Chain Reaction Shattered Antarctica's Larson B Ice Shelf

New submitter Jim McNicholas writes "At the end of the summer of 2002, all 3000 lakes on the Larsen B ice shelf drained away in the space of a week. And then the 2,700-square-kilometre ice shelf, which was some 220 metres thick and might have existed for some 12,000 years, rapidly disintegrated into small icebergs. The draining of one lake on an ice shelf changes the stress field in nearby areas, causing a fracture circle to form around the lake."

Comments

Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just know it.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[anagama]

Fuck you troll. Is that some kind of inverse defense of the candidate who promised to be the exact opposite kind of president he turned out to be? That Obama is FINALLY getting crap over his crap policies is rightfully earned and very belated -- but to trivialize that by linking it to something obviously unrelated is to attempt to subtly soften the completely appropriate criticism that Obama has spent the last five years channelling Nixon.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[siride]

He hasn't been great, but he has done many of the things he said he would: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no - it'll be far more insidious.. someone will find a way to link this to HAARP.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

He's done few things that are truly important. The Patriot Act? He didn't repeal it. The TSA? He's done nothing. The NSA spying? He basically agrees with it. The surveillance state in general? Again, he basically agrees with it. Neither the republicans nor democrats are any good.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

And he raised the price of healthcare, then forced me to buy it! Gee, thanks, I think. Looking forward to longer lines, and further subsidizing baby boomers who are far richer than I will ever be. Forward!

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

And he raised the price of healthcare, then forced me to buy it!

...and is providing health care to millions upon millions of people who need it and wouldn't otherwise be able to get it. Your issue is petty by comparison.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Dishevel]

And he raised the price of healthcare, then forced me to buy it!

...and is providing health care to millions upon millions of people who need it and wouldn't otherwise be able to get it. Your issue is petty by comparison.

Yup. The freedom to make your own decisions pales in comparison to giving fucked up shit to everyone for free.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those "millions" you're talking about? They're all people who can't afford it like him; now they're required to buy just as the prices are doubling. Three cheers of liberalism! So much for the middle class and the young.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Healthcare prices being on a steady increase since before Obama took office, and actual increases are going down, clearly, it's Obama's fault, and those insurance companies were just preparing for when Obama got elected.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well maybe if the system was all greed based corporate health care, it wouldn't cost so much, but noooo thanks to *conservatism* everything under the sun costs and arm and a leg and is only available to the privileged classes. The system is already rigged to be expensive, and it wasn't liberal ideology that go us there, it was greed.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

People need lots of things. I'm glad you were here to teach me the error of my ways, I should abandon this idea of providing for myself. I'll sit back while guys with guns take my things and give them away and mandate how I use what I have left. Going on the dole is looking better and better, maybe I'll just give up and you can take care of me.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Brett Buck]

I will send you the bill then, OK? Extorting money from me is not a petty matter to me.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[sumdumass]

You can track the rapid increase in the cost of healthcare right back to the HMO act of '68 and when it pumped medicare into the same HMO style managements. That by the way was the brainchild of Senator Ted Kennedy and other liberal do-good'rs, not conservative or conservatism.

It is the same problem with the cost of college increasing by leaps and bounds if you want to get a clue. Here is a hint, that has nothing to do with conservatism either.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple - when you force millions of people to buy something, the price goes up. Economics. And the wealth gap between the young and old grows to a new record.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

there is a yin to every yang.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[ColdWetDog]

Sorry. Try again. The HMO act of 1968, while hardly perfect and starting a cascade of ugly things was pushed through because health care costs were large and accelerating. Before the concept of HMOs.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[therealkevinkretz]

Don't forget one of the most important promises: to make bills available for a week publicly online before signing them. That went away almost as fast as the ban on lobbyists in his cabinet.

And yes, I bitched about W's similar backpedals.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[sumdumass]

No, the HMO act was pushed through because the government was wanting to escape the costs of medicare which it created in 1965. The costs of medicare increased more then expected so they looked for a way out. The government created HMOs while subsidizing them because liberals like Ted Kennedy wanted universal care like the socialist in Europe were putting in place.

Also, it was 73, not 68 that the law is commonly attributed to. I highly doubt you know anything insightful about the law or the conditions surrounding it due to your failure to catch that mistake.

In case you are wondering, the problem with health care costs is the government paying for them. that's what caused them to rise and it's what is continuing to cause them to rise. It's the same reason why college costs are rising too.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[anagama]

Fuck you too.

We get Nixon Care, destruction of the war powers act, masspionage, expansion of Afghanistan, war on the press, war on whistleblowers, war on due process -- Obama is the most evil shit president we've had. It's unbelievable.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Concerned Onlooker]

Yes, you could look at the government as having the legal authority to extort money from its citizens. Or you could look at it as the result of a valid need to collect money to pay for things that we as citizens (generally) wanted, as indicated by our votes.

I'm not really supporting the health care initiative per se, but if I don't get to complain about extortion for paying for the death industry I don't think you should get to complain about having to help pay for the health industry.

Looks like Rumsfeld was right. Democracy is messy.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you're forced by need to drive to work to buy a car, the price goes up?!?!?!?
Seriously, your brain is entirely fucked up by your randian bullshit.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's call Supply & Demand. It's not Randian bullshit, it's economics 101. You ignorance and gut-feelings don't trump reality.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[siride]

Who needs facts when we can engage in massive hyperbole? Obama's nothing special. He ain't great. He's failed to change things that needed to change since Bush. A lot of the stuff you're complaining about is simply a continuation of existing policies or slight expansion. I'm not happy about it, but let's not pretend that he's some sort of Hitler, seizing power and single-handedly changing the shape and function of our government. Hardly. Get over yourself.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why haven't these offtopic trolls been modded down??? Jesus, asshats, go back to 4chan and leave us nerds alone.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

And he raised the price of healthcare, then forced me to buy it! Gee, thanks, I think. Looking forward to longer lines, and further subsidizing baby boomers who are far richer than I will ever be. Forward!

He raised the price of healthcare? Seems to me healthcare was going up year after year even before any of this. This just gives the insurance companies a convenient excuse to jack up rates, sometimes even more than usual, and then say "hey, wasn't our fault" while they pocket the increased profits. They finally have a scapegoat for their greed and they are exploiting it. That's not Obama's fault, that is your for-profit insurance company's fault. My insurance company (BCBS michigan) is a non-profit insurance company. This year (when the first of the Obamacare changes started to take effect) our increases were actually smaller than most of the previous 5 years, and so far it's looking like next year shouldn't be too bad either. Amazing, isn't it, that when you have a for-profit insurer, you see large increases, and when you have a non-profit insurer, the increases are minimal. Actually, it's not that amazing at all.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Sun.Jedi]

Healthcare was rising, by my paystub, at 1% year on year. This year... 6%. And the plan services were weakened. This is not a good thing.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[XcepticZP]

millions of people who need it and wouldn't otherwise be able to get it.

That's YOUR problem, not mine. If you want to help those that need stuff and can't get it otherwise, then you'll have to fork over out of your own pocket, not mine. The fact that you have to threaten people with imprisonment and violence to get them to give to your "social good" deeds is very telling.

The truth is, without a large nanny state, people will still be fine. Charity will flourish, and the ONLY people losing out are government employees who have evolved a giant, wasteful ecosystem of largely non-functional processes.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[tbannist]

According to the stats I've ready, your health care costs were rising exceptionally slowly. According to the New York Times, during the Bush years health care costs rose between 6.2% and 9.7% annually. Since 2008, that rate has slowed to around 3.9% (the lowest rate since the 1960s). So it looks like if your costs were rising only 1% year on year, your health care plan probably wasn't sustainable.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

Starvation is everyone's problem. Capitalism is just an economic system. Regardless of what Ayn Rand may have told you in her nonsensical and contrived books, there is no moral basis behind it. It's just one way to run an economy that works reasonably well for some things but very poorly for others.

The truth is, without a large nanny state, people will still be fine. Charity will flourish, and the ONLY people losing out are government employees who have evolved a giant, wasteful ecosystem of largely non-functional processes.

Turns out health care costs less and has better outcomes in countries where it's funded entirely by taxpayers.

OMG BUT EMERGENCY ROOM WAIT TIMES

Turns out that if there's a bad wait time at an ER in a country where they have socialized medicine, you can go to a competing hospital, just like you can here. Only difference is that it won't drive you into bankruptcy. Outcomes are still better in other countries.

The fact that you have to threaten people with imprisonment and violence to get them to give to your "social good" deeds is very telling.

The fact that the threat of violence and jail time are required to get you to do good deeds is very telling. You're most likely the sort of person who treats people who work in the service industry as lower life forms. Your logic most likely goes something like this:

If someone is rich, they must have worked hard, so they deserve to be rich. We know they deserve to be rich, because you get rich by working hard, and they're rich, so clearly they worked hard. If someone is poor, they deserve to be poor, because they are lazy. We know that laziness results in poverty because poor people are all lazy, and we know this because laziness results in poverty. If someone claims that there is a hard working poor person, we know that this is false because hard work makes you rich, and if they are poor, they must be lazy. Likewise, if someone was born into money, they must be a hard worker, because they have money. If they were lazy, it would be impossible for them to be born into money, because laziness makes you poor. If everyone worked hard, everyone would be multimillionaires.

Charity will flourish

Unsubstantiated claim is unsubstantiated. Are you prepared to present evidence that a) there will be more charity, and b) that charity will be sufficient to cover health care?

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

It's telling that the only way someone can argue against this is by using strawmen.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

Turns out that people who don't have enough money to be able to afford it aren't penalized for not buying it, and in fact get a subsidy.

But keep repeating what you said over and over again. Your lies are great for convincing people to hate the health care bill without understanding it, which I'm sure is useful to whatever amoral political view you're trying to push.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

Turns out in countries where the government pays for all of health care, the total cost is lower than here in the US, and the outcomes are better.

Kind of blows a gigantic hole in your argument.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[XcepticZP]

Starvation is everyone's problem. Capitalism is just an economic system. Regardless of what Ayn Rand may have told you in her nonsensical and contrived books, there is no moral basis behind it. It's just one way to run an economy that works reasonably well for some things but very poorly for others.

I never said capitalism had a moral basis behind it. What I will say is that it has a better moral standing than coercive government systems, which almost always boil down to some form of mob-rule at their core. Also, I have no idea why you're bringing up capitalism, as I never mentioned it in my post. And I've never read Ayn Rand, but don't let that stop you from justifying your anger towards me.

Turns out health care costs less and has better outcomes in countries where it's funded entirely by taxpayers.

Sure, that may be true. But we're not arguing efficiency, as you brought up the moral basis of things in your first few lines: Collective pooling of resources is only moral if you have the active consent of all parties, free from manipulation and coercion.

OMG BUT EMERGENCY ROOM WAIT TIMES

Turns out that if there's a bad wait time at an ER in a country where they have socialized medicine, you can go to a competing hospital, just like you can here. Only difference is that it won't drive you into bankruptcy. Outcomes are still better in other countries.

Yes, but none of the different hospitals have any monetary incentive to improve on those response times in reaction to your decisions not to use them. Sure, there may be social and moral incentives by the individuals running those hospitals to improve, but as an institution that may well be drowned out.

The fact that the threat of violence and jail time are required to get you to do good deeds is very telling. You're most likely the sort of person who treats people who work in the service industry as lower life forms.

If it was not necessary, then it wouldn't be the norm. However, saying that it's necessary to get even "me" to do good deeds is telling of the kind of morals you have. You're perfectly okay talking about "moral basis", but when it comes down to the fundamental moral issue of freedom, you switch around and claim that my wishes do not matter, and that it's perfectly okay to use the threat of violence and jail time to make me do good deeds. Good deeds being whatever you and the majority deem is "good".

