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'Half' of 2012's Extreme Weather Impacted By Climate Change
sciencehabit writes "2012 was a year of extreme weather: Superstorm Sandy, drought and heat waves in the United States; record rainfall in the United Kingdom; unusually heavy rains in Kenya, Somalia, Japan, and Australia; drought in Spain; floods in China. One of the first questions asked in the wake of such extreme weather is: 'Could this due to climate change?' In a report (huge PDF) published online today, NOAA scientists tackled this question head-on. The overall message of the report: It varies. 'About half of the events reveal compelling evidence that human-caused change was a [contributing] factor,' said NOAA National Climatic Data Center Director Thomas Karl. In addition, climate scientist Peter Stott of the U.K. Met Office noted that these studies show that in many cases, human influence on climate has increased the risks associated with extreme events."
Godfearing Christians are smitten by God and not by Climate Change.
Of course humans affect the environment, how is that disputable? It's the degree and duration of the affect that is not clear. Whether, or is it weather, these human changes are a significant factor is the debate..
I have noticed only people in NY call it a superstorm, anyone else would call it a cat 1 hurricane or TS. I feel this planet goes through cycles of extremes, pointing at humans without proof is just another way to tax people.
Didn't take long for the Anonymous "don't believe the scientists" comments to start filtering in, did it? How about, given the scientific consensus (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus), I'm pretty skeptical of the motivations and accuracy of a denier.
The question should not be is warming/climate change aided by manmade endeavors. It should be, now that we realize we have the power to alter the climate, what do we want to do? Let it go as is? Change it for the better? Try to change it back?
Now I will go get my popcorn.. I need to have snacks for the ensuing battle.
Silence is a state of mime.
All I can say about global warming is that when I was a kidd these same people where saying we where headed to and Ice Age. You have alot of people who belive it and don't belive it. As to the scientist, well they follow the money, even a cursory look would tell you that.
I rather giggle at "Man-Made Global Warming". Primarily, because the planet has been in an Ice Age for the past 2-3 million years: we are merely between continental glacial advances.
The HISTORIC climate for most of the US was hot and swampy for the past several hundred million years. Since genus homo has only been around for the last 2 million years or so, you can't even blame us for human-induced global COOLING. . .
I remember an article in which it discussed that Climate Change denying is an American problem. While there are as many conspiracies to Climate Change being a myth as there are of who is starting and promoting them, the reality as shown by poll after poll is that people are not 'buying into it.' For example, my EXTREMELY Catholic parents love and agree with the pope(s). The previous pope, Benedict, was known (by some) as the green pope. A quick search easily shows how he spoke openly on the need to do something. When I say to my dad, 97% of climatologists agree on this issue (and let's be honest, in how many scientific fields do you see that sort of majority consensus on "controversial" topics) and that does nothing to persuade him, I am continued to be amazed when the pope angle doesn't do diddly either. The opposition is so engrained, reason no longer works...
"Debunkers"? You mean, like, frauds?
Sorry, but I don't believe any half respectable news organization should link to something just to show "two sides" of a debate. Science is science. The people actually practicing science seem to be largely in agreement about AGW. Asking Slashdot to link to oil-industry funded shills and kooks doesn't help advance knowledge in any way.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
With those hard numbers the remaining thing to see in this discussion is how many people is paid for Koch industries and similar ones, and how many got fooled by them into denying that human activity are causing changes in global climate strong enough to be responsible for the consequences of some of the extreme weather we suffered in recent years.
Scientific consensus by itself doesn't actually mean a whole lot. After all, scientific consensus once said the universe was static in size. Even Einstein agreed...
And of course, the exact details of that "consensus" are a bit murky (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/30/global-warming-alarmists-caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/). The consensus is strong when the question is "are humans *affecting* the climate?" and that consensus starts to shrink one the question moves to "are humans the *primary* cause of the climate's change?" or "is this a disaster?"...
Large groups of scientists have believed very wrong and goofy things for long periods of time.
I'm not saying that's the case this time. Just saying that using the argument form that 9 out of 10 doctors agree "Brand X Cigarettes are good for your health" isn't the best argument.
I suspect the climate is going to cool down (as it did after 1945) and then it will go on to new highs. That cool down is going to be seized on when it's really just natural variability around the generally rising temperature.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The trick is knowing WHICH half
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
The very set of studies this article is about exists to examine the impact (presence and magnitude) of global climate change on specific events.
That the line you quote doesn't say it's immeasurably small (hell 'small' isn't even in the article), it says that the models need to be improved, and you probably shouldn't say a new expansive set of studies is irrelevant because one *editorial* in Nature published a year ago says the models need to be improved.
Then again, denial seems to revolve around completely missing the point or endless deflection rather than addressing the facts and method of data collection, so you weren't out of the norm there.
Show me the detailed worldwide climate model including the future cycles of the Sun before I will consider believing 1 year worth of change is due to any particular cause.
Come on now. Rational, scientific work doesn't confuse Correlation with Causation!
We have no idea, but picking the number int he middle hedges our bets the most.
Argument from consensus alone is also a fallacy. I'm skeptical of the motivations and accuracy of promoters AND deniers in politically contaminated 'science.' For example, your link points to a government funded organization. That's as biased as a study funded by exxon. Even if they're right, they're not promoting this for the right reason (telling the truth).. They're promoting it to push a political agenda (justification of center left politics, which means more funding for them).
Something as large as climate change is going to require more strict adherence to the truth (whatever it is) than political cheerleading usually allows. I guarantee that it is more complicated than "man influences/does not influence."
Human-caused changes often cause extreme events...
That's because we're such Extreme creatures. F'rinstance:
Extreme weather is what we crave.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How does that figure? And don't say instability... I could believe Extreme Reporting on weather rather than extreme weather....global warning is real, but it connection to last year's storms seem tenuous....
All this time I thought maybe people who have studied the climate for years and years might be on to something, but you have convinced me that I was wrong with your deep understanding of the topic and highly credible, well thought out refutation of their claims, random dude on the internet!
Is that considered extreme weather? If so, which half is it in?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/30/a-head-scratcher-no-atlantic-hurricane-by-august-in-first-time-in-11-years/#more-92771
I remember an article in which it discussed that Climate Change denying is an American problem.
Climate change by itself is not under dispute. The question is: what causes climate change. And then there are three sides:
- It must be us, the human population, burning all those fossil fuels causing CO2 levels to rise;
- It can't be us, we are to insignificant. Climate change is caused by increased solar activity and oceans releasing vast amounts of CO2;
- It is a combination of both: we can slow it down but it is inevitable;
To be honest, I'm not a scientist and I don't give a rats ass who is correct. What I do care about is that we start taking the necessary measures to ensure that my daughter and her future children still have a place to live once I'm long gone..
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
All I can say about global warming is that when I was a kidd these same people where saying we where headed to and Ice Age.
No, they weren't. Nobody was ever seriously predicting we were heading into an ice age. That "next ice age" played well in the media-- it made Time and Newsweek--but it was never a scientific consensus. Check out "The myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus" in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, or the discussion and links here: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/09/18/now-out-in-bams-the-myth-of-th/
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Can we agree in future not to post news items having to do with climate "science" unless we are at the same time including links to debunkers of said news?
It's obvious to everyone that the wheels have come off this particular scam. Obvious to everyone, that is, except to those whose livelihood depends on them continuing to find new ways of makinjg hockey sticks.
Are you saying that it's not obvious to Canadians here? Probably not obvious to Alaskans either, or the Danish -- the three groups that can look outside and see the immediate effects of the climate "science" "scam".
