actual real science who can demonstrate the "A" exceedingly well. Whether people see them as priests or not doesn't change the fact that their science is solid.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Kreigaffe]

The problem is the loudest climatologists and the loudest politicians got too buddy-buddy, and you got into a situation where they were feeding off each other.

I'll listen to the particle physicist, because he's telling me about facts, science. Information.

That climatologist? Here's the problem, they got too conflated with the politicians, and I don't want to hear fucking policy talk coming from a scientist's mouth -- least of all the fearmongers who said bullshit like NYC would be underwater by 2015, that the midwest would be a barren desert by 2020, that the best beach weather would be Canadian.

I'm not an AGW denier, but I can't tolerate the scare tactics. And I'm still pretty mad at East Anglia -- you just don't do science by gathering data, adjusting that data, and then throwing the original data out and not allowing (or even recording) the methods by which you adjusted that data. They could have just fucking made it all up, it's non-verifiable UNLESS someone else was keeping track of those weather stations that oh, no, all the records were kept at one place and then thrown out 20 years ago. Bad science. Heck, it could be accidentally bad science, but FUCKING OWN UP TO IT! Cannot stand people who talk their way around unsubstantiated data and try to pass it off as fucking immutable gospel.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[ryanmc1]

looking to the people who are and actually do study and understand climate science and asking them is wrong... how exactly?

Where did those scientists get the money for those supercomputers and their pay checks? What would happen to that money if they came out and said they were wrong? Both sides are creating this havoc for the money.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[TubeSteak]

Because 40 years ago, the EPA was created in the wake of a massive offshore oil spill.
The oil industry has been leery ever since.

It's only in the last decade that oil companies have diversified into energy companies.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Dexter Herbivore]

The cost you're missing is the intangibles like your self respect, your honour, your integrity. You lose all of those things and more if you take money to produce false science.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly! That is what us ignorant folks do. Whenever TV shows don't hold our attention we get all wound up and hold anti oil rallies. You know we used to burn off our frustrations by lynching a black person or some other unpopular persons but once we decided to hate big oil for no reason we no longer felt a need to lynch so many people. I guess it has a little to do with a dislike of cancer, total mayhem in the environment and not enjoying the thrills of economic domination by industry and foreign forces but underneath it all it is surely our inherent ignorance and being spoiled silly. But what else can we do? There are only so many hours a day we can clean our guns or have sex with our children or relatives. It's all our fault. Or maybe we just don't like paying welfare to big oil companies and supporting endless foreign wars over oil. But being retards like we are it is just the best that we can do.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Dexter Herbivore]

Oh, and no sarcasm there.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[i_ate_god]

if it's all about money, then why isn't the oil industry trying to monopolize on green energy as well?

Oil is finite. We all know this, and (At least in the west), there is increasing awareness amongst the population over their environmental footprints (whether that's out of a sense of selflessness or simple economics as the cost of gas goes up is irrelevant).

So it seems like a smart business decision to actively research and control the future, since future will be oil-free, and companies like Shell, wouldn't be doing their shareholders any good if they didn't try to monopolize non-oil non-natural gas energy resources.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Jessified]

Isn't that exactly it? What to climate researchers have to gain by making up a conspiracy theory about global warming? Follow the money.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[mcpheat]

I'm not an AGW denier, but I can't tolerate the scare tactics. And I'm still pretty mad at East Anglia -- you just don't do science by gathering data, adjusting that data, and then throwing the original data out and not allowing (or even recording) the methods by which you adjusted that data. They could have just fucking made it all up, it's non-verifiable UNLESS someone else was keeping track of those weather stations that oh, no, all the records were kept at one place and then thrown out 20 years ago. Bad science. Heck, it could be accidentally bad science, but FUCKING OWN UP TO IT! Cannot stand people who talk their way around unsubstantiated data and try to pass it off as fucking immutable gospel.

Perhaps you should get your information somewhere other than denier blogs, your version of what happened at UEA is pure fantasy. They didn't collect any original data of their own, the data came from the organisations that ran the weather stations who have their own records. They deleted THEIR copy of the data not the originals which still exist. Their results have been confirmed by three separate organisations including one funded by deniers to disprove it.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[geekoid]

Becasue they are often the same company, or owned by the same company?

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Most particle phyics is insane mathematical conjecture these days, maybe you haven't been listening very well. Probbaly because your fingers are too firmly in your ears and the "La-la-las" are too loud.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[geekoid]

"- least of all the fearmongers who said bullshit like NYC would be underwater by 2015, that the midwest would be a barren desert by 2020, that the best beach weather would be Canadian."
those weren't climatologists.

. And I'm still pretty mad at East Anglia -- you just don't do science by gathering data, adjusting that data, and then throwing the original data out and not allowing (or even recording) the methods by which you adjusted that data."
that's not what happened.

Just so you know, the data was left out because it was irrelevant to the point. That data was MORE evidence supporting AGW, not less. Again it wasn't to the point of the specific report. That data was about the tree ring divergence "problem". Which only applies to s subset of the globe.
It was new, or counter data.

Media also picked up on the word 'trick' as if they where tricking someone one when it mean they found a clever way of doing something.

The media has apparently made you their bitch about this topic. Did you even stop for a second to consider one that actual data was releases every media outlet and politician suddenly shut up? DO you think Palin would have shut up if there was something actually hidden?
Which bring me to another point. Sarah Palin is an ignorant moron. She can never answer any question abtou any topic that is more the a superfical talking point.

Don't listen to her, she is a stooge. And that's about her, not the party.
YO might want to actually look into it instead of repeat what you heard pundits screaming.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[CayceeDee]

Well, first off the oil companies would love them and pay them handsomely. We know this because this is what the oil companies have done to people in their pocket. You might want to look into how much money the oil companies have invested in keeping the debate down. The amount they spend dwarfs anything a scientist gets and just because your side is willing to prostitute themselves for money doesn't mean that real scientist are. This is definitely a case of pot calling the kettle black.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Legion303]

It must suck for you when you go to the doctor and then dispute his diagnosis of your bloodwork because you haven't had the medical schooling needed to interpret it.

Most of us assume the doctor knows what the fuck he's talking about, and aren't going to start doubting him because Glenn Beck told us to.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[riverat1]

Exactly, the thought that the vast majority of climate scientists would falsify the science and not worry that someone will call them out on it boggles the mind.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[riverat1]

... least of all the fearmongers who said bullshit like NYC would be underwater by 2015, that the midwest would be a barren desert by 2020, that the best beach weather would be Canadian.

If you seriously think any climate scientist ever said those things would happen in those time frames you need to get a better source of information. For instance 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100 (what current projections say) won't put NYC under water but it will make the results of storm surges like with Sandy that much more devastating.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[riverat1]

So they're after the money so they can work harder doing science? After all, most of that money goes to pay for equipment and research. Most of the lead researchers get a salary from whatever institution they're associated with and use grant money to conduct the science they were granted to money to produce, not to enrich themselves. They would quite getting grants if they tried that.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Kreigaffe]

They collected the data from the stations, which was the original data. Yes. Some of those stations still have records, too.
That data that they collected was stored, for years, until some time in the IIRC 80s when they had (a grad student I'm sure lawl) it digitized and the physical hard-copy records of the data were tossed.
That data was "normalized", which was never explained. Yeah, that's a pretty typical thing in science, but it's also pretty typical to explicitly state how that was done -- so that others can read my work, find that data, understand what i did to the raw data to make it workable, and ideally reproduce my results. That's science, it's verifiable by others.

They tossed the data out and didn't explicitly state their data normalization methodology, that's just sloppy as fuck. I like to play fast and loose with science, but fuck's sake -- when something doesn't work right and I just *hit it* to make it work, "The object was struck by the heel of a fist with considerable force where the wiring connects to the apparatus, and it began to behave properly." You don't just do things and not mention it. That's hand-waving, that's magic, that has no place in science.

I did not, if you note, say that their results were bad. I do think the way in which they presented those results was questionable, and their methodology has a few eyebrow-raisers, but the actual results? I don't disagree.

And now we're at the important part -- I'm not your strawman. I don't like East Anglia not because I don't like the results they got -- those are, barring peer review, fucking immutable. Science is science and it doesn't fucking care if you like it or if you don't like it! Frankly, I DON'T like it, and HOPE it's all a load of bullshit, but the FACTS point otherwise.

That doesn't mean we take those conclusions and the goddamned gospel, immune from questioning, above all reproach, infinite and perfect in all regards.
But hey, what do I know -- if you want to make it your religion, be my guest. Me? I'll continue getting upset when people who should know better make mistakes and try to talk over them like they're not mistakes.
Even if they're right -- especially if they're right.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Kreigaffe]

Huh? No, the data they collected from the climate stations was *destroyed*. In the 80s. 86, IIRC. Some of it remains at the stations themselves, but the rest was 'normalized' and digitized.
Yeah, that probably just means they converted units, maybe trimmed decimals to consistency.

regardless, I never said I didn't agree with their findings.. i just have a few nits to pick about their methodology and presentation. You no longer have the original data? Don't pretend that's not an issue when people are trying to review your work -- reproducible results are kinda important in science, yeah?

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[khallow]

if it's all about money, then why isn't the oil industry trying to monopolize on green energy as well?

Monpoly means absence of competition. Not merely, that there's business activity going on. The oil market has plenty of competition, meaning it isn't a monopoly or even close to a monopoly. Even the money thing is not a monopoly since various governments have their own currencies.

Re:Clear bias against the oil industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... You've never talked to a conservative have you?

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look buddy you missed out the Koch brothers, Tea partiers and the 1%. You really need to work on those trolling skills. Maybe on reddit or huffpo that weak sauce will work but here you need to amp up your game.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

Explore the ozone hole for yourself, if you haven't seen it does it really exist? Is it really a hole?

Re:Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if the earth is approx 4 BILLION years old then 4 000 000 000 - 11 300 = 3 999 988 700, meaning that given the age of this planet were actually not in a warming period at all.

That... is the worst logic I've ever read. You're saying that because there were 3,999,988,700 years of existence before the last 11,300 years, we're not in a warming period?

Scary and scarier

[dcmcilrath]

First reaction: How are people still denying this???
Second reaction: We are so screwed

After spending a significant amount of time studying the data and politics surrounding this issue, I concluded that global warming is a baked cake at this point (no pun intended) The US contains a little over 4.5% of the worlds population says Google yet we are responsible for the majority of world emissions. Now consider that we are trying to cut back, meanwhile China is rapidly industrializing, increasing its footprint with every passing day. When you think of the footprint China will have when it is as industrialized as the USA, any hope of avoiding serious global damage is tiny at this point.

Re:Scary and scarier

[postbigbang]

Other statistics say that contributions to the problem come from many places, including container ships that blast spend kerosene into the sky, unbridled. The oxymoron of "clean coal" and its dirtier real coal burning adds, too. The hole in the ozone layer has narrowed because we cared enough about halogen release that it's narrowed, at least as a by-product if not a direct result of active human conservation.

MPG gets better and lowered emissions as a byproduct, but the outlook is still abysmal. Buy inland property. Book that Northwest Passage Cruise, soon.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

Now consider that we are trying to cut back, meanwhile China is rapidly industrializing, increasing its footprint with every passing day. When you think of the footprint China will have when it is as industrialized as the USA, any hope of avoiding serious global damage is tiny at this point.

With any luck they do not have a strong "green" movement that opposes nuclear.

When the hippies start saying that we must go nuclear to avoid global warming I will know that they at least believe in it themselves, until then they just look at it as a political argument.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is highest per capita, yes, but China holds the majority in total emissions. And those are 2011 numbers, they've had a whole year to up the ante(note from 2010-2011, the US went down a little bit, China went up 17%). Think where the world will be when China surpasses us per capita.

captcha: equality

Re:Scary and scarier

[alexander_686]

I don’t think the US is the #1 greenhouse gas emitter. IRC
          Canada and Australia are higher per person then the USA, having a lot of extractive industries.
          China admits more than the US, having a higher population and a greater reliance on inefficient coal for energy.
          India has the fastest growth.