Your logic most likely goes something like this:

If someone is rich, they must have worked hard, so they deserve to be rich. We know they deserve to be rich, because you get rich by working hard, and they're rich, so clearly they worked hard. If someone is poor, they deserve to be poor, because they are lazy. We know that laziness results in poverty because poor people are all lazy, and we know this because laziness results in poverty. If someone claims that there is a hard working poor person, we know that this is false because hard work makes you rich, and if they are poor, they must be lazy. Likewise, if someone was born into money, they must be a hard worker, because they have money. If they were lazy, it would be impossible for them to be born into money, because laziness makes you poor. If everyone worked hard, everyone would be multimillionaires.

I made no such argument, you must be mistaking me with someone else. However, I'll bite. You seem to think that I have some sort of leap in logic from poor/rich to deserving/not-deserving. On the contrary, I think that people have a moral and natural right of ownership over themselves, and the product of their labor. If they choose to be lazy, that is their choice. If they work hard, or they are lazy makes no difference. The main point is that no one has any right over another person's labor without mutually agreed compensation without coercion.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

And I've never read Ayn Rand, but don't let that stop you from justifying your anger towards me.

Perhaps you haven't, but the things you said line right up with her philosophy, so it wasn't much of a leap. It's entirely possible that you came by these views in some other way, but most likely the people you have read or spoken to about them were strongly influenced by her.

Sure, that may be true. But we're not arguing efficiency, as you brought up the moral basis of things in your first few lines: Collective pooling of resources is only moral if you have the active consent of all parties, free from manipulation and coercion.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that manipulation and coercion can't take place when two people agree to a capitalist contract. The reality of a capitalist economy is that when you have a large disparity in wealth, the person who can afford to wait the other person out has much more control over the terms of the contract. As such, the value of the contract isn't the value that a person can provide, but rather the value the absolute lowest value that the person with the negotiating advantage can get away with. That may be how contracts are, but there is absolutely no moral basis for it, since the amount of money the person at a disadvantage gets paid is inversely proportional to how much they need the money to live.

You might be tempted to say that competition somehow cancels out this effect, but in reality, we can see that this isn't actually true. It may spread it out somewhat, but as someone paying employees, you know that the less you (and other people in a similar position) pay those employees and the fewer employees you hire, the more desperate people will be for jobs, the more hours they'll be willing to work, and the more willing they'll be to work for less money. So what these people are ultimately paid is the absolute lowest the employer can get away with, independent of the actual value they provide to the employer. Things would be different if the people doing the hiring didn't already hold all the cards.

The point here is that if someone is starving and desperate, a contract between them and someone who isn't starving and desperate is pretty much coercive by definition. There simply aren't enough non-coercive contracts to satisfy peoples' need for jobs, so most people get stuck in a shitty position getting paid far less than the "fruits of their labor" that they have, as you said, a moral right to. Coercion is inherent to pure capitalism, much in the same way it's inherent to every other type of economy, because the people with the most power will always be using whatever means at their disposal to coerce everyone else. In practice, you need to moderate things to some extent by, dare I say, applying coercion in the opposite direction so as to make sure the people in the worst negotiation positions have at least a little bit of power of their contracts.

This is one reason why the Republicans are so desperately against taxpayer funded health care. If people aren't constantly declaring medical bankruptcy, if they're not desperate to take the first job they can find just so they can get a tiny amount of shitty health insurance, the balance of power shifts slightly and now workers can afford to wait and shop around a bit longer so they can get fairer contracts. Most of what the Republicans do is geared toward keeping wages as low as possible, and a social safety net (for the reasons I stated) tends to correlate with higher wages. And somehow companies in countries where wages are higher manage to survive and even flourish.

I'm not sure if you're going to ask the Straw Question, but if you don't, someone else will:

So what you're saying is that we should just raise taxes to 100% and have the government take care of everyone?

No, of course not, because that works even worse than pure capitalism does. What I'm saying is that real-world data indicates that there's a happy me

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[BitZtream]

Statistics are often always skewed to suit the speaker at hand.

There are plenty of ways to adjust the cost of something the government provides to make it higher or lower or whatever you want.

'Health Care' is FAR to broad to quantify.

Congratulations, you've bought into the bullshit because they've talked you into a circle of misunderstanding.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[BitZtream]

I'm not happy about it, but let's not pretend that he's some sort of Hitler, seizing power and single-handedly changing the shape and function of our government. Hardly.

Why shouldn't we? Is that not exactly what Obama supporters did leading up to his election in reference to Bush? $10 says you were one of those very people.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

Do you have any specific evidence to counter these statistics, or is "LA LA LA THE STATISTICS ARE BEING MANIPULATED BECAUSE ITS THE GOVERNMENT AND ALL GOVERNMENT IS BAD THEREFORE THE STATISTICS MUST BE MANIPULATED" the entirety of your argument?

Perhaps someone has written a paper somewhere picking them apart? I'd love to see it. Maybe it'll even sway my opinion. I'm not so dogmatic about this stuff that I'm not open to new evidence; it's just that people don't seem to be able to put up anything remotely credible.

Re:Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[siride]

I wasn't happy with Bush, but I found some of the liberal hatred for him to be extreme and more than a bit distasteful. I'm also really unhappy with Obama's compromises with Obamacare (which could have been a great savior for healthcare in this country and may now be the opposite) and his willingness to continue to expand drone strikes and spying. However, I don't see him or Bush for the matter as maniacal dictators bent on destroying this country. I see them as victims of a system that has become too powerful and too interested in things that either don't matter for the little guy or are actively harmful to the little guy. And I must recognize the good that's been done in any case. It's easy to see the world as a shithole and to hate everything. It's harder to recognize good and good enough in grayish mess we live in.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[doccus]

His "Health care program" is a trojan horse to implement draconian tracking policies. Health care has been so poorly handled all over the world anyways that no universal program will ever be successful.. The CAbnadian system could have been the best if it hadn't been co0-opted by the big drug companies, who saw an easy buck in draining the canadian tax coffers with outrageous charges for covered prescriptions. In order to pay the drug companies, the government has gutted our hospitals, our medical plans coverage, and anywhere else they can other than drug costs. The system is now a wreck because of that. There is simply no way the US could avoid the same fate, but using employers the way they've done is absurd. They should have instead MANDATED that nobody could be refused health care. Costs a lot? Sure. but if they keep the drug companies out of it , and require *reasons* for a battery of expensive tests, instead of meekly paying for them all the time, they;'d save multiple billions. It'as too late for us here.. the politicians are fully bought and paid for by the drug companies, not in the way your US politicians get compromised, but it's just as effective how they do it here, just different. If there had been Big Pharma in Shakespeare's time, "First shoot all the lawyers" would not have been the line.. they would undoubtedly have come second though ;-)

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[gzuckier]

Funny, Medicare is always taken to be the lowest cost insurer around, and everybody has to buy it. And on top of that it's the segment of US health care with the best outcomes, even compared to the other industrialized countries.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[sumdumass]

The outcomes are not better. It's a matter of differences in reporting. For instance, it is said that Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate then the US. But when we look at it, we find that the US brings to term more at risk fetuses then Cuba and Cuba more or less abort them by not implementing the level of care just before delivery. The international statistics only require a live birth to be reported if it is over X amount of weight or alive longer then 48 hours. So if the baby is premature and dies before 48 hours, it doesn't count against the infant mortality rate as collected by the WHO.

As for the costs of health care, you are missing an important part. It isn't where the government pays for health care, it is where the government provides it. The difference is being owner of the system and paying an outside system to accomplish the same thing. Of course this would be the most efficient in the US if we could trust the government departments to not become riddled with waste and graft but that is a problem the US cannot seem to shake.

The costs of the US health care rose when the government got involved and started paying with no questions asked. That happened with the creation of medicare. The HMO act started increasing this rate of increase because it allowed non-licensed agents to override the medical decisions of doctors and nurses. At first, it was a matter of procedures being performed as a necessity and some suit with no medical degree saying you didn't have to do that, we aren't paying. To to recover costs, hospitals and health care providers increased the costs of everything knowing only about 2/3rds of the bill could be realistically recovered. Then through a variety of other laws designed to help pay for medicare and medicaid, the government started doing only partial reimbursements so the costs needed to be raised so that 80% of the total bill would cover 100% of what was expected.

The Medicare payments also move on a expected cost sheet where the government divides the country up into cost of living categories and then assumed the average cost of the procedures in those areas. For instance, a heart attack in Mississippi would cost less then a heart attack in New York- so the percentage of payment awarded is less in Mississippi. But what this created is an incentive to increase costs artificially where the more the average cost was the more that would be reimbursed. The savior to this was the HMO act where they are allowed to count discounted medical bills as full cost in reporting for the average. So a hospital that would charge $100 for 3 stitches could still charge that amount to insurance companies but if they charged $200 to people without insurance, then the average for medicare would use the $200 value even though 80% of their patients have to pay half that much. Before that happened, the costs had to be realistic to the market for reimbursement which is close to where other countries who have nationalized health care (own the facilities and providers) is at.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[Lendrick]

That was a refreshingly well informed and interesting post. Most of the opposition to Obamacare that I see around here seems to be knee-jerk anti-government sentiment.

Honestly, I think part of what causes this kind of crap is our electoral system that essentially locks the two major parties into power and turns campaign contributions (rather than the desire of voters) into their main incentive. In order to win elections in the US, all you have to do is be slightly more appealing than the other party, since if you vote third party, you're not voting for one of the two viable parties, and you thus risk having your last choice win the election. And even if enough people can be convinced to vote for a third party, that party will just supplant one of the big two, and will eventually become corrupt as money is dumped into it from the outside. The only way to fix this would be to fundamentally alter the electoral system, but I'm not sure that's possible from a practical standpoint. There would be far too much resistance.

Re: Somehow this will all be Obama's fault.

[sumdumass]

I think one of the major problems is that the US was never intended to be a monolithic top down model as so many people seem to think it needs to be today. The States is where the politicians need to consider the needs and wants of the people. The federal government outside of post offices, post roads and military, it largely an intermediate government that represents the states to the rest of the world. They regulate Interstate Commerce but constitutionally the intent was more about making trade among the states reasonable and fair instead of this idea of unlimited power if someone could marginally impact trade.

Originally, the three branches of government were designed to represent the major components of the US. The senate originally represented the state itself. This is reflected by the senators originally being selected from state legislators and appointed by the governors of the states. The house of representatives represented the people of the states and the Presidency represented the people of the nation. The idea was that each party had a dog in the fight, the people in their local settings, the states as a whole, and the country as a whole.

That has morphed into a serve me and serve me now mechanism that leads to a lot of the strife and dismay that you express. It is also something that has accelerated the bastardization and outright ignoring of the US constitution which has been going on for quite some time. Political parties is part of the problem, but expecting the government to be something it wasn't intended to be is also a key to the problem. Before any electoral system is altered, it would be wise to alter the intent of the government and document it in something solid like a constitution. Only then will what I think you are after will be reasonably achievable.

Reporting on events in 2002?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's the Slashdot we all know. Reporting things 11 years after the fact.

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, 11 is better than 10 ... because it's 11.

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[AK Marc]

If they report it immediately, then there are complaints that we don't have all the facts in. If it's reported after the facts are in, someone will point to an unsubstantiated guess that happened to be right, but beat Slashdot by years. The best is when Slashdot does both, and gets bashed for the initial report, the "delayed" report and the dupe.

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Yes, eleven years ago we knew that it had collapsed, but we didn't know why it had collapsed. This new model might both explain why, and perhaps predict future ice shelf collapse.

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's the Slashdot we all know. Reporting things 11 years after the fact.

Next thing you know some fool's gonna be writing a book about WWII. Egads!

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[riverat1]

They're not reporting the fact that Larsen B broke up because it was well reported at the time. I saw pictures. This post is reporting the results of a just published study of why it broke up as it did.

Re:Reporting on events in 2002?