Personally though, I'm more concerned with the dead zones in the pacific ocean (caused by human pollution); these are likely affecting climate (and ecology) way more than our GHG emissions.
To be fair, some of those who started politicizing AGW early on didn't help. Nor did the over simplification of calling it global warming (even though that is what it is).
People should not have picked results, out of context, that were convenient at the time. For example, when the ice caps start melting, it was pointed out that it was due to global warming. But when someone finds evidence that more ice is being formed somewhere else it looks suspect, even when it's part of a climate model. It looks suspect to not point that part out in the first place. Same thing with temperatures rising consistently in an area. As soon as they drop for a year, or two, before continuing to climb again, it's easy to confuse the discussion. Some of the loudest proponents of AWG, have done the most damage to the cause. After trying to simplify the situation for the greater population and then having the over simplification shown to be questionable a couple of times; laymen have a heard time knowing what to think.
To make matters worse, people start calling each other names and ridiculing each other. When you start labeling non-believers: deniers, Luddites, planet-killers, etc. what do you think is going to happen. Hell, how would most people react?
When I was younger, my father used to paraphrase Socrates by saying, "The older I get, the dumber I get". I finally understand how he felt. We have people on two different sides of this issue. Neither of them want to destroy the planet. But instead of taking a deep breath and discussing it like rational people, it's devolved into name calling. But that seems to be the way of things in the US anymore. I'm pretty sure that both parties in congress want what's best for the country. But instead of compromising, they both are throwing tantrums because they can't have their way 100%. It's truly sad.
100 percent of weather is effected by all changes in the climate.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
That report is as accurate as an old tymey Alminac that says that the last 4 years it did not rain today, so it wont rain today.
I want to see the raw data and all the peer reviews of the same study. Too many of you people JUMP on the OMG sky is falling / OMG Sky is not falling bandwagons too fast.
US scientists want to see the real meat and what a LOT of others scientists think.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Let's just say it's all true.
Then what? In order to have ANY appreciable effect GLOBAL GDP would have to be rolled back.
that simply aint going to happen.
Part of the problem may be that our overall population of plus 6 billion and rising is bringing change that our political processes are built to deal with in a timely manner. Change is happening faster than our political processes have been shaped to consider and react. Yet our turn around time on embracing the evidence is pretty good. If you consider how long it took for the theory of Evolution to be widely embraced, or, even more recently the theory of Plate Tectonics our research and reaction to the findings on climate change has been fast in historical terms.
...Now, Weather = Climate??
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You are mixing up different things.
Our planet has gone through intense weather and drastic climate change long before we were here and will do so long after were gone..
Right. Human-induced climate change is not instead of other factors that change the climate; it is in addition to other factors that change the climate.
The most significant effect humans have is blaming it on shit (carbon, pagans, magnets, aliens, too much violence, not enough violence, foreskin, etc.).
This is not merely silly, but deliberately stupid. Or, more accurately, straw man. Nobody is "blaming pagans, magnets, aliens, too much violence, not enough violence, foreskin."
I have no patience with deliberate stupidity.
and then hocking horseshit to morons to fix it (carbon credits,
Now, you are really mixing different things. Understanding the causes of climate variation, and realizing that the human effect on climate pretty much matches what would be expected from the greenhouse effect models, is completely independent of what, if any, response should be taken to mitigate that effect.
regulations that don't affect the gross emitters of the world, divining rods, sacrifices, crusades, circumcision, rain dances, etc.)
Ah, back to sarcasm and deliberate stupidity.
without any actual evidence that the problem is due to their claimed cause,
Last time I checked, nineteen different global climate models are being run by groups on four continents. They pretty much all agree on the overall effect of carbon dioxide on climate, although the details vary somewhat. Which should be pretty non-controversial, since the basic physics is well understood. There are no climate models being run by any groups on any continent that don't show the effect.
that the problem is fixable by us, or that their proposed solution will fix the problem.
Again: a completely different question. You don't have to deny the basic physics of climate in order to ask whether proposed solutions will work. The argument "I don't like the solutions proposed, so therefore the problem does not exist" is not a good argument.
In fact, the opposite seem to be true-- there has been so much useless debate spent on arguing against idiots who want to deny the science that any debate about the cost, benefit, and efficacy of solutions has been completely short circuited. If you think that it is a valuable debate to ask what proposed solutions would cost, and whether they would work at all, it would be useful to actually do that debate, instead of the "none of the actual scientists knows anything, they're all in on a global hoax."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There are lot of unanswered questions about 9/11 just don't ask any of them or get labeled crazy. Just like all of us that said for years we live in a police state where everything we do gets spied on we got called tin foil hat nut jobs for over a decade ... Thanks to the HERO Edward Snowden I have heard a whole lot of "I'm Sorry" lately.
Now not all theories are based in truth and we get almost all of not based in any facts type theorizes from CNN,FOX,MSNBC,CNBC. etc etc. Like this el toro poo poo about global warming calling it climate change ...NO DUH! Look if 99% of the smartest people on earth say burning carbon is warming the planet WE NEED TO LISTEN!!! But these content cartel slime balls will make up anything to justify everything our REAL enemy has done/is doing to us. The real enemy is RICH PEOPLE not people that disagree with you about petty politics.
The spelling and grammar police can kiss my ass
But which half?
Half of my coin flips are influenced by some mysterious force causing them to come up heads. Or is it tails?
Have gnu, will travel.
The essential truth is that 98% of people who speak out on this issue are merely parroting back talking points and/or just being fanboys for the side that aligns with their politics.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The cause of climate change is also not really under dispute either. We only care about catastrophic anthropocentric climate change. And even within that category, we should only really care about things we can realistically and economically do. For example, Australia apparently has a huge carbon tax that will have an impact on the climate so small, it cannot even be measured.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Here is that NASA data you're referring to:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
or here, comparing various data sets:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/0/h/compare_datasets_new.jpg
I would not seriously characterize this as "the earth has been cooling for the past decade." Most notably, the increase in temperature observed from the 1960s has not reversed.
Here, from the BEST project, is the comparison of theory and data:
http://static.berkeleyearth.org/img/annual-with-forcing-small.png
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yes, the planet has gone through many, many periods of extreme warming and cooling over the millenniums however there is no previous warming trend spanning 110 years like we have since the 1900's. Data suggests the start of the industrialized age has contributed heavily heavily to the climate change issue. We've never seen warming before over 20 year periods like we see since 1900 [1] and the only best guess at this point is industrialization and anthropogenic activity impact the climate negatively.
So, depending who is making what claim, it's very easy to misrepresent the facts or misinterpret the data and the public quickly becomes confused or frustrated by it and declares "Nobody knows what's going on and I'm not letting you waste my time anymore". If you're an oil or energy magnate, this is precisely what you want as it keeps anyone from talking about curbing emissions or looking at alternative energy sources.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/climate_change/describing_climatic_trends_rev1.shtml
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Just saying that using the argument form that 9 out of 10 doctors agree "Brand X Cigarettes are good for your health" isn't the best argument.
It is, however, the appropriate response to the argument coming from a lot of deniers (I wouldn't sully the label skeptic with them) that this is a very controversial topic among scientists. It isn't. The numbers are why. As soon as people stop claiming that there's a controversy, we will be able to stop bringing out this largely irrelevant data point.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm surprised by the complete lack of the fourth side: "How about we start taking steps to turn the thermostat back down."
It seems to me that geoengineering methods like iron fertilization are worth, you know, investigating. Instead we seem to be prohibiting any reasonable experiments, with regulations being passed preventing it in the UN.