(Not trying to diminish your concerns, just adding facts.)

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is responsible for the majority of world emissions? Where'd you get that bunk?
 
And this isn't to say I've missed the point of your post and that I don't agree that the people need to step up and take this on as a serious challange. What I am saying is that if your going to present something like this and have people take it seriously it needs to be a solid as a rock or people are going to dismiss it. Perhaps you did it out of bad data or an erronious assumption but whatever the case is, it still looks bad.

Re:Scary and scarier

[narcc]

First reaction: How are people still denying this???

If I had to guess, it's probably a reaction to the ridiculous alarmist end-times rhetoric from the less competent believers.

For example, one user posted:

Second reaction: We are so screwed

Followed by some thinly-veiled xenophobia.

Can you blame them for wanting to distance themselves from that kind of crazy?

Re:Scary and scarier

[interkin3tic]

When you think of the footprint China will have when it is as industrialized as the USA, any hope of avoiding serious global damage is tiny at this point.

If I were to be wildly optimistic, I'd suggest that there's a non-zero chance the leadership in China will realize that investing in renewables and/or nuclear energy is the smart way to go in the medium and especially long term, and that climate change will threaten their stability.

Realistically, I think if climate change threatens the US and China much, they'll simply inject iron into the ocean without bothering to determine the long-term consequences of that action. Presumably their plan for dealing with those consequences will end with gorillas freezing to death.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

First reaction: How are people still denying this?

A better question is why are you still trying to convince them? Unless you're talking about ego, winning an argument doesn't get you what you want.

Do you think the masses all really want to burn fossil fuel above all else? I don't. What do they want then? They want cheap energy in order to move around freely. It largely doesn't matter if the energy is green or not. It matters if I realistically choose one over the other. Most people realistically don't have a choice when it comes to the combustion engine.

Do you think I want to throw away thousands of products a year simply because they were designed to break after a set amount of time? No. But I hardly have a choice.

Stop arguing about AGW. You should be trying to convince people to use green technology because the products are actually better on terms that are more agreeable to consumers. Products that last longer, products that are cheaper to use, products that are better looking.

Stop trying to sell "green." It doesn't work. I've had a big impact on friends and family members by simply telling them something they probably already knew. The less you buy from the likes of Walmart, the less you buy over all. They're being more green and they don't even know it. All I did was point out that they were buying the same thing over and over again when they could just spend 50 to 75 cents more and not have nearly the hassle. Durable products are often cheaper in the long run and greener.

Re:Scary and scarier

[ChrisMaple]

Name brand products at WalMart are the same as elsewhere, and they usually cost less. They aren't going to fail sooner, WalMart doesn't process their goods through a hex machine so that they disintegrate rapidly.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think global warming is almost an untouchable issue have you ever wondered why our politicians never breath a word about population and reproduction being out of control? Try and get elected if you tell people that one child is more than enough.

Re:Scary and scarier

[TubeSteak]

Keep in mind that China's most recent numbers are after they shut down large numbers of really dirty coal plants and took cars off the road.
In Beijing, there's a lottery for car buyers and even after you get your car, you won't be able to drive it 1 day a week.

China is pushing ahead much much faster than anyone else when it comes to nuclear and alternate energy.

Re:Scary and scarier

[tmosley]

China is said to be investing heavily in thorium technology.

Honestly, all of this AGW and peak oil crap is moot. Thorium is a game changer. Once the first nation starts using it, everyone who isn't a flaming moron will switch. Except that all politicians are flaming morons.

Ok, maybe not so moot.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Minwee]

Canada and Australia are higher per person then the USA, having a lot of extractive industries.

Canada also has a tenth the population of the USA, and exports large amounts of those, ahem, extracted products to it.

If you pick and choose just the right facts, you can prove just about anything.

Re:Scary and scarier

[interkin3tic]

Some of them are flaming morons, but honestly, the problem is more often that they're TOO crafty. At the national level, most political stupidity is intentional. I mean, no one in the house or senate is so DUMB they think that climate change is false, they're at worst fooling themselves into believing that their owners, the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel entities, are right about climate change. More often, they're simply pandering to a base that, as I said, sees intelligence as "elitist."

Not being familiar with Chinese politics, I don't know whether their political leaders are similarly crafty, but I'm going to assume so. You don't get to lead in a nation of 1.3 billion people by dumb luck. If thorium is judged to be in the interests of the "Communist Party," then I'm sure it will happen. And the fact that they're investing heavily suggests that it is.

Re:Scary and scarier

[geekoid]

how would you measure it other then per capita?

Re:Scary and scarier

[geekoid]

It isn't moot. If we wait too long there is no going back.
Seriously.

And it will take decades to get enough thorium to begin ti see a dent in CO2.

That said, yes we should go to thorium.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada and Australia are higher per person then the USA, having a lot of extractive industries.

Canada also has a tenth the population of the USA, and exports large amounts of those, ahem, extracted products to it.

So Canada is the drug dealer (in this analogy)? Aren't we supposed to let the users off with a slap on the wrist (because they are the victims) and concentrate on the dealers? The world should do exactly what to this dealer (which is destroying the neighborhood) put them out of business? Or are we supposed to just legalize/tax the whole thing which will put the dealers out of business? AFAIK, the current tax rate on oil and cigarettes are about the same ~20% (at average price levels)... The percentage taxes on alcohol are harder to compute (since it's taxed by content, and it isn't priced like a commodity), but on lower end stuff it's approaching 20% as well. Hmm, this is sooo confusing...

If you pick and choose just the right facts, you can prove just about anything.

Yep... ;^)

Re:Scary and scarier

[alexander_686]

Let’s try to unpick this – and suggest that taxes can work.

A tax would work (and would be the most efficient choice) if it were a uniform global tax. Canada would still have the highest greenhouse gas emitter but that would be o.k. Extractive and heavy industries tend to be the most polluting, but I would wager that they would be one of the more efficient producers, so total greenhouse gases would go down.

The issues is that lesser developed countries would like to develop, and thus have an incentive to lower carbon taxes. The proven method is to invest in extractive and heavy industries – and to fuel those with cheap dirty coal. It’s hard to convince people to forgo the easy fruits of today for the fruits of tomorrow. And then there is the point that we actually want these countries to develop.

So, one option is to levy a carbon tax on imports. That has issues as well. On part is the measuring of carbon inputs. The other is that these taxes are often a veil to hide special interest groups trying to grab special favors.

However, people have suggested methods. For a good article on the subject: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21572180-can-trade-restrictions-be-justified-environmental-grounds-air-trade

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

Try volume. Since, you know, each country is responsible for all of its own emissions. Per capita measurements are for apologists that want to make high-population areas look acceptable while demonizing low-population areas that are "polluting more than their fair share".

Basically, first-world nations are being punished for being successful and having already made it through the worst parts of industrialization. Other countries like China are given a free pass because they're still going through the worst parts of industrialization, justifying it by saying they're just doing what the US already did, while ignoring the new advances that are being/have already been made to fix those problems caused by the western world's original methods.

Re:Scary and scarier

[dbIII]

Considering that a couple of years back China imported more windmills than the USA has (within a single year) I think they are already doing something along those lines. They can also make what is now consider the "difficult" economic choices of being able to build train lines or other forms of mass transit - the sort of expenditure that could be considered in the USA up to the 1970s or so but now infrastructure spending is apparently only "commie talk".

Re:Scary and scarier

[dbIII]

No matter what's "said", India actually is.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Blaskowicz]

Followed by some thinly-veiled xenophobia.

Can you blame them for wanting to distance themselves from that kind of crazy?

Can you try to write something more ridiculous and disgusting please?

Re:Scary and scarier

[angel'o'sphere]

With any luck they do not have a strong "green" movement that opposes nuclear.

Wind and solar is cheaper than nuclear, so what exactly is your point?

Re:Scary and scarier

[angel'o'sphere]

The USA where the highest emitters till late 2011. And still are per capita.

Re:Scary and scarier

[angel'o'sphere]

Thorium is overrated.
There is no working reactor for thorium in existence. The tried designs (reactors that actually got build) had serious flaws and got shut down.
On top of that thorium would solve only a few problems, you still have: risk of accidents, earth quakes, plane crashes, terror attacks.
Bottom line a thorium based nuclear industry is in no way any safer than the current one.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes The US emits more methane and less C02 now.

Re:Scary and scarier

[interkin3tic]

The first part of your post sounds like the naysayers who mocked the Wright Brothers before their designs worked. Nuclear reactors are kind of complicated, and they aren't being really invested in.

The second part: current technology is safer than the current nuclear industry. New nuclear power plants aren't being built. And the effects of coal and global warming are pretty bad as well. There would be significant problems that would be solved.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

>> (Not trying to diminish your concerns, just adding facts.)

Uh-huh. Because adding "IRC..." at the start and not linking to your sources is without a doubt "adding facts" to the discussion.

Re:Scary and scarier

[angel'o'sphere]

Coal is on the decline, being replaced by wind and solar and bio mass. So why should a sane person invest into a thorium reactor?

Thorium reactors make only sense for China or India who are *increasing* their power production.

Question: uh, ohm ... should I build a new coal plant, or rather a nuclear reactor? Ah well, lets try nuclear. And even then a solar or wind plant would likely be cheaper.

For countries like germany etc. it makes absolutely no sense to replace a coal plant with nuclear one. Especially when CO2 sequesting will be mandatory in a few years.

I don't understand what your objection is against my first half. There is no running thorium reactor in existence in the world right now. Nevertheless everyone claims them as the holy grail. On top of that nuclear reactors are not very well suited to follow and adjust load on a power grid. So you cant replace all coal plants with thorium reactors anyway ...

Re:Scary and scarier

[sl149q]

Emissions per person per square kilometre is the best way to measure.

Brings Australia and Canada waaaayyyy down and China waaaaayyyyy up.

Re:Scary and scarier

[BlackPignouf]

It all depends on how you define "#1".
Given that the atmosphere doesn't really care if it's still 2012 or already 2013 or how many people it took to release those GTons of CO2, I'm pretty sure the US is the #1 greenhouse gas emitter.
Not per capita, not per year, just overall :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/21/countries-responsible-climate-change
USA : 28.8%
China: 9%
Russia: 8%

GP was totally correct.

Re:Scary and scarier

[BlackPignouf]

#1 Total emissions *per year* : China
#1 Total emissions : USA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/21/countries-responsible-climate-change

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

captcha: equality

Great post.

Nobody gives a fuck about your captcha.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

They are also less deterministic and less able to provide continuous load. So being cheaper doesn't really buy much.

This is good news

[gr8_phk]

From the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest

We're preventing the temperature decline that would lead us into the next glaciation. And like another poster mentioned, we're still in an "ice age" but we're toward the end of one of the interglacial periods. If we heat things up enough maybe we can get out of the ice age altogether. ;-)

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

We were 1500 years away from glacial onset and temps about 3 C less than now, but all the cooling over the last 5000 years, and particularly the last 1000 years has been reversed. If we factor in 3 C of natural cooling over the next 1500 years, that 1 C each 500 years, and we are adding about 1 C per 100 years, so that's moderated by 0.2 C per century. If natural cooling accelerates, though, we'll be just about keeping up. The issue becomes where we stabilize. Right now, we are too warm to enter a glaciation epoch.

To quote the 60's

[fredrated]

Burn baby burn.

Re:Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to make more sense to limit our period of interest to the timeframe when the planet was habitable to humans, since that's what we're concerned about. Still, that's about 150,000 years for homo sapien, of which 10k years is but a small part.