[Noughmad]

Almost everyone here says that Slashdot was so much better ten years ago. Now, the editors listened.

OK

[Anonymous Coward]

So...it has come to this

Re:OK

[I'm New Around Here]

Damn you Randall! Must you poke your nose in everywhere?

It would be great

[Presto Vivace]

if we decided to take action BEFORE we turn ourselves into Easter Island.

Re: It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't listen to the alarmists. The earth is fine, your crappy hybrid car and solar panel roof aren't necessary. "Global warming" is just hype pushed by self interested scientists looking for more taxpayer funding.

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea levels rose 2.4 millimeters per year between 2006 and 2011. Extrapolating that increase for the next 90 years suggests an overall increase of about 212 millimeters by 2100, or just over 8 inches. A lot different than the 4 feet rise the scare stories try to claim.

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandatory XKCD: Extrapolation

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask my wife what a difference 8 inches makes.

Re:It would be great

[93 Escort Wagon]

I didn't realize she'd told you about me! So you're cool with that?

Re:It would be great

[erpbridge]

The problem with extrapolating the same rate... is you assume that nothing is reliant on each other, nothing affects anything else, and everything is a closed system.

Icebergs calve off a glacier on the Larsen B Ice Shelf at a rate of x amount per year, meaning that the Larsen B Ice Shelf will exist for about 300 thousand years. But yet... it didn't. One lake drained away at a given rate on this ice shelf... one could extrapolate that to be that it would take decades for all the other lakes to drain away, and further say that one lake draining has no effect on other lakes, and that it will be replaced by the formation of many other meltwater lakes just like it was formed. One could also say one small lake draining would NEVER affect a large ice shelf.

But yet... it did have an effect that was not explained by a purely flat rate per time extrapolation. It wasn't quite exponential, but it definitely came in somewhere between. It was an example of how one thing happening in one place... can effect and increase speed of other nearby items.

Or, from another source... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1870-2008_(US_EPA).png. Sea levels rose 0 inches between 1910-1930. A lot different than the 2.4 millimeters per year rise that you claim. But yet... it did happen. I think you're trying to scare us by using measurable facts.

No, the 4 foot rise number is an upper limit... and not 4 foot per year. The actual is anywhere from 7 inches to 4 feet, depending on how things cascade. The biggest concern is the ice melt from the Greenland Ice Sheets, and the continued ice melt of large Antarctic ice sheets.

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with extrapolating the same rate... is you assume that nothing is reliant on each other, nothing affects anything else, and everything is a closed system.

Kind of like how carbon dioxide passed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history yet the effect was much less than predicted.

Re:It would be great

[Lehk228]

the biggest danger is a methane ice chain reaction unleashing vast amounts of undersea methane

Re:It would be great

[riverat1]

Kind of like how carbon dioxide passed 400 parts per million for the first time in human history yet the effect was much less than predicted.

The effect has not been "much" less than predicted. It's still within the 95% confidence range of the predictions, albeit on the low side. If you factor in things like the lowest solar cycle in a century and the predominance of La Nina years since 2007 it's not surprising temperatures are running on the low side of predictions..

Re:It would be great

[DaveV1.0]

And, your evidence that there will be a different rate is what exactly?

Re:It would be great

[bluefoxlucid]

Europe has long-since rejected Global Warming and is now trying to work out the cooling trend that is coming, and how to survive it.

House Republicans from Texas are claiming Global Warming was never up for debate and is an undeniable fact; while liberal Democrats in congress are shouting out loudly that we need to get away from this fairytale and face real problems with real science--the science of global cooling.

Scientific consensus predicts a protracted decrease in sunspot activity, thought to be the cause of the vicious cooling trend that's made Siberia, the UK, and other parts of Europe unusually cold for the past several years. It's well-known and observed that global temperatures haven't faced an overall increase in 15 years.

This is what I woke up to a week ago. I went back to sleep; I haven't checked to see if I'm back in my own universe yet, but when I saw the political climate I knew something wasn't right. The best part was the actual physics of that bizarro universe didn't seem any different; just the actors were shouting different things. Am I still there?

Re:It would be great

[TapeCutter]

I recall reading about this when it happened. It reminded me of when I was a kid in the 60's I would watch mum heat up the solidified oil in the chip pan (making "fries" if you're American). The solid oil would melt in such a way that a thick flat disc formed across the entire surface (the ice shelf), holes would slowly start to appear in the disc (lakes), then when there were "enough" holes it would suddenly and dramatically break into to small blocks (bergs) which melted very fast. The strange thing was right up until it fell apart the diameter of the disc didn't shrink much at all (ie: it conserved the surface area defined by it's edge). It appears to me that the 200m thick ice shelf had the internal structure of swiss chees and simply collapsed under its own weight, much like the fat floating on top of mum's chip pan. In both cases the trigger is probably the motion of surface waves stressing the entire honeycomb structure and (and in the case of the ice sheet)draining the surface lakes in the early stages of the break up..

Having said that scientists will tell you (with some excitement) that the mechanics of melting ice sheets/shelves is "poorly understood", modelling the behaviour of various slabs of ice is an active research topic but they are a long way from claiming that all ginormous ice blocks melt in a predictable manner, I'd dare say we know even less about modelling small chip pans of melting fat.

Re:It would be great

[cusco]

Since when does Congress, and especially the young-Earth creationists of the Texas delegation, get to debate science? The last time they did that they declared that the teaching of evolution was illegal and blasphemous. Can't say that worked out very well for them . . .

Re:It would be great

[operagost]

Even if they were young-earth creationists, what does that have to do with their opinions on global warming? Your argument is fallacious, and the Scopes monkey trial was a long time ago.

Re: It would be great

[Immerman]

You're right, it's all a big conspiracy among everyone who's ever spent any amount of time actually studied the reality in order to get more research funding. It's a good thing we have a well-funded media campaign from the big oil companies to discredit it, *they* certainly have no reason to lie to us.

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they were young-earth creationists, what does that have to do with their opinions on global warming? Your argument is fallacious, and the Scopes monkey trial was a long time ago.

If they are sufficiently ignorant of planetary science to believe that the Earth could reasonably be only a few thousand years old than they're not equipped to understand global climate change.

These are complex systems where small changes in initial conditions have large long term effects. And frankly explaining that to people who think "a wizard did it" is a viable scientific hypothesis is a waste of time.

Re:It would be great

[32771]

Watching a train wreck while you are on the train is one hell of a show, eh?

If a combination out of the methane feedback
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jul/24/arctic-ice-free-methane-economy-catastrophe
and the lag of the temperature increase that is caused by the greenhouse effect mentioned here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html
happens, then we may have already triggered a number of positive feed backs that will be impossible to stop.

All those human actors that make the process so interesting are already poised to take action too, unfortunately I can't find any direct link to Snowden's info about military disaster preparations and action against green resistance movements, but hey there is talk about this.

Re:It would be great

[cusco]

Politicians don't get to decide what is scientific evidence and what is not, scientists do. Politicians are barely competent to decide what should be a law and what shouldn't (and most of them are lawyers). And really, do you honestly think that anyone who deliberately ignores 100 percent of the evidence presented by geology, astronomy, physics, archeology, paleontology, biology, etc. etc. in order to believe the ravings of some Bronze Age goat herders should even have a place at the table when it comes to analyzing scientific evidence?

Re:It would be great

[tibit]

I'd dare say we know even less about modelling small chip pans of melting fat.

There's an overwhelming lot of science out there that could be done, but isn't because of there being no funding for it. You could even get an igNobel prize for such research :)

Re:It would be great

[tibit]

I guess the real question is thus: is methane enough worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2, to warrant extracting it and burning it all just to combine it with oxygen, so that you'd get water vapor and CO2.

Re:It would be great

[HiThere]

Actually, 4 feet is NOT the upper limit. It the upper amount that they consider reasonable to project. There could occur events that would be considerably larger...they're just a bit unlikely. One example is the dissolution of the methyl cathlates releasing an unmeasured, but large, amount of methane into the atmosphere. That could easily yield an increase larger than 4 feet. Or perhaps not, if there isn't enough methane there, or if it decomposed into the sea water on its way up. There've been a time or two in the past when methane releases may have lead to rapid changes, but it was so long ago that the evidence is equivocal.

Then of course there's "giant meteor impacts". A danger that's not quantifiable, but which can have effects anywhere from trivial to species-ending for multiple species, depending on just how large it is, just where it hits, and whether the shock-wave from the impact sets off a chain of volcanos. (There's some evidence that the Deccan Tapps was initiated by a large meteor impacting on the other side of the world.) Again, the times this has happened before are so long ago that the evidence is equivocal. Timings become very difficult to determine in the distant past.

There are lots of other uncommon effects that have undeterminable probability. E.g., it's known that methyl cathlates can be "detonated" by shock waves...especially as the approach the critical temperature at which they would release without other causes. The oceans are getting warmer, so they are closer to release than they have been previously. Perhaps they could already be set off by an earthquake in the wrong place. Perhaps they are still stable. Probably SOME of them are unstable, but which and how many? It's a complex problem that depends on temperature (cooler temperatures increases stability), pressure (more pressure increases stability) and inclusions in the "crystal" matrix (these can go either way).

I really don't expect most of Antarctica to melt. I suspect that before that happens other effects will cause human civilization to collapse. (Massive famines leading to wars, e.g.) and that then, as no more CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere, things will slowly return to normal, which probably means a glaciation, being as warm oceans and cold continents tends to yield massive snowpacks. But how that would work out depends on the timing of events I'll never see happen.

Re:It would be great

[tbannist]

These are complex systems where small changes in initial conditions have large long term effects. And frankly explaining that to people who think "a wizard did it" is a viable scientific hypothesis is a waste of time.

Actually, the kind representatives from Texas explained to me that they would never use a trite explaination like "a wizard did it" as a scientific hypothesis. The told me that clearly everyone knows that couldn't possibly be correct because wizards are satanic and God wouldn't let them mess with the weather in Texas. So it must be God who's doing it and they trust that he won't let the temperature go too high because then he wouldn't be able to visit his ranch in Texas, where he likes to play skeeball.

Re:It would be great

[HiThere]

Nope. Because trying to extract it is likely to result in a major release. Methyl cathlates are a bit fragile, expecially when they get warmer. And the ocean's been warming.

P.S.: Methyl cathlates are solid while they exist, to "extracting" them is more like underwater coal mining than drilling for oil. With the exciting additional feature that if you heat them too much, or give them too abrupt a shock, they're likely to explode. For some reason the companies that have previously looked into mining them decided it was a bad idea.

Re:It would be great

[32771]

Actually the methane feedback is only one of the many positive feedback loops that are being discovered, there are also negative feedback loops however.
One I have heard of is cloud formation that depends on increased availability of water vapour and the depletion of whatever carbon stock that has been
accumulated. The cloud formation thing has been said to not be terribly effective and the depletion only happens after the methane/peat/other organic matter has been consumed.

Collecting methane from arctic shelves and permafrost regions probably requires covering those vast areas, the question is, does using the methane pay for covering the area where it bubbles up. To answer your question more directly, methane is ~100x worse than CO2 during creation and this drops to 20x averaged over a 100year lifespan from what I've heard. The arctic methane emergency group has some ideas about it, but thanks to the other global feedback loops the problem becomes far more complex than just burning of the methane.

Re:It would be great

[tibit]

Because trying to extract it is likely to result in a major release

What about forcing a major release and igniting it? As long as the shock wave and likely tsunami won't cause major damage on populated land, I think we'd be better off? Yes, I am aware that this would be like igniting megatons worth of a thermobaric weapon. I'd still take that over the 20-100x worse greenhouse effect...

Re: It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really expect a linear progression?

Re: It would be great

[BitZtream]

The problem isn't that people don't believe in global warming.

The problem is people like yourself, go all ape shit about it screaming the end of the world.