I understand skepticism that humans can fix their environmental mistakes, so I'm not saying "start dumping tons of iron into the sea and hope for the best," but it needs to be studied to prevent further climate change.
"Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming." Nature
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I remember an article in which it discussed that Climate Change denying is an American problem.
Climate change by itself is not under dispute. The question is: what causes climate change. And then there are three sides:
That's why the summary of the article doesn't say 'climate change', but 'human-caused change'.
Much like in the church, apparently repetition makes it true.
We're skeptical because the world is full of self-grandizing bull-shitters who prey on the nieve. Climate Scientists, who tend to NOT be paid through sales of produced materials but through 'squeeky wheel' government budgeting, are far from immune of that skepticism. Just sayin.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
My Xtremes begin with an X, you lightweight...
The fact that a lot of rich people stand to be made even richer off the backs of the poor and middle class tend to make those people skeptical. It's rather fallacious reasoning, but the threat is real and you need to understand that skeptics aren't all mouth-breathing anti-scientists.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
1) "compelling" - well, maybe, probably 2) "evidence" - not proof or anything 3) "contributing" - might be some part of it 4) "factor" - however small Don't discount me as a denier... I just don't like seeing "compelling evidence of a contributing factor". You can say that about anything and not be wrong....
Really? I thought that was called journalism. You know, let the reader decide? Journalists aren't scientists.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm arguing against mixing politics with science. It's not enough to support the truth. It must be supported for being so, not just because it happens to be convenient or emotionally satisfying for someone's political beliefs. Otherwise, you get mixed support at best. Something with global implications will require more than that to deal with, if it is even possible.
Today, the problem is that a lot of scientists buy into leftist thinking because the universities are full of it, and because its political proponents support their theories with lots of funding for their own reasons (it justifies their power grabs). It's a positive void coefficient that needs reigning in. The truth, whatever it really is, is what matters the most, right? History has shown that while the state can make a scientist's career skyrocket, it can also send him to the gulag just as quickly, should his findings not support ideology. Scientists should be rewarded for correctness, not for political belief or any actions based on it Whether the neocons' industry or socialists' state is at fault doesn't matter much, because, in this case, both are essentially guilty of the same crime: encouraging emotional conviction over rational thinking, either in the scientists themselves, or in society by twisting their science into support of their world view, increasing their power and influence.
You're a little late. The extremely accurate, never wrong, always scientific scientists are no longer calling it Global Warming. Since they have now determined, in their infinite wisdom, that some areas will actually get cooler, it is referred to as Climate Change. The real question is if some areas get hotter and some cooler, do they negate each other to still have the same average temperature for the planet? Haven't seen any statements about that.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
I wonder....if this is really true...we also have the co-existence of an increase of people and exercise on the planet. When we exercise, we let off more heat with more people. Could we be changing the climate because too many of use are exercising. Dang!! I'm going to simply sit and watch TV from now on so I don't contribute to global warming through my exercise.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Look, nobody is stupid enough to believe that climate is static. It never has been in the past, and it certainly won't be so going forward. The big questions are what are the driving forces, what are the positives and negatives of climate change as it is currently occurring, what ought to be done, and what can be done. None of these questions are nearly settled.
As an aside, it's always interesting to me when the stereotypical political orthodoxy gets flipped. Republican doves and Democrat hawks on Syria? Likewise, liberals lampoon conservatives as being stuck in the past and afraid of change. Yet for many liberals, climate change is a great fear, a purely negative outcome, and has no conceivable positive results. ~shrug~
What's most interesting about your post is that you apparently find it wise to chastise your father for his foolish beliefs--and gosh darn it, the man just won't listen to facts! At the same time, it's pretty obvious you're throwing around statistics that you can't have read anything about.
I'm assuming the 97% statistic you are referring to is from Cook et al., Quantifying the Consensus on AGW. Cook et al. took two approaches to find the consensus number. The author team first searched databases for papers that had terms such as "global warming" and "global climate change" (I'm not a statistician, but I would think these terms would introduce some pretty intense selection bias right off the bat). Finding 12,465 match papers in the ISI Web of Science database, they tossed 520 (4%) and analyzed the results:
34.8% of these papers endorsed AGW
64.6% took no position on AGW
0.4% rejected AGW
0.2% were uncertain on AGW
Amongst ONLY those papers (34.8% of the total) that took a position on AGW, 97.1% "endorsed the scientific consensus."
The second approach was to mail out a survey to certain selected paper authors. The response rate of the survey was 14%. Again, I'm not a statistician, so I have no idea how good a result this is. Of these 1200 (14%) responses:
62.7% endorsed AGW
35.5% took no position on AGW
1.8% rejected AGW
This is all in the paper, so if I'm misinterpreted anything, or misrepresented anything, let me know.
I think perhaps the surprising thing is that given the search parameters (such as terms that are now highly politically tinged like "global warming") and given AGW is absolutely the easiest way to get funding today as an kind of academic who remotely deals with environmental issues, is that there were as many "no stand on AGW" responses as there were.
It's like asking the Pentagon and the CIA to write papers on the threat to the US from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Regardless of whether there really are threats (or the magnitudes), you can bet when their jobs are on the line, they'll find something!
I completely agree with you. I think there's an entire new strand of luddites emerging today. This is party with good cause--we've learned a lot about chemicals, pollution, and health, that we simply didn't know 50 years ago. We SHOULD be cautious going forward.
But there's such a strand of "anything that has plastic is bad" and "anything that isn't all 'natural' is bad" that are followed by a belief that humans cannot possibly affect POSITIVE climate change, that I'm somewhat baffled.
Humans have in the last 100 years brought about a lot of positive environmental change. Let's going with what we can do, rather than what we're not able to do.
You're crazy; 97% of people parrot back talking points. You're clearly just a shill.
With the footnote that just about every scientist studying the problem is only on one side.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Science!
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Wow, I was starting to take that 97% figure seriously. Interesting article.
Asking Slashdot to link to oil-industry funded shills and kooks doesn't help advance knowledge in any way.
But we're supposed to accept the word of government-funded shills? Note that your precious government is using the IRS to squelch opposition opinion. And you think a government scientist (who produces what?) will ever let a report surface that shows "global warming" is BS? Taxes need to go up to keep this guy working.
Besides, these government scientists probably couldn't get a real job in industry. Remember, affirmative action is rampant in the government.
Not that its this extreem, but if you have one area at -150F and another area at 150F, if you live between these two extreems you might call the average temp 0F. Problems arise when the wind changes direction and you go from freezing to death to frying to death. Either way you're dead.
Climate Change is a steady increase in average temp, yes some areas will get cooler, and others warmer, but the overall effect is more heat. More heat is a problem. They changed the term because people are too idiotic to understand that a general warming of the entire planet doesn't involve a steady warming on any given point on its surface.
Is there any evidence that doctors actually did believe that?
Because if they didn't your argument falls at the first hurdle.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It doesn't matter -- climate change, if that's what the term du jour is, is also used as rationale by some factions for much greater control over the economy. That is what we need to fight against. There are many potential solutions that do not involve stopping the burning of (mined) fossil fuels.
We see from history that too much interference in the economy, regardless of reason, slows down progress, and that, in the long run, saves more lives and improves the quality of life far more than some coastal issues would lessen it. I'd rather have a few billion move inland over the course of 100-300 years and end up in the year 2300 with year 2300 technology, then slow the economy and save the coasts and end up with year 2200 tech in 2300 (or year 2100 tech, or 2050).