And cooler than 25%

[KermodeBear]

If the current years have been warmer than 75% of the past 11,000 years or so, then 25% of that time has been warmer.

Re:And cooler than 25%

[kenh]

Shhh! You're harshing my paranoia!

Re:And cooler than 25%

[geekoid]

Please try to understand It' about the alarming rate at which it's happening.

" temperatures have been increasing at a dramatic clip: from the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest"

So a temperature that took thousands of years rise previously took 100 years.
If we where at this temperature after a 6500 year upward trend, then you would have a point. but we are not, and you do not.

Very Encouraging!

[scarboni888]

As a Canadian I completely support the global warming movement and am always glad to see reports like this showing its' progress.

GO WARMING GO WARMING IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, GO WARMING!!

Re:Very Encouraging!

[Grayhand]

As a Canadian I completely support the global warming movement and am always glad to see reports like this showing its' progress.

GO WARMING GO WARMING IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, GO WARMING!!

So beer really does cause brain damage? That's more disturbing than global warming.

Re:Very Encouraging!

[Anonymous Coward]

With Global Warming, it'll actually benefit Canada and Russia.

For Canada, look at the Arctic and all the changes that's happening there. Lots of opportunities in the north opening up with the warming climate, like the northwest passage.

Re:Very Encouraging!

[Anonymous Coward]

its is right sometimes, and it's is right other times, but its' is always wrong.

Re:Very Encouraging!

[scarboni888]

Let me guess - you live somewhere it never ~really~ gets cold, right? Or maybe you were just telling us something about yourself there.... I dunno hard to tell without more data.

Re:Very Encouraging!

[geekoid]

You're premise is based on the fallacy that it will stop. It is in no way beneficial to anyone for more then a couple of decades.

Re:Very Encouraging!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a fallacy. These decades will be awesome for Canada for the next lifetimes. And since Canada goes up to the north pole, there's lots of awesome to come. Look at a goddamned globe.

How is 75% 'close'?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's like saying graduating with a 2.5gpa is 'close' to graduating summa cum laude

Re:How is 75% 'close'?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not like that at all. It's like saying that graduating at the 75th percentile or higher is "close" to summa cum laude. That 75%ile GPA is going to differ by institution, but somewhere north of 3.5 is probably a reasonable guess.

Re:How is 75% 'close'?

[Anonymous Coward]

summa cum laude is usually 3.8 gpa + ... 5% of college students earn this.

Maybe GP should've said something more like 3.0, but 'north of 3.5' is kinda silly for 75th percentile(unless everybody is majoring in phys ed)

Hey

[fustakrakich]

At least we can take our hockey sticks on the plane now

Seems to me it was warmer then if it was a peek

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, so that is 11,000 years ago, lets stop taking a finite point and average it out over a billion year curve. The Earth was really hot 11,000 years ago , I was not aware we were burning Coal 11,000 years ago to generate power

Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[onyxruby]

Articles like this can be scaremongering with misleading titles for headline purposes. "Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years" means that is has been cooler than about 2700 of the last 11,000 years. This of course can turn around and bit you when your trying to do something for political gain instead of scientific gain. After all it's all too easy to point to something like this as proof that things aren't as bad as they have been in the past pre-industrial era.

I'm not taking sides on this issue, what I'm arguing is that people need to let science do the talking and leave politics on the wayside. The result of failing to do so is that otherwise perfectly sound science research gets tainted by politics. More science and less politics please, that is all.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

[ "Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years" means that is has been cooler than about 2700 of the last 11,000 years. ]

No, it does not mean that.
There is a ratio of years (or decades) when the temps were equal.
And then there is a ratio of years (decades) when the temps are found to be NOT significantly different.

If you score 100 on an IQ-test and your friend scores 99, then statistically it is a tie. Statistically it is a tie even if you score 100 and your friend scores 90.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[dAzED1]

you didn't mention at all that the article says it is warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 - marked since the last ice age. Well yeah, we're warmer than the last ice age. A large part of that chunk of time should be completely eliminated for, well, being ice-age. But maybe I'm just an oil-industry shill; after all, my house is solar powered, and I refuse to own a car...

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not so much the absolute temperature that's a problem, but how fast it's changing.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Grayhand]

Both sides like to cherry pick but I can tell you what 51 years of personal observations have taught me. I've never seen weather like we've been having in my entire life and I mean the last decade plus. The arctic is melting and the Native Americans there have an oral history going back thousands of years and they've never seen anything like the melt they are seeing. Remember the search for the northwest passage? We now call that summer in the arctic. Once in a 100 year storms seem to happen every three years now. Denial is easy because it doesn't require you to change anything. The great myth is humans have always lived the way we do now and will keep living this way for tens of thousands of years. A hundred years ago most people didn't have electricity, indoor plumbing or a telephone. Radio was also years off and TV was decades away. Few people owned cars and a long trip was 20 miles, most people traveled less than a mile a day. Fast forward a hundred years and people whine that 200 or 300 miles is too short a range for cars and can't imagine living without a cell phone even though they were rare just 20 years ago. If in a hundred years we can go from horses and out houses and getting our water out of a well with a bucket what will happen in the next hundred years? Do we get flying cars or do we go back to the horse with an out house and water from a well with a bucket? I think that's the decision we are facing and not mending our ways doesn't mean flying cars it means going back to dying in our 30s and 40s and worrying where our next meal is coming from since we can't all go back to farming. The only sure thing is the world a 100 years from now won't resemble the one today!

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[dave420]

The ice age cycle is but one small part of what's going on. The science is well understood, just not by you, apparently.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[khallow]

The science is well understood

And part of the science is that temperature measurements go back to the mid 19th century and actual direct measurement of global average temperature since the 1980s. With such a pausity of observation, one should be very careful about claiming that the science is "well understood". Or at least comfortable with being outrageously wrong.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[tmosley]

So, your handwaving "statistics" makes "75th percentile" the same as "OMG hottest evar"?

Statistically. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? What direct measurements? What source are you using? Some important datasets have been damaged of late, you know, apparently to achieve some political ends.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting...I haven't noticed ANYTHING out of the ordinary variation in my 55 years of observations. I've seen warm years, cold years, dry years, stormy years, winters where there was no snow, others where my car was buried. I've seen hurricanes destroy major cities before, and will see it again. Why is New York City special? or Atlantic City? or New Orleans? Nothing about these hurricanes is unprecedented, other than hitting these cities squarely on target.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[Rogerborg]

And another things, kids are disrespectful these days, and everything is too expensive.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[khallow]

What direct measurements?

Satellites can measure heat emitted from an entire hemisphere of Earth. It's not perfect, since they're measuring the emissions from a column of air at any given point on Earth instead of at the surface of the Earth, but it is far more accurate an approach than anything that's come before.

Some important datasets have been damaged of late, you know, apparently to achieve some political ends.

That doesn't hurt my original observation.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[rasmusbr]

The science is well understood

And part of the science is that temperature measurements go back to the mid 19th century and actual direct measurement of global average temperature since the 1980s. With such a pausity of observation, one should be very careful about claiming that the science is "well understood". Or at least comfortable with being outrageously wrong.

That uncertainty goes both upwards and downwards in terms of possible mean temperature trajectories and probably mostly upwards because climate scientists are inherently conservative (e.i. not alarmist), partially because they know very little about potential feedback mechanism such as ocean floor methane. We know that runaway warming happened 250 million years ago and killed off virtually everything on the planet, but nobody knows if and how it would play out today and what it would take to start it and what it would take to stop it if it's started.

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[khallow]

because climate scientists are inherently conservative

Maybe some of them are. But I've seen too much exaggeration and alarmism from that sector to buy that claim.

We know that runaway warming happened 250 million years ago and killed off virtually everything on the planet

And here's an example of that "inherently conservative" alarmism. We don't know that.

Volcanism on the scale of the Siberian Traps (which, if it had occurred on the Moon would be one of the top three Mares by size) does a lot more than release greenhouse gasses. It releases a vast amount of toxic gasses, such as fluorine, sulfur oxides, carbon dioxide, etc, and high altitude ash. It also would dump a bunch of nutrients into the oceans (from volcanic ash), which would have the effect of stimulating the growth of algae and removing oxygen from the oceans (and perhaps from the air as well), and change the albedo of ice fields and glaciers globally.

Some of these effects would increase global temperature; some would decrease it; and some are merely highly detrimental to oxygen-breathing life without having much effect on global temperature.

My guess is that the problems from these vast eruptions wouldn't have been global warming, but rather radical and frequent climate changes along with oxygen depletion of the oceans and perhaps the atmosphere.

but nobody knows if and how it would play out today and what it would take to start it and what it would take to stop it if it's started.

Well, we have the Paleoceneâ"Eocene Thermal Maximum. It started via warming and stopped naturally. So while I don't if there is enough methane clathrates available at current and near future temperatures to start such a "tipping point" (keep in mind that we lost (when the ice caps retreated) or buried (under 100 meters of sea water) a lot of our methane clathrates with the end of the last ice age), I can say that it would stop at some point naturally, because that's what happened in the past when this occurred (plus, methane doesn't have a long life in the atmosphere).

Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years

[khallow]

So what's so unusual? That all sounds pretty normal to me.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[DougOtto]

The problem with using broad stereotypes to call someone a racist is it makes you look like one.

Yay

[clam666]

Finally, winter has been a bitch.

Also, thanks to prudent home buying I'll get ocean front property while getting it at cut rate prices.

Why do I care if the earth gets warmer, say, to Jurassic levels?

Benefits: We get great new places to live in northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland, etc. Billions of tons of food will be able to be grown where it never has been before. Due to outcry, really polluting industries clean up their act so I don't have to smell there disgusting dumping all over the neighborhood.

Cons: Whining rich people with ocean front property go Wah Wah because my house is the new ocean front property. New Jersey is eliminated to make new cleaner beaches. New York returns to New Amsterdam and is a beautiful playground of water traffic like Venice and is still irritating as hell. Doomsday preppers act smug around everyone else. Florida is eliminated, easing political issues from there, but at the same time frees up billions in social security liabilities and 401K assets.

Sounds like an even push to me. It's going to happen whether we want it to, attempt to stop it, go back to the stone ages and live in caves, or pray to Allah. 11,000 years after that there will be glaciers down all the way into the Socialist Republic of New Texas.

So calm the fuck down about religion, deniers, AGW, man made causes, SUVs, smug ass Californians, and Al Gore. Just realize accordingly, spend less money on ski equipment and more money on boats.

Re:Yay

[rilister]

ok, this stinks of troll, but I'll take it:
"So calm the fuck down about religion, deniers, AGW, man made causes, SUVs, smug ass Californians, and Al Gore. Just realize accordingly, spend less money on ski equipment and more money on boats."

I dig your cool complacency, and actually I kind of agree. Global climate change probably won't make much of difference to your life during your lifetime, and maybe not even to your kids. Because you're rich. You can afford to pay 50% more for food (as agriculture is disrupted): the worst that will happen is you might move house, accept a slightly lower standard of living and bitch about the price of things. Oh, and 'buy more boats'.

It's the poor who will pay. I don't mean the middle class, I mean the 1 billion+ people who live on less than $1 a day. They will starve in greater numbers and die in greater numbers - they can't move, or "buy less ski equipment". I get that you don't care about that, but I hope that as a society we can bring ourselves to give a shit.

Re:Yay

[mjr167]

How is New Jersey eliminated a con?

Re:Yay

[slim]

The middle class will suffer too. If you currently live in a coastal city, you're going to have to either move (expensive) or fund flood defences (expensive).

Re:Yay

[GameboyRMH]

Here's why you should care:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm

Re:Yay

[Hatta]

Benefits: We get great new places to live in northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland, etc

While making the tropics, where most of humanity lives, uninhabitable.