Common sense in most peoples head stop them from listening to you due to one simple fact:

You have no fucking clue what global warming actually means for the planet.

That is an undeniable fact. You have no clue. None. Everything you're talking about is actually just repeating someone else's theory about a pathetically young field of science. Anyone with an actual clue understands that the complexity of the system is so utterly ridiculous that its not something we can really even think about modeling. We can't model the weather accurately an hour in advance and you want to act like you have some fucking clue about whats going to happen to the weather, on a global scale, years out?

Do you realize how idiotic you sound?

Do you realize that anyone with a clue knows the Earth has been both far hotter and far colder than it is now?

I could go on for days with reasons why global warming is no big deal ... but I won't ... because I DON'T FUCKING KNOW that it is or isn't ... and neither do you.

So when you go off banding about interpretations of 'facts' that are interpreted some how magically ... into meaning that humans are killing the planet ... It just sounds fucking stupid.

Now I have no doubt we are effecting the planet. Thats because we're part of the system so we MUST impact it in various ways due to the laws of physics. What I don't know is whats going to happen. I don't argue that we need to keep our eyes out for problems ... which we are doing ... but we certainly don't need to freak out like a high school girl that just found out her boyfriend kissed omg-not-even-hot Betty last night.

The problem with AGW is that it has too many drama queen fanatics trying to tag along with it, cost it credibility. Everytime you can name something that suggests the doom and gloom, I can probably show you how its happened before and will happen again. OMG SEA LEVELS RISING!@$!@$ So, its been far far higher than the predictions for a hundred years in worst case. OMG HEAT. Been hotter than the next 100 years worth of predictions multiple times in the past. Everything you come up with the Earth has done before and we had nothing to do with it. We don't even really know why it did most of it, we only have theories since WE WEREN'T ACTUALLY THERE and our data is from paleontology. While you can learn a lot this way, its still barely different than guessing when you've never actually witnessed the processes you're claiming validate your hypothesis.

Stop crying wolf before you have any evidence there is actually a wolf and not just evidence that a wolf has been around sometime since time started.

Re:It would be great

[BitZtream]

So basically what you're saying is 'when you start looking at the big picture instead of specific pin points, then warming isn't nearly as bad as claimed' .... right?

Its funny how you can say 'we know what we're doing' and then follow it up with justifying that statement saying predictions were wrong because we didn't take some things we didn't know about into account.

Re: It would be great

[Immerman]

Talk about reading a lot into a very short comment.

Okay, sounds like you're pretty committed to your perspective, so just a few thoughts to consider:

1) a rational observer should not allow the presence of raving loonies among the AGW "cheerleader squad" to affect its credibility in any way. Every cause attracts a lunatic fringe - for example the existence of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk shouldn't be held against the conservative viewpoint in the social conversation. As responsible citizens we need to look past the noise to honestly consider the real issues.

2) Weather prediction and climate prediction are pretty much unrelated - weather is trying to predict the flight path of a butterfly on a windy day - turbulent and chaotic. Climate is closer to judging the course of a freight liner - a massive load on a fairly steady course, it may occasionally turn in unforseen ways, but not quickly. I'll freely admit that the details of the predictions change as we understand more and more of the processes involved, but the general trend has been holding pretty steady, and in line with even the very crude predictions from 50 years ago.

3) Yes, the Earth's climate has been both considerably colder and warmer than it is today. So what? Humans haven't actually been around very long, maybe 100,000 years if you're generous, compared to the 4,500,000,000years the Earth's been going through these changes. We've only seen a single moderate ice age in anything like our present form, and genetic analysis suggests that it decimated our population to the point that only ~2000 individuals survived the worst of it. Going tropical/desert will have a different set of difficulties, but our species is already putting a severe strain on the carrying capacity of our ecosystem, and global population is predicted to increase almost 50% by mid-century. The combination of stresses is likely to manifest in some very unpleasant ways during the likely multi-century climate transition - famine and war for starters.

4) Given that we don't know for sure what the full implications of AGW will be, but the experts are all painting a pretty dire picture of what's most likely to the limit of our current understanding, wouldn't it make sense to at least listen to them at least a bit and start shaping the path of our species in a more sustainable direction? We don't even have to go full bore ban this, demand that - small steps like shifting government subsidies away from fossil fuel production and acquisition to renewable energy (or even just eliminating them) would make renewable energy and efficiency engineering significantly more economically viable without any more contrived efforts and help mitigate the long-term consequences. Or we could do something really drastic like move 1% of federal defense spending to finance alternative energy R&D or subsidies and make a dramatic difference.

No matter what we do our species will probably survive this planetary change, but our actions today will shape how we weather the transition - if we do nothing until its absolutely painfully obvious that he scientists were right it's going to be *ridiculously* expensive to keep anything like modern society alive, and famine and war may well claim most of the global population. On the other hand if it turns out the scientists were completely wrong then we will have pushed our species in a direction we'll need to go anyway a little ahead of schedule (fossil fuels will only be able to supply our energy needs for a few more centuries anyway), possibly hurting some people's profits along the way. We're gambling with the future of our civilization here, and we're only going to get to play one hand - seems to me hedging our bets at least a little would be a wise course of action.

Re:It would be great

[riverat1]

No, I'm saying that natural variability which is unpredictable means it's not a surprise to climate scientists that real world observations are running a bit below projections. But there are upper and lower bounds to how far natural variability can move conditions from the average and that can be quantified and included in determining the confidence levels of the projections. That's why the real world observations are still within the 95% confidence range.

You apparently believe that since we can't predict the solar cycle or the pattern of El Nino/La Nina periods ahead of time that the scientists work is useless. But if you factor in those things and the model output more closely mirrors reality then it means their work is probably on the right track.

Re:It would be great

[Anonymous Coward]

And, your evidence that there will be the same rate is what exactly?

id10t

Re: It would be great

[gzuckier]

Your faith in the linearity of natural phenomena over time, regardless of external forcings, is quite touching.

Future?

[gmuslera]

Ok, this happened some years ago. Is useful to predict what will happen maybe soon if there are big ice shelves in similar conditions? Are we walking in thin ice, and could happen from a week to the next that a very huge amount of water is added to the oceans? I don't think nothing of this scale will be enough to make the ocean level rise in a noticeable way, but if we are in that scenario will be pretty bad, maybe we can adapt to the oceans rising a meter in a whole century, but no that that kind of change is so fast.

Re:Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this will help cool the earth. It's basically like putting a big ice cube in the ocean every now and then.

Haven't you seen Futurama?

Re:Future?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Is useful to predict what will happen maybe soon if there are big ice shelves in similar conditions?"

This sort of thing happens all the time. It's a natural process, and the basic process hasn't changed in recorded history.

This is a bit oversimplified, but snow is deposited on top. It builds up, and gets heavy. Gradually the snow and ice migrate sideways, pushing outward. This is also (besides gravity) what moves glaciers.

So pieces are always breaking off the edges. The 2002 incident might have been one of the larger ones, but in the overall scheme of things is nothing very special.

Re:Future?

[sumdumass]

I think the special thing about this is the speed in which it happened and of course now, the explanation to why it happened so quickly.

I agree with your assessment of the overall scheme of things.

Re:Future?

[OhANameWhatName]

The 2002 incident might have been one of the larger ones, but in the overall scheme of things is nothing very special

Let me know when something significant happens, I don't want to miss it.

Re:Future?

[riverat1]

In fact the break up of an Ice Shelf doesn't change sea level at all because an ice shelf is already floating in water. What it can do though is reduce the back pressure on the face of the ice sheet/glacier that is feeding the ice shelf causing it to speed up and put more ice in the sea which does raise sea level.

Re:Future?

[NeoTron]

Human study of this phenomenon is still in its infancy. We didn't really have the tools to observe it in the past - what's to say this isn't anything "special" at all, and that this type of event has naturally occurred many times in the past and in the same manner?

Re:Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_shelf

"Although it is believed that the melting of floating ice shelves will not raise sea levels, technically, there is a small effect because sea water is ~2.6% more dense than fresh water combined with the fact that ice shelves are overwhelmingly "fresh" (having virtually no salinity); this causes the volume of the sea water needed to displace a floating ice shelf to be slightly less than the volume of the fresh water contained in the floating ice. Therefore, when a mass of floating ice melts, sea levels will increase; however, this effect is small enough that if all extant sea ice and floating ice shelves were to melt, the corresponding sea level rise is estimated to be ~4 cm."

READ THIS PART:
"However, if and when these ice shelves melt sufficiently, they no longer impede glacier flow off the continent, so that glacier flow would accelerate. This new source of ice volume would flow down from above sea level, thus resulting in its total mass contributing to sea rise."

Re:Future?

[minstrelmike]

Wrong. An ICE SHELF sits above the water.
I had a marine geology prof say if the Ross Ice Shelf fell, sea level would rise by 6 inches.
That was back in the 80s when we weren't sure about global warming.
Now that we are, it's not if the shelf falls, it is merely when it falls.

Re:Future?

[riverat1]

Yeah, I knew that. But as you mention the effect is very small and I wanted to keep my response simple so it's good enough for a first order estimation.

Re:Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

who fucking cares. By the time the oceans rise by a meter, everyone reading this thread will be dead and so will their children if they happen to have any.

Re:Future?

[Jane Q. Public]

The point was: some are larger, some are smaller. Remember that 2002 was cooler than 1998... again probably not very significant. We just have no real evidence that the timing of this particular calving has ANY special significance.

Re:Future?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Human study of this phenomenon is still in its infancy. We didn't really have the tools to observe it in the past - what's to say this isn't anything "special" at all, and that this type of event has naturally occurred many times in the past and in the same manner?"

But that's the whole point. What's to say it IS special? Frankly, nothing. 2002 was not a particularly warm year (it was slightly cooler than it had been 4 years before). We have nothing at all to show that this has any significance. But there are certainly some people out there who want you to think it is. (Hint: the same people who tried to blame Kilimanjaro's loss of snowcap on "global warming". But we have actually known conclusively for 2 decades that simply isn't so.)

Global warming

[p51d007]

Just not MAN MADE global warming. How long until the so called scientist, who are socialist/communist/anticapitalist going to wake up to the fact that there is no such thing as man made "climate change" (they had to change the name since the warming wasn't happening). The earth is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years old, and they take data for a few decades and call it a trend. I remember as a high school student in the mid 70's, these same so called scientist were ringing alarm bells of a new ice age coming. Living in the midwest, it was kind of hard to argue with them. -20(F) for days at a time, record amounts of snow that lasted for months. All of this, at a time when smokestacks belched out crap that would choke a goose. Tail pipes routinely spit out soot. Now after 40 years of emission controls and the ever present hand of the EPA into every aspect of life, including how much water your toilet uses, the alarm bells of (man made) global warming are continuing. It's like the alarmist won't be happy until we are all freezing to death in caves again. The problem with a lot of scientist, is they are non believers in god, and if you rule out god as who controls the skies, then you have have the "evils of man" that will destroy the planet. Well, man couldn't destroy the planet if he tried.

Re:Global warming

[macbeth66]

It wasn't in the 70's. It was in the 60's.

Re:Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Statistics are lies and science is the enemy.

We need to fight this anti-capitalist socialist encroachment by eliminating all traces of science from our nation. We must ban science from the classroom from tomorrow. It's nothing less than child-abuse to expose innocent young minds to science. Next all military and other government funding of any projects in any way science related must be cut off immediately! Finally we should impose an additional tax burden on any company spending share-holders money on science related R&D. Make them see sense!

Only in this way can we stop icebergs from melting and save the world from communism. Listen to common sense, you know it's RIGHT!

Re:Global warming

[tgibbs]

No, it wasn't "the same so-called scientists," it was a couple of guys who were out of the mainstream, although it got some sensationalist play in the mainstream media. Even back then, the consensus favored warming due to CO2 release, although there was a lot more uncertainty about how much. Anybody who cares about facts rather than propaganda can easily verify this for themselves--the original scientific literature of the time is available in any major university library and much of it, or at least the abstracts, is available online.

Re:Global warming

[riverat1]

there is no such thing as man made "climate change" (they had to change the name since the warming wasn't happening).

No, "climate change" has been around since at least 1970 as shown in an October 1970 paper by George Benton titled "Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change"

Re:Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

(...) The earth is hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years old, and they take data for a few decades and call it a trend. (...)

You just made my spit out my coffee! Thank you for the biggest laugh i've had in a long, long time.

Re:Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

While the terms both go back further than either side suggests, you should really look up Frank Luntz to see why we generally call it 'climate change' now instead of 'global warming'. Basically, as the science really began to be settled, the next step was PR. 'Climate Change' doesn't sound so bad. The wide disparity between public opinion and science on a number of topics is generally the result of massive PR campaigns to keep the status quo.

The problem with a lot of scientist, is they are non believers in god,

If you could define God, predict, test, anything with God, then maybe it would have something to do with science. Otherwise you're just replacing 'I don't know' with 'God did it'. Science says, here are some observations we have made. Here's a theory to explain these observations.

Re: Global warming

[gzuckier]

Icebergs? I knew the Jews were behind it.

Al Gore expected to win California. Obamacare

[raymorris]

In other news, Al Gore is expected to win California in the November 2002 election.

Editors - if 2002 is submitting stories, please warn them about "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it".

Re: Al Gore expected to win California. Obamacare

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we warn them about misrepresenting what somebody else said by distorting their words into a strawman of a sound-bite?

About twelve years too late, but it won't hurt to try again.

Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the accuracy of the true point being made there though, it's a warning you don't want us to hear, but it's true.

if

[Anonymous Coward]

you really want to know what is happening... meditate on it until you get YOUR answer.. don't listen to any websites.. any scientists... news media... etc. but if you really don't give a damn then by all means just listen to everyone, go talk, argue and mentally masturbate about it over some beers at happy hour... enjoy it... maybe even try to make some money by selling "save the ice cap" T-shirts or whatever... or start a save the ice caps web campaign and try to make money off of mouse clicks and advertising... do one or the other or do both or don't do anything - the last of those options (given you are reading from left to right) being the least recommended :)

Wishful Thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

And all wrong!

But 'they' will fight and try to propel their 'Catastrophe' to engulf all.

Pitiful.

Incidentally

[symbolset]

13,000 years ago was the peak of the Holocene Optimum, when the Earth was warmer, glaciers smaller and the seas higher than today.

Re:Incidentally

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed] and fix Wikipedia if you have it. They currently say 9000 to 5000 BP (Before Present).

Re:Incidentally

[I'm New Around Here]

Actually, reading the Wikipedia article you refer to, you are both wrong.

Re:Incidentally

[riverat1]

Closer to 8,000 years ago for the HCO. 13,000 years ago there were still substantial ice sheets on the continents.

Re: Incidentally

[gzuckier]

Tell us more about when you were young, grampa.

Re:Incidentally

[symbolset]

Even in the reference material the figure is 11,000 years for the southern hemisphere. I could be off by as much as 2,000 years, but I stand by my post.

a few thousand people, for over a trillion $

[raymorris]

Are you sure about those millions? Last I heard, it was several thousand. At a total cost of around a trillion dollars, something like $275,000 per new recipient.

  I guess if you count all of the people who were already getting subsidized healthcare and are being moved to Obamacare, there may be millions whose healthcare was changed from one program to another.

Re:a few thousand people, for over a trillion $

[DragonTHC]

If you believe that, you're on the wrong site, this isn't the blaze.

$275,000 per new recipient? They're not all getting liver transplants.

Where do you people come up with these arbitrary numbers.

on a volcano spewing CO2

[raymorris]

And that "alarming" measurement was on a volcano that emits CO2. It's unfortunate that most climate science isn't science. There IS something going on, something very subtle, but it's nearly impossible to any real understanding of it because there is so much politics.

  Most everything published on the topic isn't just slanted, it's so ridiculously off to one side or another that's it's useless. I mean seriously, you take your "atmospheric" CO2 measurements on a volcano? That's not even acceptable by propaganda standards. Baghdad Bob would laugh at you and suggest that somewhere in the desert or sea would be much more believable, just do it a 200 miles downwind of Los Angeles.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Wolfling1]

[citation needed]

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

They probably did notice it was a volcano

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Measuring-CO2-levels-from-the-volcano-at-Mauna-Loa.html

>But how about gas from the volcano? It is true that volcanoes blow out CO2 from time to time and that this can interfere with the readings. Most of the time, though, the prevailing winds blow the volcanic gasses away from the observatory. But when the winds do sometimes blow from active vents towards the observatory, the influence from the volcano is obvious on the normally consistent records and any dubious readings can be easily spotted and edited out (Ryan, 1995).

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

or this one
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna-loa-co2-record/

>Most of the time, the observatory experiences “baseline” conditions and measures clean air which has been over the Pacific Ocean for days or weeks. We know this because the CO2 analyzer usually gives a very steady reading which varies by less than 3/10 of a part per million (ppm) from hour to hour. These are the conditions we use to calculate the monthly averages that go into the famous 50-year graph of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

We only detect volcanic CO2 from the Mauna Loa summit late at night at times when the regional winds are light and southerly. Under these conditions, a temperature inversion forms above the ground, and the volcanic emissions are trapped near the surface and travel down our side of the mountain slope. When the volcanic emissions arrive at the observatory, the CO2 analyzer readings increase by several parts per million, and the measured amounts become highly variable for periods of several minutes to a few hours. In the last decade, this has occurred on about 15% of nights between midnight and 6 a.m.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

There are volcano's under the ice as well, however scientists either, haven't bothered to find out how much this contributes to the problem, or they cannot measure its effects. And again these massive forest fires are dumping tons upon tons of Co2 but there is no focus on trying to eliminate them, when they have and can be prevented, I lost the citation on a story (several) on why this happens and how it can be stopped.

GOing back to the post "If they report it immediately, then there are complaints that we don't have all the facts in. If it's reported after the facts are in, someone will point to an unsubstantiated guess that happened to be right, but beat Slashdot by years. The best is when Slashdot does both, and gets bashed for the initial report, the "delayed" report and the dupe."

There are a variety of factors, which science cannot explain, nor have they found out about, and this really boils down to two things, One the media/press taking things or "findings" out of context and, Two people believing whatever they want without thinking, or knowing (despite being taught in school) that the findings are not a guarantee or are carved in stone, it always has and will always evolve, when they figure something else out they did not notice.

Going to science itself, you have to many wanna B's that are trying to make a name for themselves and will do anything for fame. THe other problem is when science decides to falsify readings or set up the instruments to get the outcome they want, people figure the hell with it we have a ways to go before it is a problem, or see this is why science is a waste of time and money.

The US government does this kind of propaganda all the time and people have no problem diving head first into the concrete slab below, but when science does to heighten awareness it is the most awful or heinous thing.

In Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, the EPA has set up pollution monitors, thru out the county, however the only use one of those monitors which happens to be downwind from heavily industrialized county (outside Allegheny),they then only use that monitor to report the progress of pollution within the county, the reality of it, the county has some of the cleanest air quality in the state, far exceeded that of Philadelphia, or the south eastern quarter of the state.

Same thing, it is all politics.......

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[riverat1]

Oh good God! Is that all you've got? It's not like CO2 hasn't been measured at 1000's of other sites around the world including land sites, ships, balloons and aircraft and they all show the same thing as Mauna Loa, that CO2 is increasing. There may be some that still peak out below 400 this year but at the rate of increase in 2 or 3 years they will all be reading above 400 permanently.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

WTF are you people arguing about CO2? Ice shelves calve all the time. It's nothing to do with CO2. If you want a fact to take note of, Antarctic ice is increasing hugely. Scientists say it's "a paradox". Which is another way of saying our models are too primitive to explain it, or as some of us might put it totally wrong. Also, posting a link to "Skeptical Science" is like posting a link to Pravda during the cold war.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

Skeptical Science gives links to the sources. You can critique them and post alternative links to real science (pun intended). Do you have links to science that says that ice is not being lost at an increasing rate or that it is NOT due to CO2?

Ice shelves do calve all the time, but are they calving faster than in the past? Antarctic ice is increasing in some places but overall more is lost than gained. The increase in ice is due to increased moisture caused by the same thing that causes the increased calving. The increased moisture is a bad thing, not a good thing.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

. Do you have links to science that says that ice is not being lost at an increasing rate or that it is NOT due to CO2?

I think you're confusing the Arctic with Antarctica. The latter is growing.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

No confusion. Antarctic sea ice is growing, due to increased calving. There is some increase in land ice due to increased moisture. Normally the centre of Antarctica is a very dry place. The increased moisture is from the warming of the oceans, the same process which is increasing the calving. Of course, denier sites focus on the increase sea ice, saying that is a good thing, and the increase in snowing, also saying that is a good thing. They conveniently ignore the fact that these are bad things, not good and that overall the antarctic is losing ice. A triumph of spin over science.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

Of course, denier sites focus on the increase sea ice

Using the term denier in a scientific debate demonstrates you have no understanding whatsoever how science works. Worse, you claim that the Antarctic is losing ice because it's gaining ice because of calving, which is the most incredible nonsense. But then, when Arctic ice grows or shrinks, it's always due to warming, never due to the wind moving the freely floating ice around.

Really, what is the point in debating with people like you? I have no idea.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

Clearly you really do have no idea.

It is fairly simple, more is lost than gained. What is gained is due to the same warming. If you have science to add, add it.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[serviscope_minor]

Using the term denier in a scientific debate demonstrates you have no understanding whatsoever how science works.

You seem to be confusing "scientific debate" with "engaging cranks who hold to a disproven hypothesis no matter the weight of evidence agains them".

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

Science and political advocacy, which is what you're really about, are incompatible. I suggest you stick to trolling "Skeptical Science" and other political websites to get your kicks.

Whilst I'm at it:

A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.

Fascinating. I'm sure you'll explain that away as some kind of warming induced cooling, or other moronic hypothesis to keep your failing thesis alive. Please note that the last paper I read about Antarctic temperatures was by Steig et al. It got pole position in Nature (front cover too) but was shown to be complete and utter bollocks soon afterwards by O'Donnell et al. Of course as is normal in Climate Science, it wasn't retracted despite being shown to be rubbish. And you probably won't read about it on the euphemistically named Skeptical Science website.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Eunuchswear]

Using the term denier in a scientific debate demonstrates you have no understanding whatsoever how science works.

This is not a scientific debate. This is slashdot.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[serviscope_minor]

I'm sure you'll explain that away as some kind of warming induced cooling

Or, warming induced precipitation.

Please note that the last paper I read about Antarctic temperatures was by Steig et al. It got pole position in Nature (front cover too) but was shown to be complete and utter bollocks soon afterwards by O'Donnell et al.

So the last one you read was Steig at al, not O'Donnell et al?

it wasn't retracted despite

News at 11! Scientists almost never retract papers!

Guess what: there are bad papers about quantum mechanics out there. Doesn't mean the transistors in your computer don't work though.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

Or, warming induced precipitation.

Since it hasn't warmed, that seems to me to be extremely unlikely.

News at 11! Scientists almost never retract papers!

Perhaps they should start, especially when they make such massive howlers.

Guess what: there are bad papers about quantum mechanics out there

Are you seriously comparing the working of a transistor with the mechanisms involved in the climate, including but not exclusively the entire fucking Earth? Get a job.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[drinkypoo]

Using the term denier in a scientific debate demonstrates you have

...been paying attention. It's a label for people who deny scientific results.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

It's a label for people who deny scientific results.

It's a label to shut down any debate and prevent people disputing a scientific hypothesis, disputing the statistical treatment of real world data (which is woeful in Climate Science), or disputing the output of computer models, especially computer models that appear to be completely wrong when compared to actually real-world data.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[drinkypoo]

It's a label to shut down any debate and prevent people disputing a scientific hypothesis,

Yes, yes it is. But only people who are attempting to dispute it on bullshit bases which have already been debunked because they are remaining willfully ignorant so that they don't have to change their selfish lifestyles.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Pino Grigio]

debunked

Surprising that this "debunked science" is slowly becoming mainstream, with recent papers published showing a far lower climate sensitivity than the last IPCC report showed. At some point in the future (5 years), you will be the "denier", won't you. Then I'm guessing your attitude will be somewhat different.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[tibit]

sea ice in the Arctic has melted at a much faster rate than it has expanded in the Southern Ocean

'nuff said. You can't look at it locally with a straight face. It doesn't matter what either pole is doing individually. You need to look at both of them combined.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Antarctica at the moment, looking at a glacier and bergs of sea ice and calved glacial ice in the sea water around us.

Our glacier has retreated roughly 800 meters (by my own non-scientific guess) in the last twenty years.

The retreat is obvious on the coasts. And, at South Pole, fissures in the ice at the surface have appeared for the first time at Amundsen-Scott Station. The ice pack seems to be changing under our feet, as it were.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[riverat1]

Maximum Antarctic sea ice has increased somewhat (but not as much as Arctic sea ice has decreased) but measurements by the GRACE satellites show the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass, particularly the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. An interesting factoid about Antarctic sea ice is that it melts 100% every summer and regrows every winter so there is no carry over from year to year like there is in the Arctic.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

Please explain why slightly warmer oceans are a bad thing. Would slightly cooler oceans be a bad thing? Please explain on which day of the Earths existence was the ideal temperature. Please explain how you propose to maintain that exact temperature. Please explain in context of historical trends your problem with our present rate of change of climate temperature. Then, maybe, I'll consider joining your religion.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[radtea]

They conveniently ignore the fact that these are bad things, not good...

What are these "good" and "bad" of which you speak? You seem to be under the misapprehension that climate is a one-dimensional phenomena that can be fully chararcterized by it's value along a single good/bad axis. This is not science: it is politics, pure and simple (very simple!)

As soon as you talk about "better" and "worse" or "good" and "bad" you are only talking about politics, not science. No GCM anywhere has any represention of "good" or "bad". No GCM output is a table of "good" or "bad" values.

Climate is complex and very likely being influenced by human activity. Dumbing the discussion down and talking primarily about politics rather than science is not a recipe for fixing any of the issues.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[tbannist]

I don't like drinkypoo very much, however, you're way off base here.

Surprising that this "debunked science" is slowly becoming mainstream, with recent papers published showing a far lower climate sensitivity than the last IPCC report showed.

While I doubt the veracity of your claims, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt because your claims are ultimately unimportant:

At some point in the future (5 years), you will be the "denier", won't you.

Probably not, he'd only become a denier if he refused to consider and accept new evidence. It's far more likely that this "debunked science" doesn't say what you claim it says or won't become mainstream, and that 5 years from now you'll be making the same baseless claims.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[serviscope_minor]

Since it hasn't warmed, that seems to me to be extremely unlikely.

You said there were no plausibled models for increase in ice based on warming. Now you're moving the goalposts. Of course I never countered a point you only just invented.

Perhaps they should start, especially when they make such massive howlers.

Perhaps they should.

Are you seriously comparing

No, and if you had any degree of reading comprehension you'd have understood the comparison. A bad paper about QM doesn't mean your computer no longer works. A bad paper about climage doesn't mean the facts of climate change have changed.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

I am just pointing out that increased Sea Ice in the antarctic is the result of increased warming. Some people take it as evidence that the antarctic sea ice makes up for loss of Arctic sea ice, when both are due to the same warming. i think that was fairly obvious in my reply.

This is science, not politics. Politics is the science of deniers who claim that all climate based study is politically driven... which it is not.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[BitZtream]

Its convent that every change, regardless of what the change is, is banded about as 'proof' of global warming.

More rain: Global Warming!
Less rain: Global Warming!
Hotter: Global Warming!
Colder Temps: Global Warming!

The Earth could turn into a solid ball of ice tomorrow and you'd come out and tell us it was Global Warming that did it.

Thats why large portions of the population don't care about the issue. You claim everything is caused by the your cause ... even things that contradict your point of view. No matter what happens, you come up with some way that Global Warming is the reason.

Thats called confirmation bias. It doesn't make your theory true, it just means it was effected by confirmation bias and you're too ignorant to realize it.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[BitZtream]

My glass is empty because I poured it out.

My glass is full because I poured it out.

Those are the same kind of statements as what you're trying to use as evidence of your point of view. You can't use opposite indicators for the same thing to claim proof.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

More likely denying is confirmation bias. What we know...

CO2 is increasing at an exponential rate
Human activity is the main contributor to CO2 growth
CO2 drives higher temperatures

We know these as facts. The comment on changes is confirmation of the expected impact of climate change. How you can keep you head in the sand and ignore the facts i do not understand. i note that the deniers never quote science to back their claims, they just snipe at imaginary flaws in the science that has been done or imply that all of the science is tainted by politics. Interestingly there is clear reason why a denier would want to deny, given the desire to not change lifestyle or impact the profitability of the oil industry, but i never see a believable reason why scientists would want to make up data... nor why and how they would all somehow be involved in a conspiracy of silence and how they would magically maintain the conspiracy with no evidence leaking out. Bizarre, really.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[able1234au]

I poured out half the glass but added in a quarter of a glass. Is it the same or less? simple really.

Re:on a volcano spewing CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the term denier in a scientific debate ...

But this is not a scientific debate. It's a debate between a denier who has no idea of the science and someone else who does. The scientific debate is the debate conducted in reputable scientific journals, not the nonsense (and rebuttals thereof) that is sprayed around on public online fora by deniers such as yourself.

Get a fucking clue denier.

Re: on a volcano spewing CO2

[Anonymous Coward]

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com

oh, so they edited the data for 15% of the days

[raymorris]

Oh okay, I'm it's perfectly objective, then.
As long as the guys trying to get evidence of increased CO2 are admittedly excluding 15% of daily data, it's a perfectly objective source.

Or you could report readings that AREN'T on top of a giant CO2 vent. Seriously, you have to REALLY want to believe them if you need to pretend that's credible. Don't you have any interest at all in knowing what's actually going on? I can sort of understand fandom, though I prefer intellectual honesty. Even hardcore sports fans WATCH THE GAME to find out what happened, though. They don't just pretend their team won.

Re:oh, so they edited the data for 15% of the days

[able1234au]

If you follow either link there is a graph showing data from other sites and Mauna Loa's readings perfectly align with them.

Think about this another way... if the results were skewed by the volcano it could be fairly easily proven and that scientist would get a lot of publicity. It is not for want of trying. But the fact is that the effects are known and accounted for and in the second link you can see someone actually studying the CO2 outgassing of the volcano.

There are many thousands of scientist around the world studying this topic. If there were big holes in the theory then the denier community would make sure that people knew about it. But there is not, their responses are mostly wrapped in ignorance of the science.

And the science is not all built on one single data point (eg atmospheric temperatures) but instead a wealth of data, all of which supports that CO2 is rising, that human activity is the major contributor and that there are effects on the climate.

Re:oh, so they edited the data for 15% of the days

[JakartaDean]

Oh okay, I'm it's perfectly objective, then. As long as the guys trying to get evidence of increased CO2 are admittedly excluding 15% of daily data, it's a perfectly objective source. Or you could report readings that AREN'T on top of a giant CO2 vent. Seriously, you have to REALLY want to believe them if you need to pretend that's credible. Don't you have any interest at all in knowing what's actually going on? I can sort of understand fandom, though I prefer intellectual honesty. Even hardcore sports fans WATCH THE GAME to find out what happened, though. They don't just pretend their team won.

I don't really think you're justified in attacking the character and reputation of the scientists, as despite your claims to the contrary you have completely closed your mind to any facts that violate your "beliefs". You don't prefer intellectual honesty, you prefer to spout half-truths. To wit:

As others have pointed out, they get extremely consistent readings all day and most of the night, except when a temperature inversion when the readings go up. Then they DELETE THOSE RECORDS. If they wanted to get evidence of increased CO2, according to your model they would leave those in. Their readings are consistent with other monitoring stations. Are they all secretly conspiring to push the number up?

I'd suggest you reconsider posting inconsistent and poorly thought out posts on science, here or anywhere else, especially those embellished with attacks on people's character.

Re:oh, so they edited the data for 15% of the days

[tibit]

You must have never dealt with any environmental data, then, to think that the data is not "edited". Of course it must be edited, because the point isn't to measure the necessarily local variations! What they want to measure is a proxy for the global CO2 concentration, they must be processing the data appropriately to reject the local variations that have known and well understood sources. It'd be completely stupid of them not to do so! Heck, if they didn't do that, you'd be kicking and screaming that they are using data points that are "known bad". You are a troll, I agree with the moderators.

Time?

[cultiv8]

Obligatory XKCD

I think I'm the first on /. to reference the whole Time series as Obligatory XKCD.

The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[raymorris]

The only 400 reading publicized was here on Slashdot a few weeks ago. The measurement was from atop Mauna Lua - a volcano that emits CO2 constantly. You'll note that the defender below acknowledges that fact while saying it's okay because the person who did the reading edited the data to come up with the 400 estimate.

That's seriously the best "defense" - "it's okay, we cooked the data to say 400 because we think that's what it might have been if we weren't on a volcano."

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[Wolfling1]

OK. It doesn't sound like you're trolling, so I'll give a more useful post this time:

Check out this site. It has some really good material and references about the science behind this stuff.

You might also find this interview with one of the key scientists interesting.

I don't profess to be a climate change guru, but this stuff looks reasonably legit to me.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[DaveV1.0]

Yes, it is reasonable to attempt to measure the amount of a gas in the atmosphere while standing on a major source of that very same gas because "[m]ost of the time... the prevailing winds blow the volcanic gasses away." What could possibly go wrong with that? I know, let's put the thermostat for your A/C directly over the stove because most of the time, the stove is off.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[tibit]

Your analogy is silly. The better analogy would be: put the thermostat for your A/C on the other side of the kitchen. Every once in a while, if you open the window, the movement of air throughout the house will blow the warm humid air from the stove right over the thermostat. The condensing water vapor will get the thermostat real hot real quick. That's what happens there: when the rare circumstance (just look at the fucking raw data will you now) of the CO2-laden wind blowing over the sampling station happens, the readings are bonkers. There's way more variation due to CO2-depleted air being blown uphill (vegetation scrubs CO2 from the air). The sampling station isn't over a CO2 source, that'd be just totally silly. In prevailing winds it's upwind of the local CO2 source, and the closest upwind CO2 source is over a thousand miles away. You're completely off base in your assertion that anyone is measuring "while standing on a major source of that very same gas". That "major source" of "that very same gas" is miles away, in the wrong direction.

If you tell me that the source being miles away downwind doesn't matter, I can tell you quite categorically that no, it makes all the difference. I used to live upwind a couple of miles from a paper plant, and the rare days with no wind or wind blowing opposite of its usual direction we'd know right away. As long as the trade wind was there, you would never know anything about any paper plants.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[Eunuchswear]

So, you've looked at the figures from Mauna Lua and can point to the moments where CO2 from the volcano clearly distorted the signal.

Or you have an explanation for how the curve is nice and smooth - maybe Manua Lua is emitting more CO2 over time?

Maybe you have an explanation for why the curves from other stations are more or less exactly the same as Manua Lua?

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[bluefoxlucid]

The reason it's called climate change is because "Global Warming" was drilled into our heads as "Driving too many cars and running factories, causing the earth to become hot because of CO2." Well, then the "earth becoming hot" thing turned out to not be a real thing; but the climate does change, so we started talking about "Climate Change". We just replaced the wording.

With the replaced wording, we can see a real thing happening. Because the fairly-believable "Earth gets hotter because of greenhouse gasses" thing was accepted, and the effect has been renamed to something visible, we accept the original reasonable explanation for the new observable thing. The problem here is that the original explanation is less reasonable for this new thing--if "Climate Change" means hurricanes, blizzards, a global drop in temperature, a new ice age, formation of bigger ice shelves, earthquakes, meteor showers, and Three Mile Island suddenly blowing a volcanic vent and sinking 3 feet below sea level, people will accept it as some kind of man-made event because of all the cars we drive. Because it's still "Global Warming" to them and we know what caused global warming.

That's your propaganda lesson today.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never been to Muana Loa, have you? The mountain is frelling enormous, if it were measured from its base rather than the sea surface it would be the planet's largest by far. The above-water portion makes up most of the state of Hawaii. In fact, the spot where they do the normal atmospheric measurements is a 4 1/2 hour drive away from the closest active volcanic vents. It's also completely cross-wind to the prevailing winds, the active vents being at the south end of the island, the measuring station 3/4 of the island's length to the north, and the winds blow constantly and consistently from the west.

TLDR; your talking point is cute and sounds good but has no basis in reality.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[Vintermann]

Both "climate change" and "global warming" was used in the very first modern scientific paper that discussed the possibility. So your theory that this is some PR gimmick is interesting speculation, but alas, wrong.

(although as I recall, there was a memo from a Bush-era advisor who recommended using "climate change" over "global warming" as the latter sounded too dramatic- in other words, the exact opposite PR reason that you thought it were. But it would be too generous to think this changed the terminology, though.)

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[bluefoxlucid]

Well, then the "earth becoming hot" thing turned out to not be a real thing; but the climate does change, so we started talking about "Climate Change". We just replaced the wording.

(although as I recall, there was a memo from a Bush-era advisor who recommended using "climate change" over "global warming" as the latter sounded too dramatic- in other words, the exact opposite PR reason that you thought it were. But it would be too generous to think this changed the terminology, though.)

Sounds like the exact same reason to me: "We don't see global warming, it sounds like you're overstating what's happening... you know, the actual warming thing. That's not really happening, at the very least not in any appreciable way. There's some change going on."

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[operagost]

If it's so important to keep monitoring stations away from human and plant influence, why is it that most temperature monitoring stations are in the middle of towns and cities? It's great that the Muana Loa CO2 monitoring station has been deemed accurate, but what about the hundreds of monitoring stations that are in cities, placed near the exhaust of air conditioners, obsolete, uncalibrated, in direct sunlight, in the reflection of glass skyscrapers, on black-rooftopped buildings, etc.? This is why a significant number of people are skeptics. If you want people to buy into the AGW scenario, you have to show all of 1. Increasing CO2 trend, 2. Increasing global mean temperature trend, 3. Human influence. Instead, we have pseudo-scientists on talking head shows saying, "It's hot! That's AGW!" or "CO2 keeps going up! That's AGW!" or "We burn too many fossil fuels! That's AGW!"

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[riverat1]

Do you really believe that scientists are so stupid they're not aware of those UHI effects and haven't accounted for them in their research? In fact they compensate for that so well that a study a few years ago found that the warming trend was slightly smaller in urban weather stations than it is in well placed rural stations.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[BitZtream]

...

So they're fucking with the data, skewing it as they see fit ... and then acting like its empirical evidence?

Seriously? We made the data look like we it should, so it must be accurate!?

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[riverat1]

You should read some of those papers where they explain exactly what modifications to the data and the scientific justification for making the modifications. If you seriously want to challenge the modification of data then you need to scientifically challenge their justification for making them. It's not enough to say "They're fucking with the data." when data in nearly all scientific endeavors is similarly modified for similar reasons.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[dywolf]

Fine talking point except for one thing: your base assumption is wrong.
most of the sensor stations are NOT in the middle of towns and cities.

there are sensor there, yes. but there are many more sensors places across the country side, in rural areas, at points of interest (scientifically).

there are also many people in the countryside, farmers and the like, who send in regular reports to NOAA (they monitor local conditions anyway because it helps productivity), which they use to supplement their monitoring stations. my own grandfather has been tracking Hi/Low temperature and rainfall in his little area of north california on a daily basis for close to 40 years.

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[uninformedLuddite]

Because..... your mum

Re:The 400 reading is from atop Mauna Lua

[Eunuchswear]

Damn, that's the best argument I've seen so far.

SCIENCE!

[jeff13]

Yea science, seems slashdot comments are far too concerned with opinions and politics instead of science, facts, and, well evidence. Which, btw, this is actually big chunk of.

Re:SCIENCE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uneducated idiots are always the ones proselytizing their baseless beliefs and political opinions.

Personal Reality

[dbIII]

It's unfortunate that most climate science isn't science

Here we go again. Tell me then, what's your own personal definition of science that's better than the one the scientists and the dictionary uses?

Re:Personal Reality

[serviscope_minor]

Tell me then, what's your own personal definition of science that's better than the one the scientists and the dictionary uses?

You know: the one that says that climate isn't warming and even if it is then it's due to volcanos or sunspots or something and even if that's not the cause we can't do anything about it anyway. Also, if that definition happens to include that the earth is only 6000 years old and evolution doesn't happen that's a bonus too.

Re:Personal Reality

[dkleinsc]

Alternately, it's the definition of science which states that no matter what happens I never have to change what I'm doing or inconvenience myself with such silly activities as taking the bus (or even *gasp* walking somewhere), wearing a sweater indoors in the winter, or improving the insulation of my home.

Re:Personal Reality

[operagost]

The kind that doesn't look at their charts and say, "oh, that result isn't what we'd expect. Let's "normalize" it.

Re:Personal Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

You know: the one that says that climate isn't warming and even if it is then it's due to volcanos or sunspots or something and even if that's not the cause we can't do anything about it anyway. Also, if that definition happens to include that the earth is only 6000 years old and evolution doesn't happen that's a bonus too.

And in the end if it turns out that it is happening and it isn't due to volcanos or sunspots after all, then it is caused by gun control, gay weddings and Obama Bin Laden.

Re: Personal Reality

[gzuckier]

Women's systems down there recognize when it is a case of legitimate science.

Earlier

[dbIII]

There was a major report on the topic sent to President Johnson.

Wait, science...

[theoriginalturtle]

OK, somebody fill me in, here...

3,000 "lakes" on an ice shelf that they state was 2700km^2?

That's a little over a thousand square miles. That's about the land area of Cook County, Illinois, where Chicago is.

3,000 "lakes?" Lolwut? You mean "ponds?" Perhaps "puddles?"

Somebody convince me that I should be runnin' to the hills, because I'm just not feelin' it, here...

Numbers squared Re:Wait, science...

[jphamlore]

Indeed, 30 by 30 kilometres is already 900 km^2, 1/3 of 2700 km^2. Should I be all that concerned about any 30 x 30 km^2 area in a wilderness? I'm not so sure.

This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this wasn't the scheme that Obama wanted, and this is the "compromise" that the Republicans would accept, this is absolutely NOT Obama's fault, but the fault of the Republicans.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

True that

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dumbass, not a single Republican voted for this in either house of Congress.
They were left completely out of the writing of this bill.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats passed the ACA bill without any Republican help or input. They rammed it through congress with Nancy Pelosi famously stating, " we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." There was absolutely no compromise for the Republicans to accept. The Democrats passed the exact bill they wanted because they had control of both houses of congress and the White House.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Talderas]

At best it was a compromise written hoping to get Republican votes so the Democrats could claim it to be bipartisan and not own it entirely when it blew up.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats passed the ACA bill without any Republican help or input.

Really, then why was it practically a carbon copy of prior Republican plans, and functionally identical to the infamous Romneycare?

They rammed it through congress with Nancy Pelosi famously stating, " we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Your misrepresentation here discredits you. Perhaps you should learn what she really said, which was about how so many lies and misrepresentations had been told about the bill that the only way America would find out what was actually in it would be for it to be passed.

Oh wait, that narrative isn't the one you want to put forward, is it?

There was absolutely no compromise for the Republicans to accept. The Democrats passed the exact bill they wanted because they had control of both houses of congress and the White House.

Really? Then where's the public option Democrats wanted? Sorry, but they passed the exact bill Republicans wanted, Republicans just didn't want to admit it, so they pretended to oppose it, and still make big shows of worthless repeal votes.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Dishevel]

The sound bite do not matter to me at all. This was really bad. It will not go away. Never. The D.C. Bureaucrats have never let control slip from their grasp. It will get bigger. As the costs go higher it will be blamed on what we eat, then "dangerous recreational activities". These will be controlled by the government. You know they will. This is what they have always done with power.

Democrat or Republican. There is no upside for either party to shed the government of some of its power over the people.

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[bigwheel]

If the law is so bad that everyone is now finger-pointing, then why don't they just repeal it?

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[BitZtream]

Because that would piss off the insurance companies ... you know, the ones actually pushing for the bill in the first place?

Re:This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Anonymous Coward]

No Republicans voted for ObamaCare: zero. And you're saying they passed the exact bill the Republicans wanted? Your blind apologist ideology shows you have no clue about politics. You don't want to be informed; you already have the opinion you will cling to even though no facts back up your moronic claims. It is low-informed voters like you that screw up elections. You work off of gut-feelings and if any facts get in the way you retcon them into supporting your gut-feeling.

Re: This was the only version (R) would accept.

[gzuckier]

Except for the part where Bob Dole basically wrote the Senate version, which of course is largely similar to Romneycare.

Re: This was the only version (R) would accept.

[gzuckier]

Yeah. The same way Medicare now makes the elderly wear helmets when they rollerblade, right?

Re: This was the only version (R) would accept.

[Dishevel]

You can believe that the Federal Government will not take advantage of a massive new bureaucracy and a whole new set of regulations to increase their power over the individual.

You might even be right.

For the first time in human history.

I know how this happened

[Anonymous Coward]

A certain saber-toothed squirrel tried to insert an acorn into the ice.

Bright Side

[ThatsNotPudding]

We got a bitchin' song about it by British Sea Power.

political science

[harvey the nerd]

Conclusory, political, non-factual statements included in this article. I have lost all respect for Nature.

then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[raymorris]

>. Then they DELETE THOSE RECORDS. If they wanted to get evidence of increased CO2, according to your model they would leave those in.

They chose to delete 15% of the readings.
They could have used to same explanation to delete 12% or 18% and ended up with any result they wanted. That is, from what they said, they chose to delete only the ones that were WAY over the top, but leave in the ones that were "only" 30% higher than average. That doesn't inspire confidence.

> Their readings are consistent with other monitoring stations.

I've seen the Mauna Lua estimate cited many times. I've never seen a consistent reading from any other station cited. Do you have a citation for that? Preferably a sensor that's not inside the smokestack of a Chinese foundry?

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[Eunuchswear]

They could have used to same explanation to delete 12% or 18% and ended up with any result they wanted

But they didn't.

Dishonest people often have difficulty believing that honest people are honest - "oh, you're cheating when my back is turned".

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[Anonymous Coward]

>. Then they DELETE THOSE RECORDS. If they wanted to get evidence of increased CO2, according to your model they would leave those in.

They chose to delete 15% of the readings.
They could have used to same explanation to delete 12% or 18% and ended up with any result they wanted. That is, from what they said, they chose to delete only the ones that were WAY over the top, but leave in the ones that were "only" 30% higher than average. That doesn't inspire confidence.

So long as the criteria are as transparent as the data, what's the problem? Models correct for biases all the time.

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[serviscope_minor]

They could have used to same explanation to delete 12% or 18% and ended up with any result they wanted.

Then prove it. If they've been manipulating the data then there will be signs.

A clue: there won't be signs.

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[HornWumpus]

Electric grid modeler here.

Any modeler can get any result he/she wants, or they are incompetent.

In the electric utility world, presenting models to utility boards is an adversarial process. You have experienced modelers on both sides. They select a model or models acceptable to both sides. Then they spend weeks/months arguing about datasets and forecasts. These are simple models relative to atmosphere models.

Where is the open discussion including 'fossil fuel shills' for climate models? Never happens. It would be like planning utility capacity based entirely on the models/datasets of greens. The exclusion of contrary opinions from the discussion is 'the smoking gun' in the East Anglia emails. I don't care how many times they exonerate themselves.

Where is the open discussion of the CO2/H2O vapor positive feedback coefficient? I've seen global warming activists present models where any increase in temperature would result in out of control positive feedback and Venus like conditions; they didn't get 'laughed off the stage' as they should have.

Models don't 'correct for bias', models have bias which must be understood. Modelers 'correct for bias' by inserting their own into the dataset.

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[riverat1]

NOAA lists 6 sites where it is continuously monitoring atmospheric CO2, Barrow, AK, the Greenland Summit station, Trinidad Head, CA, Mauna Loa, HI, American Samoa and South Pole Station. Other nations have their own monitoring stations. The reason that Mauna Loa gets mentioned so much is that it was the first place they did that so it has the longest continuous records. If there were serious discrepancies between the measurements of different stations you would have heard about it by now.

Oh, and the measurements do vary by a few ppm at the different stations. In general the further north you are the higher the reading and the further south the lower the reading. The Barrow, AK station reported 400 ppm a year before Mauna Loa and it will be another year or three before the South Pole Station hits that mark but the rate of increase is essentially the same for all stations.

Re:then cite the consistent non- volcano ones

[BitZtream]

Other then the sign where they said 'we manipulate the data'?

What the fuck do you need to believe it, they told you they do it, and you're still in denial.

A neat maths trick.

[TapeCutter]

Hey professor, did you know that for any curve you can always find a section short enough to approximate a straight line? In the 1600's some maths geniuses built a whole branch of maths from that 'trick' and called it calculus.

Also did you know the best estimates for sea level rise come with rather large error bars which IIRC range from about 20cm to 800cm by the year 2100. The reason for the large error bars is that people who have spent their lives studying this have much less certainty about the shape of the curve than you do. That cautious approach by the "experts" is genuine skeptcisim, fought out in the journals as it should be. Picking a figure at either end of the range and representing it as the "most likely scenario" is simply dishonest.

Re:A neat maths trick.

[HiThere]

That's only true if the curve is continuous. There exist curves that are discontinuous at every point.

BE AFRAID! Damn you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Also give me money!

they said they did

[raymorris]

Yes, they did. They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results.

Re:they said they did

[Eunuchswear]

They discarded 15% of the days because they clearly didn't fit. Why would they include some clearly anomalous readings, or exclude some clearly normal readings? And what would happen even if they included them? The graph would get noisier, but the trend would be the same. (*)

Look at the graphs:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna-loa-co2-record/

It's pretty easy to see which days are affected by volcanic CO2 increases.

These periods of elevated and variable CO2 levels are so different from the typical measurements that is easy to remove them from the final data set using a simple mathematical “filter.”

But you think there is an amazing conspiracy. This tells us more about what's going on in your head than what's going on in the atmosphere.

((*) Note that the readings are only discarded in the sense that they are not included in this series, they don't actualy throw the readings away - the "discarded" readings have been used for other research, for example into how volcanic C02 mixes with the atmosphere).

prove it? they said that's what they did

[raymorris]

Prove it? You think they were lying? They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results. The data is there if you want to calculate it for different values than the 15% they chose.

prove it? that's what they said they did

[raymorris]

Prove it? You think they were lying? They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results. The data is there if you want to calculate it for different values than the 15% they chose.

Re:prove it? that's what they said they did

[riverat1]

They don't arbitrarily pick 15% of the days. What they are saying is that approximately 15% of the days show the effects of local contamination of the measurement so they throw those out. If the Mauna Loa measurements were substantially different than other measurement taken around the world you might have a point but they aren't.

Don't you mean

[publiclurker]

the freedom to sponge off of everyone else like a self-entitled parasite, don't you, son.

Re:Don't you mean

[Dishevel]

I work for a living and pay taxes. I pay my bills and take care of myself.

How exactly am I a parasite? What is it that I feel entitled to that I did not earn on my own?

I just do not think that the government should be telling me what I have to buy. If you feel that you need that then might I suggest that you go back to live with your parents and have them run your life for you.

You lies are pretty transparent

[publiclurker]

the watered it down and then refused to vote on that they agreed to. It only goes to show that you should not bother negotiating with people like you, since you are inherently dishonest.

Fix yer headline, timothy

[LocalH]

Larsen not Larson. This isn't the first time I've seen these two names widely mixed up, only this time it's not widely, just timothy.

Of course they didn't vote for their own requests.

[Von Rex]

That's because Republicans are just like Lucy with her football. Don't know why Democrats keep playing that game. They keep expecting a different outcome, just like Charlie Brown.

missing the point. 4:30 AM might be volcanic, migh

[raymorris]

Yes of course they need to disregard some of the data from this particular station, which is the problem with this monitoring station. In the sample graph on the page, they chose to include the 4:30 AM reading, which looks like it may well be part of the volcanic breeze. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's entirely subjective whether or not you want to include that.

Subjective massaging of data like that represents the person's OPINION, not an objective measurement.

Re:missing the point. 4:30 AM might be volcanic, m

[Eunuchswear]

Yes of course they need to disregard some of the data from this particular station, which is the problem with this monitoring station. In the sample graph on the page, they chose to include the 4:30 AM reading, which looks like it may well be part of the volcanic breeze. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's entirely subjective whether or not you want to include that.

Subjective massaging of data like that represents the person's OPINION, not an objective measurement.

What part of

These periods of elevated and variable CO2 levels are so different from the typical measurements that is easy to remove them from the final data set using a simple mathematical “filter.”

don't you understand?

And, given that it comes up with the same results as all the other measurements we have, what is your problem?

lots of land

[Anonymous Coward]

We WILL be playing kickball on the tundra of Antarctica in the coming years, as the other continents will become too hot to be habitable for humans...

Sent from the future

What part of 4:30 AM don't you understand? IAH 0.2

[raymorris]

> What part of
> > These periods of elevated and variable CO2 levels are so different from the typical measurements that is easy to >
> > remove them from the final data set using a simple mathematical “filter.”

> don't you understand?

What part of 4:30 AM don't you understand? It's right there int he subject line.
If you look at the data, 4:30 NOT "so different from" 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM that there's any objective reason to include one and exclude the other. As it happens, these readings that entirely subjective, like 4:30 AM, are precisely the peak readings people are getting excited about.

> And, given that it comes up with the same results as all the other measurements we have, what is your problem?

I've been asking and asking for citations to any other similar result. Dozens of people have replied to those posts, but not one has cited a single measurement, anywhere in the world, even in the middle of LA, with readings anywhere NEAR that high. I just checked the reading in downtown Houston, TX, one of the country's dirtiest cities. It's 0.2 ppm. These guys are claiming overall atmospheric C02 of 400 ppm.
So according to them, Houston has air 2000 times cleaner than the atmosphere is general. I call bullshit. If you know of any other readings coming anywhere near 400, cite them. Since you don't, you just thought that's what Jon Stewart said, stop repeating it. It's bull. 2000X bull.

Re:What part of 4:30 AM don't you understand? IAH

[Eunuchswear]

I've been asking and asking for citations to any other similar result.

Well, just looking at the page I pointed out to you you can see the graphs for Barrow, Samoa and the South Pole.

Actual numbers can be found at http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-keel-flask/sio-keel-flasksam.html

Dozens of people have replied to those posts, but not one has cited a single measurement, anywhere in the world, even in the middle of LA, with readings anywhere NEAR that high. I just checked the reading in downtown Houston, TX, one of the country's dirtiest cities. It's 0.2 ppm. These guys are claiming overall atmospheric C02 of 400 ppm.

WTF? Where the hell do you get 0.2 ppm CO2? Source?

Just quickly looking around the web I can find papers like Elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature across an urban-rural transect

Which includes the gem:

In Phoenix, USA CO2 concentration was monitored for nearly a year and values ranged from a daily minimum of 390 ppm rising to a daily maximum of 491 ppm, although a maximum value of 619 ppm was attained (Idso et al., 2002).

619 ppm in 2002 in Phoenix good enough for you?

Looks like your Houston figure is dodgy. Confusing CO with CO2 maybe?

Thanks for the cite. I went to 57 states

[raymorris]

Thanks for the citation. Yeah I had a moment of going to 57 states there with CO vs CO2. I realized that just after posting it and hoped this thread was dead enough that no-one would read it.

See what I mean about 4:30, for example? I don't see any objective reason to include those high readings on either side of a volcano event. For many of the highest readings, it's just not clear if that's the beginning of the breeze shifting to include the volcanic CO2 or not.

I suppose to be on the safe side, one could exclude an hour on either side of the part that's obviously volcanic. If you do that, it excludes a lot of high readings and gives a different result. The readings you provided from other places help. I'm assuming those other places aren't also active volcanos!

Re:Thanks for the cite. I went to 57 states

[Eunuchswear]

Thanks for the citation. Yeah I had a moment of going to 57 states there with CO vs CO2. I realized that just after posting it and hoped this thread was dead enough that no-one would read it.

Damn good thing the CO level was 0.2ppm, 400ppm of CO would be bad for you

See what I mean about 4:30, for example? I don't see any objective reason to include those high readings on either side of a volcano event. For many of the highest readings, it's just not clear if that's the beginning of the breeze shifting to include the volcanic CO2 or not.

Re-read what they say - the choice of the readings to omit from the series is not made by man, it's made by running the values through a filter. I suppose you can find out exactly what the filter is if you look hard enough.

I suppose to be on the safe side, one could exclude an hour on either side of the part that's obviously volcanic. If you do that, it excludes a lot of high readings and gives a different result. The readings you provided from other places help. I'm assuming those other places aren't also active volcanos!

Wikipedia is your friend.

Finally, the end of the ice age!

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes everyone think that ice at the poles is normal on this planet? Research indicates that our entire planet was once extremely hot and humid. Then, an ice age caused the sea water to drop dramatically as much of the water was deposited at the poles, revealing land and land bridges that were once under water.

It has finally thawed to the point where the environment is returning to normal and you have fools whining about climate change.

Stupid humans: they believe that their actions actually register as anything more than a tiny spike on a graph in the vast history of this planet.

global warming is junk science

[Anonymous Coward]

more evidence keeps coming in ; people pushing climate change have some other agenda, but not truth ;
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/08/13/weather-station-closures-flaws-in-temperature-record/

Sorry, I was leaking data prematurely again

[symbolset]

20,000 years ago was when the climate began to warm in Antarctica. It took quite a while for the ice to melt, the atmospheric temperatures to exceed today's. Several thousand years after that the seas began to rise. Whether it was 13,000, 17,000, 11,000 years ago is irrelevant. It happened. It was long ago before the age of modern history, before the age of carbon fuels, and the Earth was warmer, wetter, the glaciers smaller, the seas higher than now. And it was "natural". That's the science and it's not debatable.

The natural course is to return to glaciation as the Earth's orbit moves away from this climactic optimum for Men. That's the science and not debatable either. The Warmists would have you believe that this is a desirable end. Maybe it is - certainly it would be "natural" for mile-high glaciers to sweep all of the US Eastern Seaboard into the sea again leaving no record of Man's presence there. I wouldn't miss New York.

I live too far North to welcome it though. The glaciers would come for me too, and scrape my house into the sea. I would quite prefer that Man altered his environment in such a way as to prevent a recurrence of this dire fate. Luckily for me, that seems to be the plan.