Your "daughter" will have a nicer world, if by nicer you mean lots more deaths and misery because medical and other science is lagging behind.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Climate scientist Peter Stott of the U.K. Met Office should have commented that these studies show that in many cases, excess human presence in areas where they have no business permanently living, has increased the risks associated with extreme events that randomly occur. Humans need to learn that life on Earth has not always been pleasant and the building of and living in flimsy structures in Earthquake fault zones, flood zones, and areas where tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes frequent will lead to unpleasant experiences.
"Endeavour to persevere"
I know just what you are saying. It's like the passenger pigeons. One single flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. There is no way that our overhunting and habitat destruction did them in. It's much more likely that some omnipresent and powerful being decided that they should no longer be here because they did not like them pooping everywhere. And all the rain forest and regular North American forest area that has vanished over resent time periods. I think the trees are just going somewhere else, like the elves and unicorns did.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I nominate "politically contaminated science" as the phrase of the week.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You're using fallacies to criticize my argument. Yes.. scientists fall for political bandwagoneering too. They're are humans after all. They should know better, but a lot of times, they don't have a choice: tow the line or get no funding. Political correctness demands that the science 'agree' with the official position of the political party in question. This dynamic varies from country to country, depending on its politics, and also includes inter/intra university level politics as well. You cannot tell me that left wing governments don't milk/misrepresent global climate issues as potential tax cash cows in a similar way that exxon sees profit in 'debunking' it.
I don't trust either one at this point. Too much bullshit and not enough substance.
The neocons are not the only rhetoric filled hogwashers in the arena.
No. Facts are facts.
Otherwise, go visit:
http://creationmuseum.org/
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Even if they're right, they're not promoting this for the right reason (telling the truth).. They're promoting it to push a political agenda (justification of center left politics, which means more funding for them).
1. What if there were large funds and grants to be had by saying that global warming is a myth? Wouldn't that mean that you're presumably money-grubbing scientists have an easier time just switching sides than they would trying to change the politics of the situation in the hopes that in a decade or two they could get more money?
2. Even if the politics of the situation changed, why would that result in more money for them? Presumably, the same number of people who are monitoring the increase in global average temperature could monitor the decrease just as easily, and any center-right politician could easily argue that point and keep their funding level at exactly what it is now. Or even decrease it, since they think they understand the problem now so no further research is needed.
3. If climate scientists were trying to get rich, wouldn't they have gone into a much higher-paying profession like finance? Companies like Goldman Sachs snap up would-be scientists all the time because they like their statistical and mathematical skills, and pay very very well. If there's a selfish motivation for scientists, I'd expect it to be vying for the chance to be immortalized with the name associated with a correct theory, the way Einstein, Darwin, Mendel, etc are. Being wrong doesn't help with that.
The claim that climate scientists are in it for the money just doesn't make sense: They aren't particularly stupid, and there are easier ways for them to make big bucks than providing reading material for Al Gore.
I am officially gone from
it's pretty obvious you're throwing around statistics that you can't have read anything about.
then you go and throw out statistics that you clearly haven't read into. Although, you're right, most papers take no position, but the ones that endorse it versus the ones that don't is a ratio of 30:1, which should write a clear enough message.
Liar! It's clearly 97.433% You're both wrong and are obviously "communist economy-killing christian luddite denier capitalist atheist sympathizers!" TM ;-)
What you're advocating for amounts to stories saying "Opinions Differ on the Shape of the Earth" with one link to, say, the Geological Society of America and the other link to the Flat Earth Society. Sometimes, when there are two sides to an issue, one side is definitively wrong, and reporting it any way other than that is just plain stupid.
I am officially gone from
You can accuse me of providing a (in your view, at least!) flawed interpretation, but I copied the detailed numbers right from the paper and put them in post and provided my take on their meaning, so you can't accuse me of not reading them (or "reading into")!
I read the header and thought, "Okay, 1006's Extreme Weather Impacted By Climate Change"
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Funny, forest cover has been dramatically expanding with the increased atmospheric CO2 :)
As for the fate of the passenger pigeon, color me unimpressed - I still see flying rats all over the city. The fact that Darwin's principle of natural selection eliminated the passenger pigeon doesn't bother me one whit, given the huge scope of other closely related pigeon everywhere else.
But hey, let's just keep blaming our immoral behavior for every drought, flood, or other natural disaster - it worked for the witch doctors of the past, no reason to stop doing it now, right? :)
Name a single improvement to the models that was made in the past year, that was considered by NOAA in their panicky press release.
Just one.
I'm saying you missed the forest for the trees. You may be right about the number being inflated, but it doesn't change the overall trend.
Nothing is all benefit, or all cost. Nothing is all good or all bad. Everything has tradeoffs, everything has a cost. The trick then is weighing the costs and benefits to decide if something is good or bad overall, and what course of action to take.
Any time something is presented as completely one-sided, someone is pushing an agenda. You can see this with advertising all the time. They talk up how awesome whatever their product is, all the cool shit it does for you. They never talk about any limitations, downsides, etc, unless it is legally required (like the drug advertising). The reason is, of course, they are trying to sell you on it. They want you to think it is awesome so it is all benefits, all the time.
You are correct, it is something to watch for. When people present a very one-sided stance it is often because they are pushing a given point, not because there is no counter-point.
I'm talking about geoengineering, not whether or not climate change is happening.
If you want, I'll put you on the list of "people to debate with over arguments that have been basically settled among sane folks," but I have to warn you, it's going to be a while before I get done with all the creationists first.
That is some pretty powerful double-think you have going on. Climate change isn't happening, but there is an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And if you decide to believe the sky is under you feet and the ground is full of stars, does that make it true. It's pretty obvious that there is a whole lot of deforestation that has happened since America was first colonized, yet that's ok because we now have more forest than ever! And you say we don't have an impact, yet quite easily gloss over species extinction as no big deal.
I think that is the real issue. It's not that you don't think we can have an impact, it's that you don't care. As long as you get to use the resources for yourself you don't care about the future. Let them boil the seas and rot to death, as long as you can make a buck and enjoy yourself you don't give a fuck. In fact you would probably get pleasure from destroying other people and watching them suffer and die while you made your buck. Nice attitude there!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
It's bad enough that environmentalists helped prevent nuclear power, which would have prevented climate change, now they're standing in the way of reversing climate change.
I think their intentions are good, much better than the buisiness lobby, but the road to a hot as hell earth...
I'm sure it is, and I'm sure it's looking into raising taxes to compensate. The money has to come from somewhere.
Consensus? Oh, you mean that report by Cooks that erroneously claimed 97% consensus when in fact it was 0.3%? That consensus?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Well no, that's actually not what you accused me of initially, but ok. I think there's a pretty huge difference between the statement that "97% of climatologists agree" and "97.1% of a subset of climate papers that contained a certain set of (in my view potentially biasing) words and in which the authors made some kind of judgment call about AGW posit that humans are responsible for at least some portion of global warming." At this level of disagreement, we're down to a religious wedge issue, so I don't expect us to suddenly come to an agreement, but that's how I see it. I do not believe that mine is an unreasonable statement.
To put it more waggishly (or "partisanly" as you may see fit)--is it a surprise that papers (funded by a government that believes in AGW) discussing anthropogenic global warming believe in anthropogenic global warming?
This is the case no matter what happens, whether through "green" tech or continuing pollution. That's not a climate policy problem.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Well, good thing then that there has been no warming over the last 200 months! Of course, we also wouldn't want to talk about the fact that none of the climate models predicted that current, long-term pause...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
1. I'm sure there are. Like I've said, I don't think either side of the political spectrum is willing to stand for the truth, but only the part that benefits their political positions. I would expect big oil et al to do similar things. Money is one motivator. Emotion is another.