Billions of tons of food will be able to be grown where it never has been before

And billions of tons of food will be unable to be grown where it has been before.

Re:Yay

[dave420]

You are confusing localised weather and global climate. Your existence is dependent on the global climate - food prices, diseases, populations, infrastructure, foreign production, etc. etc. etc. all play a massive part in keeping you comfortable. It seems you don't understand the implications of global warming. It's not just that the sea will rise a bit and the summers will be nicer - it's far more serious than that. It is possible to do something about it - if you value your grandkids, that is. So be selfish and fuck future generations, or actually do something good and at least try to make a difference.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

"We get great new places to live in northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland, etc"

These aren't great new places to live. At least, they won't be for quite a while because as the permafrost melts it kind of makes a mess of the terrain. There is also precious little decent soil for agriculture in those areas. Give it a few centuries, then perhaps it might be possible.

Re:Yay

[RedShoeRider]

Because of the outstanding, educational, informative, programming that is recorded there, such as The Jersey Shore, or The Housewives of New Jersey.

Now, if we talk about the Galapagos Islands being the Galapagos sub-oceanic proto-islands, who cares? They don't make great TV programs there.

Re:Yay

[ChrisMaple]

Florida is eliminated, easing political issues from there, but at the same time frees up billions in social security liabilities and 401K assets.

Unlike social security, 401K assets are invested by the institutions holding the money, so it isn't being "freed up" to anyone but the leeching inheritors. From your attitude, I gather you are a prospective member of that group.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of South Florida is about three feet above sea level by 1960 measurements. I doubt that many people have given thought to the large number of grave yards, old gasoline and oil tanks and numerous other sources of pollution that would murder what little is left of the world's oceans if places like south Florida get dunked. For example the highest mountain in Florida is the garbage dump in Pompano Florida. It is about three miles from the beach and already leeches into nearby drainage ditches. It also feeds very large numbers of gulls, black birds and vulchers which all carry contaminants all over the local cities as well as the ocean and everglades. As a matter of fact many human bodies are surely in that garbage mountain. The Miami dump not only would have the murder victims oozing their last drops but the Miami-Dade County used to throw their dead, poor, into that dump as well. That stopped a few years back when a charred body hung out of its box in such a way that locals could see the goomer, half out of his box, as they sipped their morning cup of java on their patios. All of a sudden is was considered distasteful to toss the dead out with the chicken guts and slop.

Re:Yay

[kermidge]

One more con -
As the level of CO2 rises, your respiration rate goes up. Breathing faster than needful is hyperventilation which, even when minor, over time gives rise to more and wider spread stress-related illnesses. Some are systemic; some organs will complain more than the rest. I've forgotten all the particulars (haven't looked into it in a while) but all the info is readily found - except that there's been damn-all research on it. Takes a while for folks to wake up, I guess. I'm mindful of it because the relative atmospheric CO2 content has increased by about a third since I was a kid.

May be balanced by being the century of 'gene, nano, neuro, cyber' so we might be able to fix lots of body stuff.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't quite understand what average global temperature changes mean. The poles of the earth can warm 50C while the rest of the world stays the same temperature and you would see a "10C increase in avg temperature".

If you look at the temperature distributions on the earth during jurassic/triassic, etc, you will find that the poles were subtropical while the rest of the earth was tropical.

Global warming doesn't mean all parts of the earth increase in temperature by the same amount. It doesn't mean the saudi destert goes from 130F to 150F.

Re:Yay

[tmosley]

I don't think you understand how agriculture works. If you cut hydrocarbon input, production collapses, and poor people everywhere starve. Compared to the possibility of a few degree temperature increase, that is far better for everyone involved.

Re:Yay

[tmosley]

Except that's not really the case. The grain belts of the world are all in temperate zones, which would only benefit from a slightly higher temperature. The lands that will be opened to farming are just as rich as our grain belts were before we started farming them.

There is precedent for the equatorial regions being uninhabitable in the history of the Earth, but that is a long, LONG way away, and we have geoengineering methods that could prevent the worst of that in any event. Or rather, we will in the future, if crazy people like you don't destroy our economy and send us back to the pre-industrial era.

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

Global climate is made up of localized weather aggregated into one dataset. People's economy depends on their own localized weather, even shipping. You seem to want to return to the 'good old days' when everyone raised their own food on their own farms. You can't get much more localized than that. If you truly want this, how can you be concerned about global warming?

Re:Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

http://i.imgur.com/s19MOMd.jpg

Do what about what? We are in FAR greater danger of freezing to death that burning up.
Taking my money in a CO2 tax what won't do jack shit is not a solution.
Denying the very millions of the poorest on earth energy to get out of their economic situation will AGAIN kill FAR MORE of the poor folks you seem to think you are saving. Please.

Re:Yay

[rilister]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_agriculture#Food_security
Your scenario of cutting emissions causing collapse is not clear to me - please explain. I'm not advocating cutting all emissions - increasing carbon efficiency of existing modes of production is the main tool in the toolbox.

Re:Yay

[Floyd-ATC]

I think you're missing his point. The temperature and weather patterns on this planet are not constant, they're constantly changing and have done so as long as the planet existed. There's nothing you and I can do about it, and adding stupid taxes and fees only make things even harder for people to cope with the inevitable climate changes that would still come if we all still lived in caves and only ate dead leaves. Earth does not care about cities, crops, religion or living things that try to survive on it because it's just a ball of molten iron with a thin crust of rock and carbon. We live on it but some day we won't.

Re:Yay

[geekoid]

Yes becasue it will stop once we get to that ideal point.

Enjoy you cut ate home when you are enjoying a 175 degree summer, and food shortages.

Re:Yay

[geekoid]

And you don't understand the issue at all.

  We put out more CO2 that can get back into the cycle.
Think about that.

And its not 'a few degrees' it's a constant temperature climb.

And don't act like we are talking about the complete removal of all CO2. You're being stupid.

Re:Yay

[Rogerborg]

Right, so we agree that things will change. And of course, human beings are incapable of dealing with change, and always have been. Remember when we died out during every one of those 74% of times that were cooler than now, and the 24% that were hotter?

Re:Yay

[Blaskowicz]

You might as well say we can do nothing about Hitler, and the Earth is just a ball of molten iron so let's kill all the Jews, Earth doesn't care about them.

Re:Yay

[angel'o'sphere]

Benefits: We get great new places to live in northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland, etc.
If you like arctic winters, yes. Otherwise: no.

Even if it gets "warmer" in winter you still have polar night ... it is still dark and cold. So your benefit is rather overrated.

Re:Yay

[angel'o'sphere]

Singel human beings can ... well I would not call it change, but can do something to survive.

However nations? What happens to the USA if half the "country" is desert? Riots? Revolution? Sure, a few just move to better places, what about the rest of the 300 million population?

Many changes wont be slow, but abrupt. Five years ago an area was still comfortably farmable, the last 3 years there was a drought, but you still could harvest crops. And from next year on ... no rain for 10 years ... desert. Last year you still thought the drought will be over some time. Now you lost everything.

Re:Yay

[IAmR007]

It's not about the change itself, but rather the rate of change. The closest things to the current rate of climate change are extinction events. Humans have a huge impact on how well the environment does. It's hardly a situation where our actions are irrelevant. Humans have created massive ecological disasters in the past, and it took a lot of government intervention to get people doing things correctly. Just read about the Dust Bowl. That was caused by the fertile soil lulling farmers into thinking they didn't need crop rotation. The US government actually had to pay the farmers to get them to use proper farming techniques, as they all wanted maximum short term production.

Re:Yay

[riverat1]

Of course humans won't survive on this Earth without a lot of other living things that we depend on surviving too. Are we going to fix all of them too?

Re:Yay

[kermidge]

Good question. Consider that we're living in the largest experiment ever performed by humans. Enjoy the ride.

Aided and abetted by humans, we've already been losing several hundred species per day (rough estimate, varies by source). Who knows what's lost with them - a novel bit of chemistry or adaptation, some substance/protein/whatever made by them that might be useful to us? It'll only increase, yet other species will adapt. We already see migration, changes in reproductive cycles, for example. As for us, I figure it's open-ended. "We don't know what we don't know" and "wait and see" are great comfort, no?

Re:Yay

[riverat1]

You are right about this being a very large experiment with no guarantees as to what the outcome will be.

I'm not that concerned that humans will survive. After all we've managed to make a life in places as diverse as the Kalahari Desert and the high Arctic. As long as some of us can find food and shelter the species will survive. Other species are adapting, the question is can they adapt fast enough to survive. We'll find out.

Title vs summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Title: Global Temperatures Are Close To 11,000-Year Peak

Actual first line: Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years

Some peak - it's barely in the first quartile.

Re:Title vs summary

[riverat1]

The issue is more the current rate of temperature change than the actual temperature. Looking at a graph from the study notice how sharp the recent temperature rise is. If you took that rise and spread it out over thousands of years it wouldn't be so much of a problem.

Re:Title vs summary

[Dixie_Flatline]

I know I'm a week late on this, but it's clear that you're mis-reading the headline. It's close to the highest that it's ever been--that's the peak. The fact that 25% of the last 11000 years was spent in a temperature band equal or marginally higher than the current near-peak temperatures isn't really relevant. We're still very close to the highest average temperatures the planet has seen for a long while.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering which statistics I could manipulate to cause the greatest alarm to help me sell movies and generate government investment in non-viable "green" technologies in an effort to line the pockets of Wall Street fat cats.

Your most obedient servant,
Al Gore

the great die back required

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets remove all persons who drive automatic transmission cars and those who do not drive :)

Manual is the way to :)

Re:Global Warming?

[DragonWriter]

Well if the earth is approx 4 BILLION years old then 4 000 000 000 - 11 300 = 3 999 988 700, meaning that given the age of this planet were actually not in a warming period at all.

Which would be a relevant comparison if we weren't concerned with the effects of and on human civilization, which arose about 10,000 years ago.

Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate change?

[DaCaptn19]

Yeah when we discuss global warming I think it is a great idea to ignore the fact that the Earth was much warmer before the Ice Ages. Yeah we can all agree there was some event that helped put the earth into an Ice Age but why hasn't anyone ever asked if It was warmer here before the Ice Age wouldn't it be almost natural to expect the Earth to gradually return to what it was before the event before man was here to supposedly create a problem we refer to as "global warming". Almost like a spinning top a slight jolt can cause its motion to be erratic but it eventually rights itself? So again the model is Really Warm (dino era) >>>>Big Event makes it cold>>>> gradually the earth is returning to what it once was. IMO it would probably do this with or without us. We just want to pretend that since it is better for us the way it is now that this just has to be how it is supposed to remain forever

The rate of change is problematic

[sl4shd0rk]

Global temps are being helped along by anthropogenic emissions. The *rate* at which temps have gone up over the past 100 years is unprecedented in any climate record and that is what's most alarming. It's never climbed this fast in this short amount of time. This is the part most "research" reports leave out but is a key fact in the debate.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/weather-climate/temperature.html

Re:The rate of change is problematic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for this fact.

The *rate* at which temps have gone up over the last 17 years is 0. Which I assume makes your entire claim worthless. If it was caused by humans it would have contineud to accelerate, so your premise is wrong and the only "logical" conclusion is that it can't be human caused by the reasons given. Either Gore's hockey stick is right and temps kept climing, or its a lie and temps haven't increased. Now we have the facts of his prediction and they were wrong.

Hypothesis->Observation->Theory overturned. Its called science.

Re:The rate of change is problematic

[dreamchaser]

There you go...confusing people with actual facts when all they want to do is run around screaming that the sky is falling. How rude!

Re:The rate of change is problematic

[mcpheat]

Except for this fact.

The *rate* at which temps have gone up over the last 17 years is 0.

Actual fact

He said nothing of the sort.

Wow, really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been getting warmer since the last time that it was colder? No shit.

Ice age 12,000 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

And 6000 years ago, the temperature was at the highest level in 6000 years.

Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

Convert all coal fire plants to LFTR Nuclear reactors. It will end up being as cheap as coal, even cheaper in the long run when you account for longevity of the converted plants which will increase the age from 25 years to 80 years. Stop worrying so much about feeling bad over whether its man mad or not, really who cares, the fact is as a species we should care about what makes our species have the most prosperous environment to live in. Forget for a moment about every other species on the planet. Let's be selfish, worry about us. Convert the plants to LFTR reactors get 1000 years of the most power dense, low waste solution while we have it available. Doesn't pollute large areas of land (one mountain pass has enough Thorium to last us 1000 years at 100% of US consumption for everything...every last Watt we use! Has less than .01 % waste that only lasts for 300 years and it consumes the long term waste at the same time. The power density of Thorium is a 1,000,000 ...thats 1 million times the power density of coal. It has none of the draw backs of other alternate energies and the nuclear reactors made with liquid salts can NOT melt down...That is no Fukushima, NO Chernobyl No Three Mile Island. IT is in no way possible with these reactors. It is a clean solution and doesn't pollute and like other alternative energies it works 24 hours a day. I have even worked out a method to pay for it, that only has a 1 year investment associated with it. COAL to LFTR

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[GameboyRMH]

Sides who won't be happy: The coal industry, anti-nuclear nuts, NIMBYs.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[tmosley]

They will be silenced quickly once China starts their program in earnest, and the cheap electricity fuels their economy for a second industrial revolution (where their first one is now winding down).

Once it has been demonstrated, and the first nation adopts it, there will be no stopping it. Any nation that tries will be left in the dust.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[geekoid]

No one is stopping the Coal industry from expanding into thorium reactors to proved energy.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[dbIII]

What a splendid example of the triumph of advertising over education.
Didn't you people know that PR agencies lie for a living?

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly there currently no designs for a commercial thorium reactor. There are still technical problems to be resolved like dealing with fission products that stop chain reactions and waste that gives off extremely high amounts of gamma radiation. And after you solve those problems you have to get them tested, certified and funded.

Secondly what are you going to build your containment vessels out of? We will run of out of Beryllium and Zirconium before we run out of Uranium. So switching to Thorium isn't going to solve our energy problem.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[angel'o'sphere]

LFTR Nuclear reactors don't heat houses, don't drive cars, don't drive ships.
And when you have no coal plants left you can not regulate your grid anymore and adjust it to shifting demands. Nuclear plants can easy adapt to increased load, but not to decreasing load. So, your proposal is complete nonsense.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

LFTR Reactors don't heat houses? So coal fire plants don't heat houses? Several plans for powering ships with LFTR reactors have been made. Same with trains. Don't support decreased load on system? Can you give me any scientific numbers? You are wrong! This isn't a conventional nuclear solution. They dynamics are totally different!

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

What PR agency are you referring to? I have worked out the numbers. I have done thorough research on the subject. PR doesn't fall into this equation. Please back up your PR statement with some facts. To see my facts please go to http://rawcell.com I have diligently laid out my case for the conversion of the coal fire plants to LFTR reactors. If you find a problem with my math or logic, then please spell it out. Don't just make blatantly vague statements with no support of facts. If you have a site where you have laid out your facts, then point me there.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[dbIII]

"As cheap as coal" - sorry, there are no "numbers" yet to indicate that since there are not even rough designs for a full scale LFTR thus no estimates of capital cost or running costs that can be trusted within an order of magnitude or two. That leaves hope and advertising.

Don't just make blatantly vague statements with no support of facts

I'd add to that advice blatantly specific statements than cannot be shown to be true.

Also take a look at what India is doing with thorium. It's a few decades more advanced than the 1950s oak ridge devils brew you are going on about.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

As pointed out in the article, the coal industry has made huge amounts of money from Oil, gas, and plastics production. It can not make that kind of money from Thorium because unlike conventional nuclear reactors, there isn't a lot of money to be made in maintenance of the LFTR reactors. It's an almost set and forget design compared with conventional reactors and the fuel is so power dense it doesn't make money from mining it either. Four guys with shovels can unearth enough Thorium from the Thorium rich deposits to provide the energy needs of the US for a day. It doesn't have the huge long term money making machine that other energy sources have. It extends the life from 25 to 80 years for existing coal fire plants. Perhaps even out to 100 years by some estimates. That's a life multiplication of 3 times or 4 times. In the long run it is actually cheaper than oil. Ulterior Motives.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

dbill: I want to take a few moments to respond. The first full scale LFTR Reactor will come online next year. It is going to be a fully function 500MWe reactor. It is located in India. Six more will follow in the few years after that are for commercial use. It is a cheap nuclear solution because of it's inherent safety. It is also a cheap solution because if it is used to convert the coal fire plants, it actually extends the life of those plants. I will point you to my latest article posting which I am hoping slashdot will also run. India's First Full Scale Reactor

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[wanfuse123]

I responded to this but don't know what happened to the response I posted. So here it is again. Workable designs for trains, houses, and ships have been done. They simply bury a preset amount of liquid salts in containers sixty feet bellow ground in sealed containers. There are companies working on just such designs that I have read about. As far as powering cars, using electric from a grid supplied by Thorium power would work. There was actually a Slashdot article about Cadillac producing a Thorium powered prototype car that would not need refueling for 100k miles. They designed it to run on 8 grams of Thorium. It is not yet a workable design due to neutron flux dampening limitations on current materials that would encase the reactor. Investment similar to the investments that we underwent during the Manhattan project (23 billion in today's dollars) would probably be able to solve this problem through the development of highly engineered containment materials that are sufficiently lite and non-bulky with long enough working life. Thorium Power Articles.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[randyleepublic]

Over the fossil fuel cartel's dead bodies. If you think this would ever happen without a complete rearrangement of our existing power structures, you are very naive. No sir, we are going to continue to burn fossil fuels until they get scarce enough to cause mass starvation and war. The planet will be depopulated to about 10 or less percent of current levels, and *maybe* then we'll learn something.

Re:Solution that can make all sides happy

[angel'o'sphere]

All nuclear reactors (fission that is) have the problem of piling up decay products if you throttle them down. The neutron flux needed to decay or transmute the decay products is missing. Hence they pile up stuff like barrium. When you try to power them up further they don't realy react until the barium is transmuted further ...

Obviously you dont get the fact that coal plants are connected to cities via water pipes to heat houses etc. ... nuclear plants arent.

So switching to your fancy reactor of fashion still lets the households burn coal or oil or gas ... so its electric power production 'cleanness' is rather mood.

Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[pubwvj]

Well, that is wonderful news since about that long ago was the 'end' of the last ice age when temperatures were so low we were having massive die offs due to the cold climate.

Warming is good for life. You might not be acclimated to it but the reality is when we have periods of cooling we have die offs and when we have periods of warming there is an expansion of species, of biodiversity. The Earth has been much warmer in the past and that was good for life.

I welcome warmer temperatures. It has been too cold in the last thousands of years.

All this fussing about warming is ignoring the real problem. Global Warming is just a distraction from the real issue of toxic pollution.

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[Anonymous Coward]

Warming is good for life. You might not be acclimated to it but the reality is when we have periods of cooling we have die offs and when we have periods of warming there is an expansion of species, of biodiversity.

Wake the fuck up! We are in the midst of 6th great extinction. And places not directly affected by human activity are getting savaged too because the warming is happening much too fast (sea coral for example)

We almost have no large animal life left on this planet that is either not domesticated or where significant number of them is in zoos. Even sharks, species that survived for hundreds of millions of years, have had their population decimated by 90%.

Biodiversity boom my ass. You seem to conveniently ignore reality.

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[quantaman]

Of course, since gradual warming over centuries or millennia in the past was good for life in the past it makes sense that rapid warming over decades would be just as good now (though humans will have to acclimate to some floods and famine).

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[ChrisMaple]

Biodiversity boom my ass. You seem to conveniently ignore reality.

I bet you don't like GMOs.

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[rastoboy29]

The warming is a toxic pollution, because it's happening so fast.

Ocean acidification is a direct consequence of increased carbon emissions.

If we manage to kill off our oceans, we will all die.  That's my concern.  So I think we should make a real, sincere (but not panicky) effort to change this.

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake the fuck up! We are in the midst of 6th great extinction. And places not directly affected by human activity are getting savaged too because the warming is happening much too fast (sea coral for example)

Who the fuck cares, dude? It won't be the last one. Same to all the people who keep telling me the polar bears are going to die out: Nobody should be giving a shit! This is natural. Environments change, species go extinct. The ones that can adapt will, the others won't.

This includes humans. And I'm pretty sure we can survive it.

Re:Good News! Warmer since the ice age

[pubwvj]

Great extinctions are followed by long periods where life blooms and flourishes with new species appearing. You need to abandon your local, personal, egocentric timescale and look on it from the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. That's the real world.

Moscow, Mexico City, Beijing

[Anonymous Coward]

What are we going to do about the 9 billion people that don't live in a society that can afford solar panels and Priusiz again. Shame them into stepping back into pre-industrial technology. Threaten them with armed conflict lest they keep struggling to build a middle class at the cost of our air and water.

11,000 Year Peak: So we are going down!

[BoRegardless]

Great news. We have an 11,000 year solar cycle then, right?

Re:11,000 Year Peak: So we are going down!

[scorp1us]

No, 22,000. This is the upswing. You forgot to include the down-swing.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what people are worried about is a run-away global warming contingency. If that happens then it's only a matter of time before our atmosphere bleeds off and the Earth is left looking a lot like Mars. In the distant future, travelers visiting our planet might not think it a very significant place to visit. They may even never realize there was once life here. Of course, the time scales for all of this happening are on such large magnitudes that the average person won't care. But, it affects your descendants if that matters.

Scare-tactics....

[DaCaptn19]

just googled it because I wanted to know what the hottest temps were within this 11000 year period. results http://goo.gl/FpzFH .....Some news sites are using this same data and claiming it to be hotter than it has been in the last 11k years....... The people that want us to believe the lie that is MANmade global warming know that perception = reality. If they can spew enough lies and claims it does not matter if they are actually true. There are idiots everywhere that will believe it.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe every American should support green energy, just as long as you don't put that eyesore of a wind farm in my back yard.

Sincerely,
Edward Kennedy

Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

dnrffma. Did Not Read Full Fear Mongering Article.

1. title of slashdot post: "global temperatures are close to 11,000 year peak".
2. first paragraph of post: "Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years."

thus,

A. higher than 50% of past 11,300 years means higher than the middle. doesn't say much.
B. higher than 100% of past 11,300 years means peak is right now. says a lot, only with respect to last 11,300 years and not last 500,000 years.
C. higher than 75% of past 11,300 years means right smack dab middle between A. and B.

in conclusion:

BIG FUCKING DEAL. nature.com needs to be shot in the head and put out of my misery.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at hypothetical temperature samples over a five year period.

Year one: 10 degrees
Year two: 11 degrees
Year three: 14 degrees
Year four: 25 degrees
Year five: 23 degrees

A: Year three, at 14 degrees, is higher than 50% of other years .
B: Year four, at 25 degrees, is higher than 100% of other years
C: Year five, at 23 degrees, is higher than 75% of other years

Do you notice how C is not right smack dab in the middle of the variance between A and B? I think you should use this as an opportunity to reflect on who should be shot in the head.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since humans are the main cause of "global warming", then someone who truly believes should shoot themselves, as the ultimate carbon off-set.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know reading comprehension is really, really hard, but look over my post again. I'm not defending global warming whatsoever, let alone man made global warming. I'm telling you your reasoning is poor.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[tmosley]

So you are saying that mankind actually went through the industrial revolution 2,750 years ago, and like, all the history textbooks are like, totally lying to us?