2. Well lets see, on the left, more money might flow into their coffers if the scientist's position justified a succession of environmental taxes. On the right, if a scientist's findings support, or at least called into question the research supporting global warming, he'd probably get funding from exxon and co. Since they're funded in this way, any results from these scientists is questionable to say the least. However, I realize that research into global scaled issues like climate costs a lot of money, so it's not like they have a lot of choice. Therefore, I have to assume that at least some of this data has been massaged by people trying to keep their jobs. This means I don't simply buy into the hype spoonfed by the media, left or right. Since I don't have all the data, what definitive conclusion can be drawn?
3. They're not trying to 'get rich.' They're trying to fund their careers and establish authority in their fields. Nothing wrong with that until it gets in the way of finding the truth. Here in the states the political bias means more/less funding, and possibly being admitted into/shut out of the university lecture circuit, but in more totalitarian countries (like the USSR for ex), they were basically bought and paid for. When the science promoted (or at least ran parallel to) the ideology and the party prospered, they were rewarded, when it contradicted, they were punished politically. In that country, being politically incorrect was career suicide. I don't have to remind you of the cliche galileo vs the church as another example, right? Politics contaminates science and destroys its progress. This is because science is about finding the truth, while politics is about emotional justification and social power.
If climate change is real, and we are largely to blame for it, then we need to strip away the politics before we can see the full picture of what we're dealing with.
I only got to the part where he said the study was invalid because it didn't directly address the "skeptics' " latest sticking point (whether AGW is catastrophic; before that it was whether it was man-made, before that it was whether it was happening; next it will probably be whether it's preventable). At that point I was both at my tolerance limit for moronic discourse and satisfied that, like other attempted refutations of the consensus study, it was absolutely wrong.
And anyone who didn't immediately disregard that article due to idiotic, inflammatory language sure as hell isn't in it for the facts.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's as if they are saying that climate change (if true) would be a bad thing...
I'm saying that the papers that endorse it vastly outnumber the ones that don't. Even if we threw out the papers that didn't say anything absolutely, its still 34.8% versus 0.4%, which is a 870:1 ratio. That is better than a 6 sigma result. If AGW was not real I would expect more papers to exist touting that idea. Your point about the government and jobs is redundant unless you can prove that all the studies came from the US, and even then you're insinuating that virtually every scientist there that exists is okay with falsifying their data.
There's only one way to strip away the politics, and you could do it any time:
Separate them in your head.
You seem to be saying that since there is overlap between the action/inaction choice of the climate issue and political goals, you can't trust the science. But that overlap will always exist in a governed state.
It's no different from any other science where physical experimentation is impossible, like astrophysics. You can try to learn it for yourself. You can live in an apartment in Somalia while you do it, if that helps (bring guns!).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Well, let's be specific - climate change *always* happens. Interesting thing about changes in CO2 - they tend to *lag* behind temperature changes...our contribution is probably completely dwarfed by natural variation.
No, I definitely care. It's just because I care, I have little patience for witch doctors and voodoo - if you're going to learn the truth about something, you use science, not consensus.
The problem you have is that you've built an edifice that you believe is scientific, but one that lacks the most basic cornerstone of the scientific method - the necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement. Want to show that you're really doing science? Then make a statement that is more than "heads I win, tails you lose".
It was stolen from "Science", but it's still hype. Four weather events were studied. Climate change was a primary cause in zero of them.
They did not conclude the global warming causes half of extreme weather events. They did not conclude that global warming has caused any extreme weather.
If you're going to try to make those kind of connections, how about giving man-made emissions credit for zero hurricanes all year long? All these Al Gore types trying to claim the evidence is beyond dispute, but I would still give good odds that scientists had it right back in the 70s when the big scare was the big chill of another ice age. It's all just a scam, the more hysterical your conclusions, the more you stand to gain in funding.
It's called a summary article. Feel free to look up the source data and analysis if you want something more.
Heavens no, wouldn't want another "zomg you're comparing 'skeptics' to Holocaust deniers" that seems to pop up in every article on climate change.
This just in: Stephen Hawking's ALS caused by a butterfly in Santiago. Sober minds everywhere weep with shame.
How's that? You mean "as biased" because western governments are all in the pockets of the oil industry, or "biased" as in "I"m a Randian moron spouting false equivalencies with zero basis in reality"?
No, "calling out Randians on their BS" isn't concern trolling. Echoing denialist talking points that have been debunked for over a decade, that's trolling.
Intelligent Design is politicized. Going to answer that question yet, or dodge it a second time?
Yeah. Who cares if cities drown, countries disappear under the ocean, and Africa starves if Tropicana can plant some orange groves in Greenland?
Republican doves were driven out of the party by 2003. And Democrats have shown their propensity for hackery since they've defended actions from their Dear Leader that would have had them in the streets if it was Bush doing the same things for the same reasons.
Randian nonsense. The costs of centrally planned climate mitigation are insignificant next to the costs of doing nothing, or leaving it to Exxon to decide it's in the interests of their shareholders first.
Yeah. Who cares if cities drown, countries disappear under the ocean, and Africa starves if Tropicana can plant some orange groves in Greenland?
Yours is EXACTLY the kind of statement that makes me so uncomfortable. That is such an incredibly hysterical statement. Not even the most extreme estimates of sea rise produce anything like you say within centuries. Africa starve? 10,000 years ago the Sahara was green and wet. Maybe it will be again. There's so much uncertainty, we really, really don't know.
Republican doves were driven out of the party by 2003. And Democrats have shown their propensity for hackery since they've defended actions from their Dear Leader that would have had them in the streets if it was Bush doing the same things for the same reasons.
The Tea Party and libertarian strands of conservatism have made more traditional (paleocon if you will) noninterference conservatism more resurgent than it's been in years. The present Republican dove (nee neocon) can make some excuse by saying that "we learned from our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan."
What the heck excuse do the Democrats have? "We did such a bang up job in Afghanistan and Iraq (plus our limited interference in Libya) that we thought we ought to help out in Syria as well! Never mind the hundred thousand that have already died, a couple hundred deaths from chemicals weapons is the red line!"
I take that to mean that 64% of the studies were not about AWG, therefore they don't have anything to do with a statistic about the papers' endorsement or rejection of AWG.
Zombie talking point. There's an overwhelming consensus amongst physicists on basic forces of gravity - care to test it with your foot and an anvil? The thing about all those "goofy ideas" is that they were replaced with better ideas, theories and models. Until the denialists come up with a superior model, they can pound sand with their zombie.
I'm not insinuating anything, I've said it several times!
I don't believe that many climate scientists deliberately falsify data. I'm sure there are some because there are people in every field that falsify data. I do believe that when funding is dependent on grants, and grants are highly available for AGW research topics, that researchers have a completely rational motivation to find AGW in places where there is perhaps ambiguity. I'm surprised this is a controversial statement. If you work in academia, finagling to get grants is just part of life. Five years ago just about every grant request in certain branches of physics and chemistry were modified to include something about "biosensors" or "chemical sensors" because there was a huge amount of funding available for homeland security projects. That's just what goes in academia--it is what it is.
Regardless of all of this, I absolutely stand by my statement that "97% of climatologists agree," as sourced in Cook et al., is totally false.
When I was an undergrad, the Republican group at my school pulled every faculty member's political affiliation. History, Art History, Women's Studies, African American Studies, sociology, anthropology, etc, had between them a large number of faculty (100, give or take) and not one Republican--all Democrats. Engineering, computer science, math, etc were spit more much closer, and in the economics department, there were more Republicans still. Why? Ideology obviously has a great deal to do with what people choose to work on. Correlation or causation? I know what I believe.