Groovy, man.

In case you don't get it, your hypothetical is poorly designed. It should be year one, year 2200, year 4400, year 6600, year 8800, and year 11000, of which humanity has been significantly industrialized for only 100 years.

Also, it's pretty twisty of you to try to claim that the authors of the study were so stupid as to take only a few time points, rather than a more continuous histogram. Twisty twisty snake, AC.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

nature.com needs to be shot in the head and put out of my misery.

That won't do you much good. Since they're just summarizing results that were published by their rival sciencemag.org, you need to murder them too, and probably exterminate all these fear-mongering scientists over at pnas.org as well. Seriously, who needs 'em scientists? What has science ever done for humanity?

Sarcasm-free version: you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. What is a stupid fuck like you even doing on slashdot? Hand over that fake geek card and go troll the YouTube comments sections, buddy.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at hypothetical temperature samples over a five year period.

Hypothetical is an important word there. The example was meant to show that the OP's reasoning was flawed, not to be representative of the data in the study.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they're just summarizing results that were published by their rival sciencemag.org, you need to murder them too, and probably exterminate all these fear-mongering scientists over at pnas.org as well. Seriously, who needs 'em scientists? What has science ever done for humanity?

Your vote to include pnas.org in the shoot-them-in-the-head pool has been registered. Thank you very much!
Also, please don't pretend to be that intellectually stupid, obvious is obvious. Do not group sellout and non-sellout scientists together.

Re:Meaningless fear mongering.

[Anonymous Coward]

intellectually stupid

I wasn't aware there was another kind of stupid.

This

[Sparticus789]

As with all "global warming" topics, I can divide the opinions based on their mod points:
[-1,1] = "global warming is a farce"
[2,5] = "global warming is supported by a majority of scientists, debate over, hand over the keys to your SUV"

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid opinions get downvoted; that's not a bug it's a feature.

Re:This

[Anonymous Coward]

That shows the moderation system is working, right? The people who are wrong (as per 99% of the people most knowledgeable in the matter, climate scientists) are getting modded down.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[GameboyRMH]

Anthony Watts' homepage, WattsUpWithThat (brought to you by the Heartland Institute)

Of the last 11,000?

[SirCodeAlot]

Wow, that's like almost as long as the entire Earth's history right? OMG!!! WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

Still a model

[Anonymous Coward]

This information is still based off of a model and estimated with small snapshots from particular regions of the earth. we do not have the capability to accurately predict weather for just a few days in the future. we have less than a century of statistically significant past temperature records. so, 100 years (at best) for a 11,000 year prediction? no more than 0.9% of the time to make a model? our models of weather on the earth is woefully inadequate, and yet, climatologists insist that we take drastic measures based on this poor information.

climate is always cyclical.. it is the nature of a balancing system. climate change is guaranteed as part of the cycle. we need to determine if the cycle is out of the normal bounds, but we have millions of man hours of research/study and potentially decades of time before we can begin to comprehend our earth's complex system.

Re:Still a model

[riverat1]

... our models of weather on the earth is woefully inadequate, and yet, climatologists insist that we take drastic measures based on this poor information.

Weather models are not climate models. They are two fundamentally different problems. Since climatology is fundamentally a statistical science modeling climate is like modeling the outcome of 1,000 rolls of a pair of dice.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[kenh]

The cited statistic is enough to mock this report. It's warmer now than it has been 74% of the time in the past 11,300 years. Seriously? WOuldn't that mean for 25% of the past 11,300 years the average temperature was HIGHER?! WHat makes the current temp so noteworthy? Because it is above the average, but below the highest temperature in the past 11,300 years?

Re:Global Warming?

[i kan reed]

Well, ten thousandish, but who's counting?

Yeah

[Viewsonic]

I'm so sick of snow.

Ok, get over it

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Yes, the planet is heating up, time to figure out what to do next.

All this bullshit about blaming us for warming up the planet. Whether we have directly done this, or some natural occurring change has happened, its irrelevant.

Bottom line is, yes lets stop living as an excessive society. If we can make technology that don't pump pollutants or excessive CO2 into the atmosphere then lets do it. Don't do it to "Save the Planet" do it because it its just about being state-of-the art. Like, how about we stop exploding hydrocarbons in mechanical devices invented 100 years ago so that only 5% of the available energy is used to move us towards a drive thru. I think we can come up with better ways to propelling ourselves forward that doesn't involve exploding something.

Second, yes, if you live on the coast you are going to have problems with rising sea levels and super-storms. Deal with it. Don't build cheap flimsy buildings next to the ocean, and if you can't afford to strengthen you home, then move. Katrina and Sandy are a beginning, not anomalies. All those people wanting a nice view when they wake up in the morning need to wake up and realize that view will try to kill them one day. I'm tired of people bemoaning when their house got washed away when they choose to live below sea level. 99% of the country is not on the fucking coast.

Third, don't worry about the fucking polar bears. The polar bears only came into existence 600,000 years ago during the last ice age. They evolved from regular black or brown bears to deal better with falling temperatures and long term snowy conditions. Times change, animals evolve. Lamenting the loss of a species that evolved to survive specialized climate conditions that are changing is just stupid. Yes, they evolved, God didn't put them there for us to tend to and coddle.

Lastly, we will not destroy our planet. Sure, conditions for human survival might make it more difficult in the long run, and I am sure that as pressures mount from having 7+ billion people vying for a better quality of life might eventually wipe us out from global war, the bottom line is the planet itself has survived far worse then us. Plants and animals, and eventually another evolution of a dominant intelligent species will probably happen several more times over the next few billions years until the sun blows up and nukes the plant forever more. But the idea we will turn our planet into Mars is just laughable. Think about it, what plant doesn't like warmer weather and more CO2?

Everybody grab a towel and don't panic! Its just a warming planet. Its been warm, its been cold, it keeps going and going.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[kenh]

Thank you Mr. Kennedy, I'd love a ride home after the party...

Sincerely,

Mary Jo Kopechne

I question the accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Of temperature data collected 11,000 years ago. In fact, I don't believe they have any accurate temperature data from 11,000 years ago. Appears this was all made up.

Re:I question the accuracy

[riverat1]

Sez the guy who has no clue about the actual science behind the study.

Good news to me

[buybuydandavis]

"Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years"

Good?

I thought we were all burning to a crisp in completely unprecedented temperatures in human history. 75th percentile doesn't frighten me. The assumption of 100th percentile at the end of the century hardly seems terrifying either.

Re:Good news to me

[geekoid]

How about you read the article? Then apologize for making such a stupid statement.

Re:Good news to me

[buybuydandavis]

Another well reasoned retort on Slashdot. Well done!

Re:Good news to me

[riverat1]

Problem is at the rate temperatures are increasing they will be higher than 100% of the past 11,300 years (and actually at least the past 100,000 years) within 50 years.

warm climate

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Canadian cotton farmers need to make a living too.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[kenh]

To quote (aproximately) Dennis MIller on Global Warming - "Look, I love my kids, I'll love my grand kids, and I guess I care about my great grandchildren, but after that, f__k it - I don't care."

Re:Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate chan

[GameboyRMH]

The big problem with this is that we're warming up while we should be going into another ice age.

But...

[kenh]

Cooler than it has been 25% of the time the past 11,000 years.

So much misleading.

[argStyopa]

1) Cherry-picked data alert: when someone picks a data set of "11300 years" it suggests Cherry-Picking. Why not 10k, 20k, 50k years? Does that not 'fit' the message?

2) from the article:
"...After the ice age, they found, global average temperatures rose until they reached a plateau between 7550 and 3550 bc. Then a long-term cooling trend set in, reaching its lowest temperature extreme between ad 1450 and 1850...."
So let's see, after an ice age it warmed, then it reached a "low temp extreme" and now it's high? Hm, almost like it's cyclic.

Again, it's obvious from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
There is a 'pulse' of warm temps approx every 120k years, and has been for at least 500,000 years, if not 1 million years or more (the sliding scale on the referenced graph is hard to discern). We're - in fact - overdue for our most recent pulse of warmth.

Now, hypothetically: cast us back to the last pulse, about 200k years ago. Had human society existed (in its current tech state) at that time, how would we have interpreted that pulse? Would we have recognized it as a regular cycle, or would politicians (and their fellow-travelers, who have been screaming about the destruction of the environment for 40 years now) have opportunistically re-interpreted it as "human-caused"?

Re:So much misleading.

[Sparticus789]

Hm, almost like it's cyclic.

You might be on to something here....

Re:So much misleading.

[pk001i]

1) Why would an 11,300 year data set imply cherry picking? Because it is not a round enough number for you? Perhaps this temperature record is based on foraminifera. Perhaps those are obtained through gravity or piston coring. Perhaps in regions where you need a high enough sedimentation rate to resolve temperatures at 200-400 year intervals, you can only recover 11,300 years. I have only briefly read the article, but it is likely that before 11,300 years, they did not have the time resolution to accurately resolve the temperature prior to this point. This is a data resolution issue, not an "i'm hiding the truths from you" issue.

2) It is the rate of those changes that the authors are highlighting. Absolute temperatures aren't that telling (it has been both much colder and much warmer on earth at various times in history). If the current rate of temperature change had previously occurred in the past 11,300 years (i.e. was driven by natural sources) then they would have seen some indication of it. It would not have been as pronounced as the current trend, due to lower temporal resolution (which acts as a low pass filter), but it still would have appeared.

I don't think anyone is arguing that there are not climate cycles (see Milankovish, also, straw man). But you are comparing events that are happening on much different time scales. Prior to 100 years ago, the temperature had been falling for ~5000 years. In the past 100 years, the temperature has risen to what it was 5000 years ago. Clearly whatever cycle was occurring on a 10000 year period is not the same cycle that we are dealing with now.

Re:So much misleading.

[geekoid]

1) answered in the article

2) Why do you over look the the previous cycles took several thousands of years, and the current trend has taken 100 years?

"We're - in fact - overdue for our most recent pulse of warmth."
we are in the middle of an ice age, between glacial and interglacial cycles.

Those aren't pulses, it only look that's what compared to the rest of the graph because it's measures a shorter period of time.are shorter.
You fail and understanding charts.

Shame on you for linking to an out of context graph, btw.

Re:So much misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, science suggests, unlike religion, that the Earth wasn't created 11,300 years ago. Some even suggest that for most of the last 300 million, there were no polar caps at all, their presence is an aberration, and we're currently still way below average temp.

Some sciences even show that the last glacial maximum was about 23Kya, a sharp cooling called the Younger Dryas ended right at the time this scale started, and that said event took place for only about a thousand years, with the sharp decline in temps and resultant rise taking less than a century each.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

Mars lost its atmosphere relatively quickly because it doesn't have a strong magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. While earths atmosphere would expand somewhat as it warms, it would still be well within the protective confines of the earths magnetosphere. So, no, the earth will not lose its atmosphere with runaway global warming.

tell that to

[Anonymous Coward]

the three feet of snow on the ground in march.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[gr8_phk]

I think what people are worried about is a run-away global warming contingency. If that happens then it's only a matter of time before our atmosphere bleeds off and the Earth is left looking a lot like Mars.

Seriously? Who'se worried about that? And based on what evidence? It has also been found that increased CO2 cools the upper extremities of the atmosphere causing it to "shrink", which is quite the opposite of bleeding off into space.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[kellymcdonald78]

49 million years ago, CO2 levels were 2-5 times higher than they are today, methane concentrations were 2-3 times higher. 500 million years ago CO2 levels were 20 time higher. In neither case did run-away global warming occur that allowed "our atmosphere to bleed off" A "destroy the Earth's capacity to support life" scenario is not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. What we need to be worried about is the economic impact of shifting acricultural regions, rising sea levels and potentially more active weather. Mother Earth has been through catastrophies far beyond anything the human race can currently inflict. Life survived Chicxulub, Sudbury, and Vredefort, it survived the Oxygen Catastrophe. It will survive us, the question is, will "we" survive us

Re:Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate chan

[dave420]

Your ignorance of this subject is simply staggering. I beg you, as one sentient human being to another - research the various effects on the global climate (of which this cycle is just one), and see the correlation (or lack thereof) to global temperature. It's not as clear-cut as you seem to think it is. Hint: If you think you can debunk a well-established branch of science in a one-paragraph post to Slashdot, you're most likely wrong.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Caffinated]

Well, the article didn't note the alarming part of that so well. The issue isn't the temperature at the moment so much as the really alarming rate of change. Here's a chart that documents the history and recent changes. Notice anything odd about the recent record relative to the entire temperature record going back to the dawn of agriculture?

They filtered data to create alarming results...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/08/marcott-et-al-claim-of-unprecedented-warming-compared-to-gisp-ice-core-data/#more-81694

Problem with paper

[PerMolestiasEruditio]

A number of reviewers have noted that the methodology is somewhat flawed in that the temporal resolution of the proxies used to reconstruct ancient temperatures is very low - up to 500 years, whereas the modern global temperature data that is appended to produce the hockeystick graph is at high resolution.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23247-true-face-of-climates-hockey-stick-graph-revealed.html

This, along with the averaging effect of combining numerous noisy proxy data streams has the effect of removing significant features such as the medieval, roman, minoan warming periods where temperatures rose by as much as 2C for periods of 1-300 years. It also removes similar long duration temperature dips.

So ultimately the picture presented of historical temperatures is not realistic, if we were to apply the same temporal low pass filtering to the modern temperature record as well you would not even see the recent temperature rise, and the little ice age would probably disappear as well. Eg look as Gisp2 ice core temp data for a reasonably good picture of historic temperatures:
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6063/gisp2.jpg
shows same general trend as this paper, just preserves the frequent 1-500 year temp oscillations

Re:Problem with paper

[geekoid]

Interesting the the picture you link to supports the paper. But you probably just saw some line you thought support you ignorance and posted a link.
You are comparing multi 1000 year rise to a 100 year rise. Did you even know that? do you even know what that means?

Why are you so hell bent in not learning the actual science but still post an opinion based on ignorance? Did you note that accounted for the issue you brought up?

It isn't 1975 anymore. We have a ton of data. They only signification place climatologist have been show to be wrong is that they didn't think it would happen as fast as it is.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[OakDragon]

Not to mention, he misspelled Faux News - the quotes around "News" don't make up for that!

You Are Either Misinformed or Ignorant ...

[eldavojohn]

Warming is good for life. You might not be acclimated to it but the reality is when we have periods of cooling we have die offs and when we have periods of warming there is an expansion of species, of biodiversity. The Earth has been much warmer in the past and that was good for life.

Well, clearly you have all the answers so let me ask you: how rapid can the warming occur in order for an "expansion of species, of biodiversity"? Because something that concerns me is that the larger species -- especially those we depend on for food -- have a hard time rapidly evolving within a few hundred years. Those high points of warming happened an order of magnitude or two slower than the rate we're moving at. The bacteria and cockroaches will flourish but the humans, plants and meat sources are going to have a really bad time. In this case, the rate of change or "derivative" is what should be concerning you.

Keep embracing accelerated global warming though. Let me know when the water wars near the equator and famines start to cause you concern.

Re:You Are Either Misinformed or Ignorant ...

[tmosley]

Not to comment on AGW, but evolution tends to happen very quickly, as a result of selective pressure. It has been shown to occur in just 50 years in Australia, where snakes have evolved a different head shape so that they will no longer attempt to eat poisonous cane toads.

Evolution is FAST. Warming isn't really that big of a deal in the current die-off. That is caused mostly by loss of habitat, introduction of invasive species, and hunting/eradication efforts.

The real problem is ocean acidification, which is a direct result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Species will no doubt rapidly evolve to deal with it, but we are unlikely to like the results RE fisheries.

Re:You Are Either Misinformed or Ignorant ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to comment on AGW, but evolution tends to happen very quickly, as a result of selective pressure. It has been shown to occur in just 50 years in Australia, where snakes have evolved a different head shape so that they will no longer attempt to eat poisonous cane toads. Evolution is FAST. Warming isn't really that big of a deal in the current die-off. That is caused mostly by loss of habitat, introduction of invasive species, and hunting/eradication efforts. The real problem is ocean acidification, which is a direct result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Species will no doubt rapidly evolve to deal with it, but we are unlikely to like the results RE fisheries.

So let me get this straight: because it took only fifty years for snakes to slightly alter the shape of their heads in response to toads, cattle in Texas are going to weather the heat and drought just fine? Some selective pressures (increase in temperature/decrease in water) can be so strong that they are no longer selective pressures. Cane toads being a possible food source are a horrible analogy.

Re:You Are Either Misinformed or Ignorant ...

[riverat1]

The rate of evolution of a species is dependent on the species life time and reproduction rate. Smaller species with short lifetimes and higher reproduction rates will evolve faster.

Re:Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate chan

[ChrisMaple]

Should be going into another ice age? By what standard? For what good? How long do you think civilization lasts when the entire globe looks like today's Antarctica?

Re:Global Warming?

[Murdoch5]

On slashdot using numbers to constitute a joke is a trolling remark.

Wait a minute

[wulfmans]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/17/worlds-oldest-tree-rewrites-climate-history-challenges-global-warming http://www.climate-skeptic.com/temperature_history/ http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm Everybody can make the data do tricks for them. First it was Global cooling, then it was Global warming, then it was Climate change Because you know that change is good right ?

Re:Wait a minute

[geekoid]

Stop.
"Global cooling, "
no. in 1975 there was concern about the incoming glacial period. THAT is what they were talking about.

" Global warming"
was about the increase in temperature do to trapped carbon.

They are both real, they are both happening, and global warming effects are having a greater influences.

STOP repeating that, it makes you look like a numb nuts.

"Climate change "
it was changed to climate change becasue numb nuts like you assumed global warming meant the weather would get warmer, and every time there was a heavy winter you would be like 'where is the warming herp, derp."

Setting aside the fact that sience, by it's nature, can change with new data.
Those links have be thoroughly debunked.That don't stand up against the data.

Re:Wait a minute

[angel'o'sphere]

no. in 1975 there was concern about the incoming glacial period. THAT is what they were talking about.
That concern only existed in the USA.
The rest of the world was well aware since the 1910th that we are moving into AGW.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Anonymous Coward]

Faux is pronounced "foh

Re: Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flawed logic. Just because humans have only been around for 150,000 years doesn't mean that the world would not have supported humans.
There are plenty if species that either exist or don't for reasons other than suitability if the environment.

about 75% of the past 11,300 years

[Anonymous Coward]

When a news agency in the Seattle area does a piece on TOXIC cosmetics, and quotes "Drag Queens" and to the quality of the the non-toxic product, my faith in reporting agencies flags.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[azadrozny]

I find that graph a little hard to read, given its scale and lack of other documentation. I would love to see the source data and study if it is publicly available. I am a bit curious about why the data stops at 1990 (I assume that is the year of the study). Also, how can we be sure about temperature data going back 13k years to within hundredths of a degree of precision? Is it fair to get alarmed over a 0.6 degree rise in average temperatures over a 30 year period, but then compare them to historical estimates which may not have the same level of detail? I am not trolling; just trying to understand what this is telling us.

Re:11,000 Year Peak: So we are going down!

[BoRegardless]

I was being quietly facetious. Indeed at some point in the 110,000 year cycle, we are destined fairly soon to start moving into a down trend (55,000 years) and then people are going to scream bloody murder that "Cooling is the fault of industrialization's soot." or similar.

The Solar induced Ice Ages will return, in spite of politicians, do-gooders and worry warts. Northern hemisphere above about 50 degrees latitude will again go under a kilometers thick ice sheet. No one darn thing humans can do will stop this.

Poor that pay

[ace37]

It's the poor who will pay. I don't mean the middle class, I mean the 1 billion+ people who live on less than $1 a day. They will starve in greater numbers and die in greater numbers - they can't move, or "buy less ski equipment". I get that you don't care about that, but I hope that as a society we can bring ourselves to give a shit.

While I completely agree with your sentiment and emotional judgment, I slightly disagree with the point you make here. If I as a member of society want to reach out to the world's impoverished, I'm not going to effectively demonstrate my altruism by buying a hybrid or pushing for 'better' emissions laws. I'm going to do it by spending some of my resources supporting my favorites of the many community organizations, charities, government organizations, individual efforts, etc. who are striving to implement long term solutions to the problems of impoverished nations.

Those living on $1 a day don't give a damn about my CO2 emissions. They'll be dead before that really bites them. They want food and shelter today. The upcoming generations suffering the same fate is an issue, but with little effort, we can fix many of the the root causes over the coming decades, and it has almost nothing to do with our emissions. We should be developing and executing plans at many levels to build up basic infrastructure and establish the rule of law, and we should be looking at areas with great need and areas where we have a great ability to bring about meaningful change. Hopefully then the great grandchildren of those people can eventually join ours in a world community trying to resolve more of the global warming mess. And if not, they can all compete to buy prime Canadian and Siberian coastal real estate. Either way, nobody is starving, and our world will be much better off than if we continue to sit together arguing about emissions and giving the impoverished our pity while we leave them alone to figure out their problems.

Today, I think one of the biggest battles is to change the views of the citizens of our developed societies. I hope by the end of my lifetime we've started to believe we have a great responsibility to uplift the impoverished fellow citizens of this planet we all share.

Re:Poor that pay

[geekoid]

And how well iwll they fare when crop lands become arid? when water is scarce? when other countries begin to become more impoverished?

How about we star reducing CO2, and develop technologies and industries that hire people?

at our current rat, there great grand children wont' have much to live for.

Re:Poor that pay

[ThisIsSaei]

How does melting ice and world flooding equal arid land and scarce water?

Re:Poor that pay

[Blaskowicz]

Melting ice means the land glaciers melt away too, hence you lose natural water storage that builds up in the winter and flows downstream the rest of the year. A staggering number of people rely on these snowy and icy mountains, when they aren't icy and snowy anymore bad things will happen.

Then, in already semi-arid areas, hotter weather probably means they dry out more easily by evaporation. Higher evaporation from seas means global precipitation should increase and maybe some areas will receive much more rain but that doesn't mean China or e.g. semi-desertic regions of Spain won't get fucked.

An article that cites Michael Mann uncritically?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding. Yes, kids, the Earth warms after an ice age. No kids, any report that favorable cites the totally discredited hockey stick of Michael Mann and doesn't even mention the fact that RANDOM NOISE fed into Mann's simulation produces a hockey stick should be looked at ascance.

No kids, there is nothing in the article to suggest that this new technique is any more reliable than tree rings, especially since the researcher ADMITS that the modern temperature records DON'T MATCH UP WITH HIS MODEL, which is EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM MANN'S RESEARCH HAD.

Why is it acceptable to keep producing this rubbish 'peer reviewed' by the same scoundrels that cherry picked the data every time they can't *reproduce* their biased expectations? Claims which do not comport to the Scientific Method are not science.

Re:Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate chan

[Anonymous Coward]

So...what causes an ice age. You seem to know something more than physicists know. Have you altered the orbital variation of the earth or something?

Free Land

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'm moving to Greenland for all the great farmland abandoned by the Vikings when it got cold. Now that it's so much hotter I think I'll move there and start a winery like they used to run.