I have no doubt that most climate scientists do believe in AGW (hesitation over the 97% claim notwithstanding). I believe there are many reasons for this.
The good news is, we should no for sure within say, 10 years. If the models are right, we should see a statistically significant change by then. If the models are wrong...? Until then (and even then, unfortunately), factions will no doubt keep arguing.
There's plenty of dispute regarding climate change. Not much rational dispute, but plenty of dispute.
Personally, I wonder why, if another 1C increase would start a feedback causing temperatures to rise another 20C, why we don't see this happen on parts of the planet that are already 1C hotter than average. It's an average, so there are places that are far above and far below that average. Why aren't we seeing cases of mini-global-warming where, for example, some part of Arizona, due to high humidity (which has many times the greenhouse effect of CO2), enters this deadly feedback mode causing the temperature to rise to 150 only to be saved by nightfall?
I think you fundamentally misunderstand what global warming/anthropogenic climate change means. Very few scientists think it means runaway warming or even 20C rises (unless we continue BAU for another century). The changes are subtle (especially over short time periods) but profound. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the loss of land based ice from warming and the sea level rise that results. From year to year or even over a decade the rise in sea level is not alarming. But it will take several hundred years for the major ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica to reach a new equilibrium point with the new temperature. The last time CO2 levels in the atmosphere were as high as they are now sea level was around 70 feet higher than it is today so it wouldn't surprise me if that much SLR is already locked in. It will just take time to manifest.
The only realistic solution to global warming is to bring greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, down to a net zero level. Anything else is just window dressing.
Those bumps in the temp record are mostly linked to natural variation. The influence of CO2 shows up in the long term temperature trends.
Not only that but the graph you cite is only for one site in central Greenland, a poor analog for global temperatures.
Extreme weather is what we crave.
Brawndo, its got electrolytes. Its what plants crave...
They want to blame you
But instead of taking a deep breath and discussing it like rational people, it's devolved into name calling.
Concern trolling.
More concern trolling.
Tone trolling
Denialists and concern trolls
Yes, thank you very much for proving my point. I'm not even disagreeing with you and you want to call me names.
Now that you got your name-calling out of your system... How about the fact none of the models match the current temperature trends? None of them. Any explanation for that? Or just more ad-homimen attacks, essentially admitting your own inability to counter my original post.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Not even the most extreme estimates of sea rise produce anything like you say within centuries.
If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse it could lead to 10 feet or more of sea level rise in a decade or two. It is mostly grounded below sea level so if it starts to go the disintegration can be rapid There is evidence in the paleo-record of sea level of multiple foot sea level rises on decadal time scales so it appears similar events have happened in the past.. The possibility of this actually happening is unknown at this time but it can't be ruled out.
"About half the events reveal evidence that human-caused change was a factor", they say. How big a factor? And the other half revealed no such evidence? It's as though this report was carefully calculated not to change anyone's mind.
Attribution like this is difficult and a relatively new area of study. It's most likely just an honest expression of the researchers level of knowledge. If it advances the field of climate attribution then it was worthwhile. I seriously doubt they even gave a thought to changing anyone's mind in the larger climate change debate.
Why is what a small minority of US residents think such a problem? I think it's more of a problem that proponents of so-called "climate change" can't make a credible argument and are reduced to spurious argument from authority fallacies. If climate change is really as bad as claimed, then your rhetorical incompetence is endangering us all.
Climate change by itself is not under dispute. The question is: what causes climate change. And then there are three sides:
- It must be us, the human population, burning all those fossil fuels causing CO2 levels to rise;
- It can't be us, we are to insignificant. Climate change is caused by increased solar activity and oceans releasing vast amounts of CO2.
- It is a combination of both: we can slow it down but it is inevitable;
Well, only you first one matches the observational data. The isotope analysis of the CO2 in the atmosphere has shows a rapidly increasing C12/C13 isotope. If the CO2 were coming from organic sources, there would be more C14. Also, solar activity has not increased over the past 100 years. In fact, it appears to be slacking off a bit.
What I do care about is that we start taking the necessary measures to ensure that my daughter and her future children still have a place to live once I'm long gone.
That I agree with. :)
~X~
Look, nobody is stupid enough to believe that climate is static. It never has been in the past, and it certainly won't be so going forward. The big questions are what are the driving forces, what are the positives and negatives of climate change as it is currently occurring, what ought to be done, and what can be done. None of these questions are nearly settled.
You make it sound like we don't have a clue, which is incorrect. Research on anthropogenic warming goes back about 120 years or so. Greenhouse theory goes back almost 200 years. These concepts are not new.
As an aside, it's always interesting to me when the stereotypical political orthodoxy gets flipped. Republican doves and Democrat hawks on Syria? Likewise, liberals lampoon conservatives as being stuck in the past and afraid of change. Yet for many liberals, climate change is a great fear, a purely negative outcome, and has no conceivable positive results. ~shrug~
Political ideology doesn't factor into it. The science does. And the result of tat science paints a grim picture of the future if we don't get our at together. No credible scientist is predicting the end of human civilization as a result, but the change and the speed that it happens is going to present some serious obstacles. Even the DoD has released several reports on the subject, including projections of future "hot spots" where rising sea levels, droughts, depleted watersheds, etc. may cause unrest.
It takes time and resources to respond to change. Our current civilization is built upon a certain expected climate. A shift in that climate is going to cause problems EVEN IF the overall outcome would be beneficial (current projections show it won't be, especially the worst case scenarios).
What's most interesting about your post is that you apparently find it wise to chastise your father for his foolish beliefs--and gosh darn it, the man just won't listen to facts! At the same time, it's pretty obvious you're throwing around statistics that you can't have read anything about.
I'm assuming the 97% statistic you are referring to is from Cook et al., Quantifying the Consensus on AGW. Cook et al. took two approaches to find the consensus number. The author team first searched databases for papers that had terms such as "global warming" and "global climate change" (I'm not a statistician, but I would think these terms would introduce some pretty intense selection bias right off the bat).
Selection bias? That's what they were looking for. They wanted papers explicitly researching aspects of climate change. However, there are a lot of climate research papers that don't deal with climate change. So what would you recommend as a filter? Global cooling?
Finding 12,465 match papers in the ISI Web of Science database, they tossed 520 (4%) and analyzed the results:
34.8% of these papers endorsed AGW
64.6% took no position on AGW
0.4% rejected AGW
0.2% were uncertain on AGW
Why did you bold the papers that took no position? Do you think all climate research is about global warming? Global warming is one, just one, subject of study in climatology. And since they were trying to determine what scientists thought on the subject of global warming, there's no point in including those papers which had nothing to do with global warming research.
Amongst ONLY those papers (34.8% of the total) that took a position on AGW, 97.1% "endorsed the scientific consensus."
I'm not sure what point you are trying to convey here. Of the papers that were related to global warming research, there was a 97.1% agreement. Given the number of research papers and scientists that represents, that's pretty good agreement.
The second approach was to mail out a survey to certain selected paper authors. The response rate of the survey was 14%. Again, I'm not a statistician, so I have n
~X~
- It can't be us, we are to insignificant. Climate change is caused by increased solar activity and oceans releasing vast amounts of CO2;
I think you're being unkind to the the skeptics here - only the dumbest of them would say " Climate change is caused by increased solar activity" when it's pretty clear there is no increased solar activity.
As for "oceans releasing vast amounts of CO2" that ties in rather poorly with increasing ocean acidification, and if CO2 released by the oceans causes warming why doesn't CO2 released by us?
The usual "skeptic" argument is "it's natural". If you ask for more details they'll mutter something about "rebound from little ice age" or "cycles".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I think perhaps the surprising thing is that given the search parameters (such as terms that are now highly politically tinged like "global warming") and given AGW is absolutely the easiest way to get funding today as an kind of academic who remotely deals with environmental issues, is that there were as many "no stand on AGW" responses as there were.
If the facts don't match your preconceptions then there are two possibilities:
1. the facts are wrong
2. you are wrong.
Maybe "AGW is absolutely the easiest way to get funding today as an kind of academic who remotely deals with environmental issues" is a misunderstanding of how science, scientists and funding works?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Once all or most scientists were republicans.
Now almost all of them are democrats.
What changed? The scientists or the political parties?
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56795477-90/science-scientists-gop-http.html.csp
Watch this Heartland Institute video
It's a fact that as far back as the 1970s, climate change and global warming were being promoted as vehicles to effect unrelated political policies. If that, combined with the enormous amounts of money being spent to manipulate the populations of the world in both directions, doesn't give you pause, then I don't think we have anything to talk about.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Thank you for explaining this. I wish the major media would explain what you just did. It simply confirms the famous old quote about statistics.
The truth is not that there is consensus that AGW is real--the consensus is that we don't know.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
For example, your link points to a government funded organization. That's as biased as a study funded by exxon.
Uh, no it isn't.
Please reduce your paranoia dial while posting in public.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I'm sure the ancients said the same thing when the "consensus" was that the earth was flat.
"Insightful" my foot. Nothing but fallacy.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Well lets see, on the left, more money might flow into their coffers if the scientist's position justified a succession of environmental taxes. On the right, if a scientist's findings support, or at least called into question the research supporting global warming, he'd probably get funding from exxon and co.
Given that the funding "from exxon and co" exists where are the scientists "calling into question the research supporting global warming"?
You seem to spend all your time arguing from your political position without looking at the facts. Maybe this is why you so clearly misunderstand how scientists and science work.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
You can live in an apartment in Somalia while you do it, if that helps (bring guns!).
Nope. Guns will get you nowhere in an environment like Somalia.
You want to bring gunmen, not guns.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Ah, ad hominems are so much easier than research! And they are often more effective than facts.
Yeah, the idea that journalism should be impartial is so last century.
Here's some truth for you: The majority (64.6%) of "the people actually practicing science" think we don't know whether AGW is happening.
But hey, 97% of the 34.8% of scientists who have endorsed AGW agree with "the consensus," so it must be real. The numbers can't lie!
"90% of baseball is half mental." I'm sure Yogi Berra would believe in AGW. (Forgive me!)
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
How about the fact none of the models match the current temperature trends? None of them. Any explanation for that?
What none of them ?
Well, no. In fact it turns out to be possible to match current behaviour with models.
Kosaka and Xie (2013, Nature, doi:10.1038/nature12534)
Watch this Heartland Institute video
They have been investigated . Bottom line it requires a LOT of iron, and massive algal blooms might have other unwelcome side effects.
sustainable living
Note that your precious government is using the IRS to squelch opposition opinion.
You mean that a republican voting tax inspector decided that "political" groups that that were for reducing taxation might be worth checking to see if their tax declarations were correct. (And, lo and behold, it turned out that they often weren't).
Besides, these government scientists probably couldn't get a real job in industry. Remember, affirmative action is rampant in the government.
Ok, a sociopathic glibertarian and a racist scumbag.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Yes, linking to WhatTheFuckIsHeGoingOnAbout.com is pure, unmitigated bullshit.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
> The only realistic solution to global warming is to bring greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, down to a net zero level. Anything else is just window dressing. So basically ban cows, because Methane is a greenhouse gas, and ban electric kettles because Water Vapour is a greenhouse gas? Would you listen to yourself? BAN ALL THE THINGS!!! If I can't have a cup of coffee in the morning, or munch on a juicy steak, then what's the point of living anyway?
For myself, I do not much care if the planet becomes hotter, colder, wetter, or drier. WHat I care about a LOT is whether or not the air is fit to breathe or the water is fit to drink. Filling the atmosphere and oceans with nasty chemicals and and compounds has to stop.
This part of the debate is suspiciously absebce from the debate. It is all about CO2 and if it can cause warming. Who cares? It can turn the oceans into an acid bath.
mooo
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
An interesting take on the Kosaka and Xie study. And note that, at this time, it's simply a fit of data, it is NOT a model as it is much too new to actually have been used for a prediction. Unlike the other dozens and dozens of studies I linked to further up the chain.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The third choice should be: it is both anthropogenic and natural causes which are completely unknown and yet follow the course of our CO2 generation in lockstep and yet the sum of both processes does not exceed what could be attributed to anthropogenic CO2 alone so it's futile to reduce our CO2 production because this other unknown process is so unknown that for all we know it might stop following our CO2 output if we reduce it and instead just keep going up because climate scientists don't know everything, do they.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Water vapor is not an issue since any excess in the atmosphere will quickly condense out to rebalance the level. It's impossible for water vapor to build up in the atmosphere in the way CO2 does.
I'm not convinced that methane from cattle is that big an issue either. Methane has a half life of around 10 years in the atmosphere and will eventually oxidize to CO2 and water. The carbon in the methane that cows belch came from the atmosphere in the first place so it has no effect on the total carbon in the active carbon cycle which is the real issue.
So you have no excuse for the cherry picking you believed. Moron.
Apparently you are forced to resort to ad hominems instead of logical argument. This is typical of alarmists.
Let's reason together with nice, round, hypothetical (yet representative) numbers to make it simple.
1,000 scientists write papers on the topic of AGW.
646 of the scientists neither endorse nor deny the AGW hypothesis.
348 of the scientists endorse the AGW hypothesis.
Then another "scientist" writes a paper about those papers. When he's writing his conclusions, he ignores the 646 neutral papers--he reduces his sample to the 348 papers which endorsed AGW. Then he says that 97% of those 348 papers claim to support "the consensus." Then--and this is the crucial part, so listen closely--then he says that 97% of all scientists claim to support "the AGW consensus."
That's called lying.
And that's only part of it. He also plotted to play word games, taking quotes out of context, to "convert" the neutral papers to pro-AGW viewpoints. That's called intellectual (even scientific) dishonesty--a politcally correct way of saying "lying." And he planned this before even doing the research--before he even knew what the numbers were. That is not science--that is politics and social engineering.
And on top of all that, he completely miscategorized at least 500 of the papers he used for his results--this is according to the authors of the papers themselves.
But go ahead and believe what you want. What's really sad is that people like you say that people like me are the ones in denial.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Well perhaps you deniers should share your better understanding of what AGW predicts with, for instance, the IPCC; they think that
"a 'runaway greenhouse effect'â"analogous to Venus-appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities." - http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session31/inf3.pdf
Thank God you guys know better than the researchers, not only the science, but even what they are theorizing.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
What evidence is there of this ice? The ice no longer exists.
As I noted, the ice is still present in the Grand Tetons.
So you see a valley. Well there are valleys near the equator where no ice ever went. The Grand Canyon was caused by the river running through it, not ice.
It's not enough to have a valley, the valley has to have a particular shape. The Grand Canyon is not a U-shaped valley. Also, many of these U-shaped valleys have remnants of large landslides at the base of the valley, indicating that the valleys are currently unstable. One way to have a stable U-shaped valley is to fill the valley with some sort of solid, such as ice, so that the walls of the valley are supported and don't collapse.
Other than by inference and measurement of consequential effects of the hypothesis "There was a Global Ice Age". Just like AGW.
You totally missed my point. I can hop into my car and see directly evidence of the last glacial period in my region (though obviously showing global extent will require much more traveling). You can't do that with evidence for AGW. I can't hop in the car and take my own independent measures of temperature for the last 150 years even for my region.
This data is further obscured by various massaging of the data to eliminate things like the urban heat island effect, movement of temperature stations (they don't always stay put over the decades), other systematic errors (like maybe improper maintenance of the weather station in question), and maybe contrary evidence that doesn't fit the current "climate change" narrative.
Finally, I can provide a reasonable defense of the theory of ice ages without referencing a single scientific paper. Can't do that with AGW aside from describing the basic radiative model.
One you accept without qualm the other you fight tooth and nail because your politics is jilted by it.
Yep. Looks like it. But it's because the two aren't comparable in terms of difficulty of independent verification.
Item the second; "this feedback" has already "kicked in"; the eenergy received from the sun is only enough to support a blackbody temperature of approximately minus eighteen degrees C, in the absence of atmosphere. CO2 alone is only enough to raise the global average temperature to about ten below; other gases raise it another few degrees but the feedback effect of water vapor raises the average temperature to positive 14 degrees C. Your vision of clouds as the negative feedback which will kick in at some unspecified point in the future to limit temperature rise to some magic number that will be low enough to save us from trouble violates observed reality; both anecdotal, most people having noticed that a cloudy night retains warmth better than a clear one when heat is radiated into space, and precisely quantified studies:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3666.1
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1523.short
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/325/5939/376
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19628865
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Do you really think climate science is settled as much as gravity?
Come on.
The models they were certain of only 8 years ago turned out to need large corrections.
The extra storms were were supposed to see are lacking.
This is a theory which is undergoing large adjustments in real time.
It takes a long time for science to really settle down. At best, we've been looking at this about four decades. Prior to that there was serious consideration of the cooling trend. it wasn't until the early 70's that the majority of climate papers shifted around to warming and cooling papers pretty much stopped by 1978.
It's the insane certainty and the constant mistakes and misstatements and the excessive certainty which is a problem.
And it's a problem that several people who oppose climate warming are in bed with the oil companies and pretty skeevy. It gets some people emotionally invested in climate change. And people exploding and over reacting and making extreme statements always makes me a bit suspicious.
I'm not in a position to affect things in any way. and my votes generally go to the pro-climate change politicians.
But seriously- there is probably nothing we can do on this one. If it's humans, the 50% population increase we'll see during our life times is going to break all kinds of ecological systems. If you are serious- talk about getting the population back down to 4 to 5 billion. Otherwise, climate change people are really just pissing into the huge wave of oncoming humanity.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Exactly. Since green algae started taking carbon out of the air and other critters started eating them, burping, and farting the carbon in the carbon cycle has not been an issue in climate change. What we are looking at is taking the results of a hundred million years of plants taking carbon out of the carbon cycle and getting buried during the carboniferous period, during which the earth became cooler andless humid than it had been for the previous several billion years, and dumping a good fraction of that carbon back into the air over a century; and assuming that something will prevent the climate from returning to the hot, humid state it was in the last time there was this much carbon in the cycle.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Yeah, environmentalists stopped nuclear power. That and the tendency of nuclear plants to blow up once a decade.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I think that's -- without a doubt -- a big part (IMHO anyone who denies that evolution exists should be banned from politics). I think it would be wise to consider wider trends in academia as well, however, amongst both public and private institutions.
If you have no idea about the relative amounts of CO2 emitted by human and nonhuman sources, what on earth makes you think your opinion re AGW is anything other than random?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
An interesting take on the Kosaka and Xie study.
Not very interesting:
Tisdale: Anyone with a little common sense who’s reading the abstract and the hype around the blogosphere and the Meehl et al papers will logically now be asking: if La Niña events can stop global warming, then how much do El Niño events contribute? 50%? The climate science community is actually hurting itself when they fail to answer the obvious questions.
On average (as Xie points out to Curry) La Niña / El Niño contribute nothing to global warming - they can't, they don't make heat, they just move it around.
Also check out what Tamino has to say about Curry's misinterpretation of the results.
And note that, at this time, it's simply a fit of data, it is NOT a model as it is much too new to actually have been used for a prediction. Unlike the other dozens and dozens of studies I linked to further up the chain.
Nope, it's a model.
Kosaka and Xie don’t have a tunable parameter. They used a full-blown coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model (GFDL CM2.1).
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2013/08/learning-from-the-hiatus/
http://nomads.gfdl.noaa.gov/nomads/forms/deccen/
Yay for Fortran!
Watch this Heartland Institute video
The consensus is having your daughter sterilized is on of the first necessary measures. Supposedly the Earth can only support one tenth of it's current population. If she is white you probably wont have any grandchildren anyway. My 40 and 26 year old daughters haven't. The Black, Brown and Yellow peoples are so I guess it's going to be their problem to solve.
Thank you for confirming your inability to face facts!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Ah yea, just because the temperatures in May in the south broke all cold records and it actually snowed in May is no reason to believe that the heat their Atari said was coming now for decades is not on its way.
Correct. A single cold month in the south of England is not indicative of global climate either way.
Repeat this to yourself until you understand it: Weather is not climate. Weather is not climate. Weather is not climate.
One cold May in the south of X, one warm winter on the plains of Y, one cold winter in the mountains of Z, one rainier-than-average monsoon in central W: none of these have statistical significance. It is the long-term sum of all of these that is significant.
I am equally annoyed by the people who declaim that every hot summer means global warming must be true as I am by the people who shout that every cold summer means that global warming must be a hoax. They are both equally wrong.
Anecdote is not data. Your backyard is not the global average. Local weather is not global climate.
Look at the data, not your backyard.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Cherry picking it's "facts". It's deception. Moron.
Look if 99% of the smartest people on earth say burning carbon is warming the planet WE NEED TO LISTEN!!!
Really?? 99%??
Do you have any proof whatsoever of this statistic-made-up-on-spot?? The real consensus is 0.3%. What is that? Only the looney fringe seems ot think Global Warming is indeed happening and caused my humans...
So, following your link to skeptical science, and examining the intermediate level to actually look a temperatures, the models they showed have in fact been compared to data extending past 2005, although they stopped observed data there. Doing so makes it clear that for the bast 15+ years, that particular set of models overestimated the temperature growth.
A broader comparison is available here. Climate models fairly consistently diverge in their predictions. You might aso check a later link.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
I know they are various models, the point is that smearing them as "alarmist" doesn't work if they've been understating the rate of change.
You didn't actually follow my links did you? Your link provided claims about items other than temperature, which I didn't touch on, unless you switched to the intermediate tab. There they provided a graphcal comparison of 3 different scenarios under a model by Hansen, which showed some consistency with real data up until 2005. I noted that those particular models have been extended past that by other people, and doing so made it clear that they overestimated growth. My provided link was to a comparision of a large number of models, all of which overestimated temperature growth.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
As the denialists keep spamming, the theory of gravity is constantly updated by physicists. That's what scientists do: improve on theories with new data and superior models - something denialists have yet to do. This "large correction" stuff is nothing more than an empty talking point.
New England. Heard of it? Worst storm in 75 years. Know any girls named Katrina?
And even those people say climate change is happening when they actually look at that data.
Climate change is real. It's happening. Models going back even 30 years have been remarkably prescient. So go on and test that theory of gravity with your foot an an anvil, since quantum string theory is "constantly being updated" and models from ten years ago don't exactly explain how dark matter works.