What would we do without this week's global warming scare? What about the data that shows no significant warming in the last 17 years? Unfortunately there is NO ONE on the whole subject that I would believe without a lot of background research.

we are still emerging from the most recent ice age

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qjj99

Re:Good

[denvergeek]

Right, because weather is fucking totally the same thing as climate.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[denvergeek]

I got a statistic for you. You're a dick. Calling an opposing viewpoint "pro-ignorance" totally works.

Close to all time peak?

[CrimsonAvenger]

So, in the top 25% is now "close to the all time peak" for the last 11000 years?

Would it be vaguely possible to at least get titles that weren't deliberately alarmist?

The world was 10+C warmer.

[Anonymous Coward]

And since in that time (half a billion years ago) the sun was 5% cooler and that's equal to 15 doublings, you're missing quite a huge chunk of your argument.

Paleo data supports a climate sensitivity of 1.5-6C per doubling of CO2's forcing.

And so many things won't survive our actions.

Incorrect.

[Anonymous Coward]

A string of numbers

10,10,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1

And another 10 is higher than 75% of the numbers in that list.
It is not lower than 25% of them. There are no numbers lower.

We were at the warm spot 10000 years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go look at the temperature graph of the past few galcial/interglacial cycles.

Glacial warms up, peaks slow decline in the interglacial FROM that peak, then drop into glacial quickly.

Somewhat over 10000 years ago we were at that peak just at the exit from the previous glacial period. We have been spending most of the subsequent 10000 years dropping temperatures slowly.

Until the last century.

Talking about alarmism

[microbox]

If I had to guess, it's probably a reaction to the ridiculous alarmist end-times rhetoric from the less competent believers.

This is why the US has done nothing about global warming. The actions of fetishist environmentalists are only tangential to the issue. You see, all you have to do is *claim* that radical environmentalists are doing yadayada, then have some liberal say something snarky, rinse and repeat ad-neuseum on Fox and conservative radio, and the oft-repeated lie becomes the truth. Just as Hitler claimed.

Every time an industry is up for regulation, they claim that the world is going to end. Think: acid rain (it will ruin the economy, and do nothing about acid rain anyway!!!), think: CFCs (it will ruin the economy, and do nothing about the ozone anyway!!!). This whining works, for decades and decades, because they buy laws and politicians, and lobby the public with all sorts of disinformation.

The largest segment of alarmists in the climate change "debate" are those that claim action will ruin the economy, when there is empirical evidence today that this is simply not the case.

And the GOP is apparently the party against crony capitalism.

Re:Man-Made Global Warming vs Natural Climate chan

[geekoid]

Actually we are in the middle of an ice age. I think he means glacial and interglacial periods.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[riverat1]

No true American would use the French pronunciation of that word. They're surrender monkeys after all.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[riverat1]

The data didn't stop in 1990. The "(AD 1961-1990)" caption indicates that 0 on the temperature anomaly scale is the average temperature from 1961 to 1990 and the data presented is the difference from that average.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[dbIII]

If you find the graph hard to read then how are you going to be able to get anything out of the source data? If you are being honest (yes, I know, this is an old trick out of the luddites playbook so little to no chance) you can look at the references to get an idea of what is going on, but being able to work out what the source data itself is indicating is likely to require a lot of work and some serious background in interpreting it.

I am not trolling; just trying to understand what this is telling us.

Everyone has heard that Glenn Beck weasel "I'm not saying" trick by now.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[symbolset]

Here's the same graph extended just a wee bit to the left: http://imgur.com/8PudKkh

It's amazing how framing the picture tells the story.

Original AC here

[Anonymous Coward]

And for those of us who want to form our opinions based on science, but aren't climatologists, looking to the people who are and actually do study and understand climate science and asking them is wrong... how exactly?

It isn't exactly wrong... but it isn't exactly right either. Delegating your opinion to experts is just fine; but at least admit that's what you're doing.

The opportunity for "wrong" is that you can be biased to choose one expert or priest over another. You're likely to make this choice based on, to some extent, what the guy next to you thinks.

I'm not saying there's any real solution to this problem either. Humanity is, to some extent, doomed to follow leaders. I can't actually *prove* that mind you; but there's a lot of history to back it up. There's even some science, such as the infamous Milgram experiment. If most people can be trained to give deadly shocks, surely they can be trained to cut carbon emissions.

I just don't see any way out of it either. Beyond simple equations like A=pi*r*r, it's virtually impossible for a layman to follow proofs. The "priesthood" problem may be intractable.

Re:Original AC here

[Chris Burke]

The opportunity for "wrong" is that you can be biased to choose one expert or priest over another. You're likely to make this choice based on, to some extent, what the guy next to you thinks.

I choose the concesus. I never choose "one" expert unless I'm sure that expert is representing the concensus opinion of many scientists. If there's large segments with varying opinions, usually indicating a lack of data to explain which is more correct, then I remain agnostic. If there's one expert who disagrees with everyone else, I am leery of that expert's opinion, even if it's exactly what I want to hear.

If that expert turns out to be right, then that will eventually be reflected by the rest of the scientific community as the evidence becomes more and more convincing. As has happened over and over again.

Could this still mean I pick the wrong group of experts? Yeah.

Is that anything like a priesthood? No. That comparison is just stupid.

Ogg, put out that fire!

[istartedi]

Don't you realize that it'll warm the Earth? In 10,000 years San Francisco Valley would become a bay, and we wouldn't be able to walk to the Farallon Hills any more. We'll have a helluva time getting back to Asia if we decide we don't like it here. It'll be the end of the world as we know it. A complete and utter disaster.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[Caffinated]

The chart is the data from the paper which is the basis for this story. Previous temperature record reconstructions only went back 2,000 years or so, this one went back over 11,000 years to provide more context. Even in the shorter 2,000 year chart the recent change is hard to parse since it's so nearly vertical. Anyway, the paper here was to show how the recent changes are far, far, larger and more rapid than any that have been seen since civilization began.

Re:Global Warming?

[Blaskowicz]

This is just a silly wording of the usual argument from so-called conservatives that was earth was warmer 250 million years ago so there's nothing wrong if it rapidly warms today and "earth will recover anyway". This should be modded "+5 Troll".
Besides, why wouldn't "conservatives" want to conserve Earth's climate?

Rearrange the first 2 sentences

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm going to rearrange the first 2 sentences before i provide my intellectual commentary.

Researchers have reconstructed global climate trends all the way back to when the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from the most recent ice age. Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years, a study published in Science suggests.

DUH! pretend an ice age is a walk-in freezer. walk into it. it's cold. walk out of it. you warm up. walk further away from it. you warm up some more. geez.

Re:Rearrange the first 2 sentences

[riverat1]

Except the simple assumption that it's been warming since the end of the last glaciation is wrong. Temperatures hit a peak about 8,000 years ago during the Holocene Climatic Optimum and have generally been cooling ever since.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[angel'o'sphere]

This is not correct.
The magnetic field is helpfull but not that relevant.
Mars atmosphere is mainly "frozen" and is captured in the rocks. If you warm up Mars to roughly 20Â at the equator it will have an atmosphere again with roughly half the pressure earth has at the equator.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[angel'o'sphere]

If that happens then it's only a matter of time before our atmosphere bleeds off and the Earth is left looking a lot like Mars.
That is nonsense. Mars "lost" its atmosphere due to cooling, not heating.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[angel'o'sphere]

Considering that only half of france surrendered ... and that the south surrendered to the north, does that not make americans "surrender monkeys", too?

Assuming the study is accurate....

[Ferretman]

....(and I haven't examined the various data sources to make a judgement on that yet) but thank goodness! This means that we've finally recovered from the effects of the last Ice Age!

Of course, it also means we're going to start the downhill slope back into the next one if historical records are any indication....

Ferret

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[riverat1]

I forgot the /sarcasm tag.

Nice, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody I know believes anything climate 'scientists' say anymore, so what's the point of publishing this drivel.

ZERO

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering from the last decade of the 19th century until now global average temperatures have not risen at all. zero! nada! zilch! nothing!
AMEN

No shit

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, since we're coming out of the coldest glaciation in the last 300 million years.

Re:11,000 Year Peak: So we are going down!

[riverat1]

Actually temperatures have been on a downward trend since about 8,000 years ago until the recent sharp rise that happens to coincide with the rise in human burning of fossil fuels. According to a study a couple of years ago we've already caused enough temperature rise to prevent the next glaciation from happening.

Aren't your ears burning?

[Anonymous Coward]

or the rest of you yet?

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

If the temperature of the earth were higher, it's atmosphere would be a lot thicker too, but that's not the point. Mars cannot hold onto an atmosphere long term because it doesn't have anything to keep it from being blown away. Even if we crashed a bunch of comets into it and increased the temperature by adding greenhouse gasses, the atmosphere would still eventually be blown away by the solar wind.

Berryllium Not Necessary for LFTR's

[wanfuse123]

It is also possible to operate without beryllium fluoride in the salt. It is possible to operate on lithium fluoride-thorium fluoride eutectic without beryllium, as the French LFTR design, the "TMSR", has chosen. Also as far as Zirconium, LFTR's create Zirconium during their burning process as a byproduct. Fission of 1000 kg U-233 produces several chemicals essential for industry, readily extracted from a LFTR, including 150kg xenon, 125kg neodymium (high-strength magnets), 20kg medical molybdenum-99, 20kg radiostrontium, zirconium, rhodium, ruthenium, and palladium. Don't take my word for it. There is NO shortage of natural resources. Sufficient other natural resources such as beryllium, lithium, nickel and molybdenum are available to build thousands of LFTRs. see Wikipedia. http://rawcell.com

Know your subject matter

[dbIII]

It's not that type of reactor, as the second item in a google search for "LFTR reactor India" would have told you.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?51296-India-building-thorium-based-reactor--AHWR-not-LFTR--

As I wrote above, it's a few decades more advanced than the 1950s oak ridge devils brew you are going on about.

Interesting article at your link but many errors

[dbIII]

Also, sadly, the reactor you are referring to in your article is neither LFTR or even a thorium reactor at all - the reactor nearing completion at Kalpakkam has a wikipedia page.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_Fast_Breeder_Reactor

It's worth writing about on it's own merits instead of pretending it has anything at all to do with LFTR.

Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican...

[azadrozny]

I did not mean to ask for the raw data, although I see how it could appear that is what I was looking for. The graph appears to have been pulled from a published paper. A Google Scholar search did not reveal the source of the graph. A link, or reference to the paper would be helpful.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[angel'o'sphere]

Over a time span of hundrets of millions of years ....

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

Sure, and Mars has been around for billions. Some of it's atmosphere may have frozen, but vastly more has been blown away.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[angel'o'sphere]

Did you do the math?

With all due respect I doubt that.

The "blown away" thing is a myth from science fiction stories.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

Citation needed.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[angel'o'sphere]

Lol, then bring a citation for your claims first ...

Why transparency in science is a neccessity

[Anonymous Coward]

All you need to know so far with the help of Steve McIntyre.

http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/13/marcott-mystery-1/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/14/no-uptick-in-marcott-thesis/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/15/marcotts-zonal-reconstructions/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/15/how-marcottian-upticks-arise/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/16/the-marcott-shakun-dating-service/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/03/17/hiding-the-decline-the-md01-2421-splice/

It is time to make all data and methods funded by taxpayers to be made available in a transparent manner. If any private research is used to lobby government decisions, those studies must also be put through a transparency process similar to taxpayer funded research. Openness in science is the only way forward.

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

Very well: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/atmosphere/Martian_atmosphere.txt

Re:This is potentially not so good news

[holmstar]

Also: http://books.google.com/books?id=yRMgYc-8mTIC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=mars+nitrates&source=bl&ots=ODL9aBy2LA&sig=Q3X_KKKufBHj2PLeXAExQIWtsyg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=di9KUa29J4TA9QTYzIGwDA&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw