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Global Warming Since 1997 Underestimated By Half
Layzej writes "A new paper shows that global temperature rise of the past 15 years has been greatly underestimated. The reason is that the weather station network covers only about 85% of the planet. Satellite data shows that the parts of the Earth that are not covered by the surface station network, especially the Arctic, have warmed exceptionally fast over the last 15 years. Most temperature reconstructions simply omit any region not covered. A temperature reconstruction developed by NASA somewhat addresses the gaps by filling in missing data using temperatures from the nearest available observations. Now Kevin Cowtan (University of York) and Robert Way (University of Ottawa) have developed a new method to fill the data gaps using satellite data. The researchers describe their methods and findings in this YouTube video. 'The most important part of our work was testing the skill of each of these approaches in reconstructing unobserved temperatures. To do this we took the observed data and further reduced the coverage by setting aside some of the observations. We then reconstructed the global temperatures using each method in turn. Finally, we compared the reconstructed temperatures to the observed temperatures where they are available... While infilling works well over the oceans, the hybrid model works particularly well at restoring temperatures in the vicinity of the unobserved regions.' The authors note that 'While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change.'"
Clearly they have a cooling effect.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The first link in the summary links to the paper published by the Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.. The youtube video makes the science accessible to the layman.
Japan is rejecting its existing CO2 commitments, Australia is rejecting existing and new CO2 laws, and we're seeing rejections of carbon trading systems in Europe.
So what is the point?
The only reason we have such intense political conflict over the issue is that it is used to justify taxes, restrictions, and various other regulations.
Well... Those aren't going to be happening any time soon indifferent to the science.
The economy is terrible.
People already feel over taxed.
Any further taxes, restrictions, or regulations along these lines won't be accepted.
So why are you guys still trying so hard? For now at least... its over. Its done.
AGW may be the doom of humanity and we might all be living under water while Kevin Costner drinks his own pee while shooting "smokers" in their mad max oil tanker.... But that won't change the fact that people will vote these regulations down.
So... if you're interested in doing anything besides spinning your wheels uselessly... figure out another way to contribute to a solution besides unpopular heavy handed government restrictions.
I say that with the full knowledge that about a dozen people are about to tell me that that is the only thing that will work. Well, no it won't because it won't be accepted and therefore won't work. So if that is all we've got then there is no solution. If people won't accept it... then it won't work. Unless you want to try an Eco-dictatorship where you just shoot people that disagree. Have fun with that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Please explain how this was feigned, fudged, and fibbed. I'm sure there are plenty of denialist websites that can help you with that.
Regardless of which side of the warming debate you're on, hearing reports that a climate projection was off by half doesn't instill confidence that scientists really understand what's going on.
Since most of the deniers seem to get their arguments from quality sites like youtube they probably thought it was a good place to post a video with some real research.
The mistake they make is thinking the deniers are interested in science at all....
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Let me help you more: the AC post directly above yours "cites" http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/14/curry-on-the-cowtan-way-pausebuster-is-there-anything-useful-in-it/ Please translate into your own words.
Not really. The method they use when filling the gaps is to make the gaps cooler than the average when it deals with historic data and warmer than the average when it comes to new data and for some magic reason all our measuring stations are in places that has observed the least change.
As a denier I only need to take their estimated difference and flip it around. With the invented values for 2012 placed at 1997 and the invented values for 1997 placed at 2012 you can clearly see that there have been no global warming at all.
Isn't it interesting how much intentionally skewed values can change the outcome.
*FACEPALM*
I understand not reading the story. This is Slashdot after all. But not reading the summary? Come on man. There's a link to paper right at the start of the summary. The youtube vid was to explain it to the average Joe, not for passing a scientific review.
~X~
No no no. You don't understand. *this* time we got it right.
They don't really understand what's going on, at least with any degree of precision. That's why responsible climatologists give overall projections a wide error band. However, pretty much all the predictions based on honest science (as opposed to throwing spaghetti against the wall) point in the same direction.
The method used works well over the oceans - is that where they omitted data and the used the prediction method? But it works "particularly well" where we have no actual data to validate it...
Fail.
Cowtan and Way circumvent both problems by using an established geostatistical interpolation method called kriging – but they do not apply it to the temperature data itself (which would be similar to what GISS does), but to the difference between satellite and ground data. So they produce a hybrid temperature field. This consists of the surface data where they exist. But in the data gaps, it consists of satellite data that have been converted to near-surface temperatures, where the difference between the two is determined by a kriging interpolation from the edges. As this is redone for each new month, a possible drift of the satellite data is no longer an issue.
Prerequisite for success is, of course, that this difference is sufficiently smooth, i.e. has no strong small-scale structure. This can be tested on artificially generated data gaps, in places where one knows the actual surface temperature values but holds them back in the calculation. Cowtan and Way perform extensive validation tests, which demonstrate that their hybrid method provides significantly better results than a normal interpolation on the surface data as done by GISS.
The only thing in TFS is that they cover 85% of the globe, where does the "half" come from?
From the paper, which actually found 2.5 times as much warming by leveraging satellite data as the CRUtemp does by ignoring the unobserved region. The paper shows that the Arctic is warming at about eight times the pace of the rest of the planet. This is not an unexpected finding: see polar amplification
A factor of a half is not "orders of magnitude" larger. It's of order 0 in fact.
One model predicts global warming. A second model guesses at the surface temperature in places where there are no thermometers and finds warming. The second model confirms the first.
And this is science.
Hey, it's the classic scientific method: Form a hypothesis, observe the evidence and/or conduct experiments then collect data, and if said data/evidence doesn't match your hypothesis then alter the experiment or means of observing until it does. Now THAT'S empiricism!!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
well, apparently the numbers they chose for the missing areas increase the total warming by "half".
which kind of implies that the warming there has been enermous.
but the figures from these closest one's were already used in previous estimates? and snow etc of polar regions has been pretty well in focus? so huh?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map
And some think that the NatGeo's prediction may be too low...
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/11/map-sea-level-rise-probably-wrong-its-too-optimistic/71246/
Between the jellyfish blooms and this...things are looking much worse all the sudden. I'm not even getting into the various "superstorms" yet.
A risky idea that might get us out of this is to dump lots of money into a "manhattan project" for fusion power and photovoltaics. Advances in those fields could solve global warming quite easily.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Regardless, if we spend money to reduce our greenhouse gases and it turns out global warming was a myth, no harm no foul, and as an added bonus, we have less smog!
If we don't spend money to reduce our greenhouse gases and it turns out global warming is real, we're boned.
You be trolling ma'am. You toss off an overstated, inflammatory reply - that's trolling.
Yes, it's also factually incorrect. But that's life.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If a doctor tells me I have cancer, and then later tells me it's progressing twice as fast as originally thought, of course that causes me to lose confidence in doctors and thus ignore anything they have to say. Instead, I'll go listen to the homeopathy providers who keep telling me that doctors don't know what they're talking about, and aren't always telling me that I'm going to die. After all, doctors are only interested in making money.
That's the spirit! A shoot-from-the-hip comment, not backed by any calculation, measurement or modelling, but hey. someone (with and actual doctorate!) claims something doesn't make sense to her. Case closed, you found one Ph.D. who off the top of her head makes a critical comment (BTW, that's never happened to a peer reviewed paper before) and it proves that the whole thing is nonsense!
Wait, there's a debate about whether or not the climate is warming? That's news to me. There's certainly a debate about exactly how quickly it's rising, which is something the scientists have not expressed certainty about. But the fact that the planet is warming as well as the question of the main cause very well studied, well demonstrated and not heavily debated among scientists.
Science really isn't about confidence. It's about evidence. If holding the line, even when you know you're wrong, is what makes people feel confident, it's no wonder they turn to religion. But I'm personally thankful that at least one discipline isn't afraid to publish results that contradict earlier findings, if that's where the evidence leads.
As someone who understands this process, findings like this lend tremendous credibility to the scientific community, and yes, boost my confidence in the work they're doing and the integrity of the published results. It's what makes science the best method we know of for understanding reality.
Look, I am fed up with this. Just turned 40 last Sunday. Have pictures from all the 40 birthdays. All the way through the 70-ties and half 80-ies I am on ski - 50 cm or more snow, winter is in full swing. Late 80-ties and early 90-ties - cold but not freezing. After that it became ridiculously hot until last Sunday when the absolute record was set - it was 23 (I repeat 23 degrees!!!). And BTW, this 20-23 degrees lasted for 4 weeks in total (mid-October -mid November). Utterly ridiculous and unheard off.
Since 10 years the fruit trees in our garden do not bear fruit because it is too hot in January and February, so they start blossoming too early. Then a few frosts in March and they are gone. 17 degrees Celsius in mid-February (for a week or longer)? In my country where this is the coldest month? WTF?!?
Say what you will about anecdotes, I don't give a damn. My experience is unambiguous. The Earth is warming.
No, the science always matters. Just because we can't pull the political will out to fix it (and I agree with you, we are very, very unlikely to change anything this late in the game), but doing the science is important.
First of all, this isn't going to be a total Zombie apocalypse. It may well be pretty bad in some places, not so much in others. Climate change is going to be going on - basically forever as far as humans go. Better predictions may well help future generations minimize harm. At some point it's going to be obvious to even US Republican Senators that climate change is going to economically effect their tiny little world and they might try to do something about it. Knowing them, they;ll screw it up anyway, but we really do need 'science' trying to figure out what happened, what is happening and what might be happening in the future.
It's not just about you....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Now, for looking at the global warming/changing hysteria, their hockey stick chart looks surprisingly similar to the population chart covering the same years. Somehow they believe that an increase in a trace gas is leading to a mass extinction, while it is tracking with the opposite.
Obviously the increased population of one species means that there couldn't possibly be large scale extinction of other species (which is what "mass extinction" means). Similarly, the increased population of jellyfish must mean the oceans are in fine shape.
I admit, it's a bit off topic, but it is something that has bugged me for ages and I still didn't find an answer, so please, maybe someone can shed some light on it:
Why is there a "controversy" about Global Warming, and why is there none about "Terrorism"?
Global Warming may or may not happen. Ok. I don't want to discuss what kind of "proof" one side or the other may have, let's just say it may or may not happen. Likewise, terrorism. There may or may not be terrorist attacks on some parts of "our" (with varying definitions of "our") soil. Again, I don't want to discuss whether or not they would happen.
The point now is: We try to do anything in our power to prevent terrorist attacks, while at the same time we argue whether or not we should do anything to prevent Global Warming. My question is: From a risk management point of view, shouldn't it be the other way 'round?
Both are classic examples of Risk Management problems. Risk and cost to mitigate vs. reward/damage contained. It's the usual 2x2 matrix. On X, we have "do nothing" and "do something", on Y we have "nothing happens" and "something happens" (ok, very simplified, but you get the idea). So, in case of terrorism, that would net us:
We don't do anything and nothing happens: Pre-9/11 situation, no cost, perfect situation
We do prepare and nothing happens: Possibly the current situation, high cost and no damage
We prepare and an attack happens: Also the possibly current situation, high cost but with good damage control, leading to no/little damage
We don't prepare and an attack happens: Worst case scenario, no cost to prepare but high damages, possibly costing thousands of lives.
When you do the same matrix for Global Warming, it looks quite similar, though with a teeny-tiny little twist at the end:
We don't do anything and nothing happens: Current situation and best case future scenario
We do prepare and nothing happens: High cost, potential change in our lifestyle for no gain.
We prepare and an attack happens: Also high cost, but climate changes can be mitigated to the point where only little/no damage has to be suffered.
We don't prepare and an attack happens: Worst case scenario, with millions on coastlines being dead or homeless, with out of control storms and the weather from hell.
The thing I have problems with now is: The former can, worst case, cost a few thousand lives with maybe a building or two gone. The latter can literally cost millions of lives with coastal areas becoming uninhabitable for decades, if not forever, with storms causing damages in the billions and unforeseeable effects to agriculture and nature (and of course tourism, but I guess that's the least of our concerns then). And we're not talking about some brown bodies being killed, that could well be millions of AMERICANS dead, so the usual "Anyone outside the US doesn't count as human to the US" won't apply.
Yet we pump billions into the defense against terrorism, but we keep bickering on whether or not Global Warming may or may not happen. Anyone able to explain the sense in that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Climate Scientists are not Statisticians
But petroleum engineers are?
Instead of dreaming up new ways to interpolate over spotty and incomplete data, why don't they invest in some thermometers and stick them where they need to fill in the data gaps going forward? Real measurements trump "we think this is what the measurements would have been" any day of the week.
And if the response is, it's hard to put up weather stations in all of these far off and exotic locales, tough beans. The fact that science is hard doesn't make incomplete measurements and convoluted interpolations any more solid.
A bit of a lull in temperature increase (AFAIK, it's still going up, but more slowly) is nothing significant when you've got long-term trends that are flagrantly obvious, such as decreasing seasonal ice in the Arctic (last year was the sixth smallest ice cover since monitoring started in the 1970s), more glacial ice sliding off Antarctica (probably due to more melting at the base, which speeds glacier flow), more melting on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet than ever before observed, and the great majority of glaciers being in retreat for at least the last century. Long-term and short-term trends are not the same thing. With your logic you would be saying global warming was over every time we go from summer into fall and winter in the northern hemisphere. No, that is a short-term seasonal trend. Likewise, fluctuations on decadal scale are expected regardless of what's going on. That's always been the pattern. They don't negate averaged trends observed over many decades. Nobody expects the same or even necessarily an increase in temperature *every*single*year* due to global warming. It's going to vary.
When temperature increase doesn't merely slow, but reverses for, say, the next 40 years, undoing the increasing trends of the previous 40, then people would admit there was a problem with the interpretation of global warming. Otherwise the only thing a lull in temperature guarantees is that a lot of global warming deniers are going to pop out of the woodwork and use it to push their case while ignoring all the other evidence that still contradicts their claims.
As far as I'm concerned, if there's a bit of a lull in the temperature increase, that's good news. But I dread what it might mean if things tilt the other way, and we get a decade of faster-than-predicted temperature increases.
I wouldn't really consider this data as findings so much as creations of data. Funny how the created data only always points in one direction. Whenever I collect real data, sometimes it is higher than what I expect, sometimes it is lower.
Uhh, is it me or do folks really not know how to read basic charts? Yes, the temperature changes due to cycling glacial periods are real. They are also spread out across vast chunks of time; the rate of these cyclic background climate changes are very, very, very slow.
Not guilty, your Honor! Death is a natural cycle; he was dying before I ever met him! The bullets I shot into him had nothing to do with it.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
No it hasn't, but there was a 25-year period in the mid-1900's when the temperature dropped significantly, which disproves global warming.
Post may contain traces of sarcasm.
At some point it's going to be obvious to even US Republican Senators that climate change is going to economically effect their tiny little world and they might try to do something about it.
It's already obvious to the Pentagon, but everybody knows that place is full of pinko, tree-hugging, industry hating, enviro-whackos.
Here are 17 years of the current measurements: NASA GISS VS CRUTemp. NASA GISS uses the nearest available station to fill in gaps. CRUTemp just drops any region not covered. It doesn't look like "no warming" on either of them. Not sure where you got that.
Doesn't matter what the australian government is doing. That is one data point in a cloud of data points.
If I showed you ONE weather station that had consistent cooling over the last 100 years would that convince you that global warming wasn't happening?
No.
So... why are you ignoring the fact that this legislation is unpopular throughout the world and not being accepted.
Again. The chinese and indians have said they won't even consider it.
The middle east won't accept it.
Russia won't accept it.
Japan is rejecting it.
Australia IS REJECTING IT.
And most of the laws pushing this sort of thing in the EU have either been bypassed, loopholed, and/or are deeply unpopular.
So... the pattern... do you see it? Good. That's my point.
Now that you see the pattern... you must acknowledge that you should try something else. Or you want to keep spinning your wheels and see where that gets you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Advocates? You mean there was more than one of them?
This revisionist bullshit to fool the kiddies is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. Apart from one published paper global cooling was a "world of tomorrow!" newspaper fluff thing and there was less of it in the newspapers than bigfoot sightings.
Sigh, +4 Insightful.
Are you a climatologist? Your keep making these accusations without any references, citations... What exactly makes you so sure the experts are wrong?
On the one hand we have these publically funded (and therefore to some extent accountable) scientists saying that, yes, there is very likely an enormous problem. On the other hand we have privately funded "thinktanks" like Heartland and some flaky websites saying, variously (and sometimes simultaneously)
-- AGW is not happening.
-- AGW may be happening but there's nothing we can do about it.
-- AGW is happening but we should not try to do anything about it because the suggested courses of action are just Marxist plots to sap and impurify our precious bodily bodily fluids.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Why do you think the IPCC no longer uses the Hockey-stick graph?
They don't use Mann's original hockey stick graph from 1998 any more because it's 15 years old and numerous other newer reconstructions have been done since then. But if you take a look at Chapter 5 - "Information from Paleoclimate Archives" of the IPCC AR5 - WG I report you'll find that figures 5.7 & 5.8 still look remarkably like the original hockey stick graph. So they've got newer versions of it.
Another idiot who doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate and the effects of natural variability.
I thought Slashdot was the place for rational individuals. Instead many of the posters are simply in denial what's happening. Of course AGW is being exploited, but the change is still real, and the humans have changed the Earth's atmosphere and the capacity to react to such sudden changes. What's happening now on the global scale is a natural feedback for the historically sudden input by one species and its technology.
If you still don't find that logical - taking into account simple physical phenomena known for over 100 years (and direct observations) - imagine this:
Alien race starts to pour greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere. Who do you think is guilty of the resulting warming? What if the alien race starts to chop trees and rain forests, and - gasp - what if they actually maintain billion head cattle population (responsible of major chunk of the greenhouse gas emissions)?
The cattle population for example would be at its natural level if we stopped feeding it, letting the cattle to find its own food.
It's amazing how denial can work, isn't it? It's natural however - the first phase of confronting something uneasy - but it's still there on the path to understanding, so don't worry you are well on your way.
The authors note that 'While short term trends are generally treated with a suitable level of caution by specialists in the field, they feature significantly in the public discourse on climate change.'
Which is a nice way of saying that the results of this data is to be taken with a grain of salt. But they acknowledge that the general public will probably grab them and run of in some direction or other, screaming nonsense.
Have gnu, will travel.
It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared. One week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?" "Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever." "How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked. The weather man replied, "The Indians are collecting wood like crazy."
If the warming projections decrease, then that is a very serious problem with their science.
If the warming projections increase, then that is a very serious problem with their science.
If the warming projections do not change, then that is a very serious problem with their science.
That's how it works for you Jane Q, whether you admit it or not. The fundamental principle is that AGW is wrong, you are right, and your mind finds the "logic" to fit.
There are people who think the earth is less than 10000 years old. I work with one of them. He has an explanation for everything, but he doesn't understand what he's talking about. Who am I to point out the finer details of radiometric dating, when he will not listen, because if he's not right about the young earth thing, then his web of belief will fall to bits.
My question to you is this: are you capable of learning something about climate science?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
How is it that EVERY SINGLE WEEK there is some new story about how AGW is WAY worse than we thought.
You want to know why no one gives a shit about AGW? This is why? You can only tell me my life is over tomorrow for so many days before I realize you're talking out your ass ... even if I'm a stupid moron.
EVERY FUCKING THING THAT HAPPENS IS CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING ...
And no one gives a shit because common sense tells us that we should be dead by now ... well, 20 or 30 years ago, according to these guys and their 'OMG WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT'.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Jane, the Dunning Kruger effect is referring to you. That is you.
What this video to learn about how people like you think about whether it is warming or not.
If. You. Dare.
It's not that you disagree with people, but that you are incapable of processing information. like the above video. I'm sure it will make no sense to you, but typical people will laugh and shake their head.
An ideologue as the ability to look at a black wall and call it white. That is you.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
There has been warming.
This video explains the source of the confusion.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
We have always been at war with Eastasia. The authorities say so.
Personally, I'm confident the experts can be very wrong because if you look at history, it's happened time and time again. Computers and spreadsheets don't change that.
I'd say the science is pretty new. Things need time to settle down before we can sit back and take them for what they're worth.There simply hasn't been enough time for it to have established rigor and respect.
This doesn't mean I don't believe in AGW, but it also doesn't mean I blindly support the deindustrialization of the western world without, you know, a little more investigation.
These are the same people who got caught falsifying data to meet their own political agenda. They keep 'creating' data from different sources. They may be right in some capacity but they've lied too many times be believable. And I'm still waiting for all the dire predictions from the 80's and 90's I grew up with happening.
Did you even read that Wikipedia article? Here's a quote: "Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct"
Thanks for the citation but I suggest that you read it first as it does not support your conclusion.
Don't be so defeatist.
It's not defeatist to point out that something that cannot happen, will not.
What is truly defeatist is to continue to pretend that the impossible solution is the only way to fix the problem.
For example, instead of beating people over the head with more regulation that they plainly will not accept, you can push for people to accept things they are already ambivalent about, like nuclear energy (which reduces CO2 emissions).
If you are not willing to do that, you are basically telling people through your actions the problems are not real, and they will believe based on what you do rather than what you say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In most cases I would agree. The problem here is that, if the vast majority of climatologists are even remotely on the right track, we do not have the luxury of "sitting back" until things settle down.
I guess for me it boils down to this: if there is a nonzero probability X that future generations will suffer devastating consequences of our pollution, we should do everything we can to mitigate that. This is true even for small X because the scale of consequences are potentially very large.
But more to the point, even though you are right that this science is new, I put more value on the statements of experts in the field, rather than some random person on the Interwebs who, for all I know, just refuses to take it seriously because the implications might inconvenience her slightly.
The energy captured in coal, gas and oil is the result of many millions of years of sunshine. I just can't reasonably expect there to be no significant effects to our releasing that in a matter of a few decades.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Not necessarily. This story does a good job explaining that many solutions to global warming involve completely turning our backs on the poor.
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/voices/michael-shellenberger-and-ted-nordhaus//the-great-progressive-reversal/
That is not "no harm, no foul".
I'm not saying, "damn the consequences, coal power for the poor". But I am saying that the idea that we can improve peoples lives without giving them affordable power is a preposterous "nobel savage" myth.
The climate scientists that chastised the environmentalists that are hellbent against Nuclear power have a point. It is our best answer for generating the power the world needs without the greenhouse gas emissions the world does not.
The problem is that if the science is even half right then we don't have the luxury of the time to wait to be absolutely certain. Had we investing in moderate, completely reasonable solution 60+ years ago when the scientists first agreed that we had a serious problem on our hands we could have nipped this problem in the bud at very little expense. If we start doing things immediately we need to make some serious changes, and it will probably cost us at least several percent of the Gross Global Product. If we wait for another 50 years to be absolutely, completely, 100% certain that the climate is behaving as we predict, and that we understand all the contributing factors, then it will be to late and there will be *nothing* we can do to preserve the climatological "status quo" at any cost, environmental positive feedback will have already snowballed out of control. In fact there probably won't be anything we can do to even adapt the food production infrastructure enough to avoid widespread global starvation.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Careful, some might accuse you of crisis mongering.
Yes, and others stand accused of crisis whitewashing. What is your point?
Vague declarations of doom are not a rational basis on which to surrender all of one's economic freedom and much of one's standard of living.
I wouldn't call the IPCC reports "vague declarations of doom". They are quite concrete declarations of doom. There is a bit of a spectrum of options between fingers-in-ears and surrendering all economic freedom (whatever that means) and standard of living -- unless perhaps you're Koch, BP, and so on.
Some people just can't stop looking for a Messiah, a Prophet to simultaneously fill them with fear and then promise to deliver them from that fear.
You invoke an image of some sectarian cult. This is not an accurate description of the position of a large majority of climate scientists. Sure, it is a relatively young field. But that's still better, warts and all, than no science. Not to mention the anti-science punted by vested interests.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Please show me what percentage (or any non-modeled number) of that rise is due to human activity. Now, we can talk about solutions.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
| And, really, it's right to be quite skeptical of any scientist who argues that "my theory wasn't wrong, 15 years of data was all wrong". That's an extraordinary claim.
Indeed, but that's not the claim.
And it's quite right be be skeptical of any internet poster who is "skeptical" of results which are disliked who doesn't really understand where they came from but is smug about their skepticism.
Closer to actual facts:
a) there are no calibrated ground-based stations in the Arctic because there is no ground in the Arctic.
b) the physics of increased greenhouse effect predicts larger effects in polar regions. (This also distinguishes global warming from enhanced greenhouse from global warming from increased solar output).
c) global warming is, of course global
d) combine (b) and (c) and you recognize that accurate quantification of global warming requires good evaluation of polar temperatures.
e) previous temperature reconstructions used simple extrapolation or ignored Arctic regions with no data.
f) authors propose new technique to assimilate data from multiple sources like satellites to improve coverage
g) authors calibrate/validate technique where good data were known
h) authors run the method and apply to Arctic regions with authentic missing data
i) results show substantial warming larger than estimates previously used in (e).
j) results with substantial warming in Arctic are more consistent with estimates using first-principles physics of greenhouse effects and what mainstream climate scientists have been predicting since 1992 or so.
next up:
k) scientists doing improved data processing showing closer correspondence to physics get accused of being shrill anti-capitalist nazis or the like.
Remember the previously skeptical Berkeley statistics professor---a favorite of the usual "skeptical" right-wing deception machine---who was convinced that the climatologists were doing their data analysis wrong and showing excessive global warming. And he & students got the underlying data sets and worked for years. And they found that the climatologists had the right answer all along (in fact their own estimates of warming were a touch higher than the climatologists).
| This doesn't mean I don't believe in AGW, but it also doesn't mean I blindly support the deindustrialization of the western world without, you know, a little more investigation.
There's been tremendous investigation over 50 years. Enough.
And it doesn't mean the deindustrialization of the western world---in fact it would have been easier had we started when the science was good enough to motivate action (early 1990's) by any sane criterion but there's been a large campaign of anti-scientific dissembling and propaganda stopping it for selfish pecuniary motives.
How about this: Are YOU a climate scientist? (Considering the fact that you work with a YEC, I'd doubt it.)
If not, your opinion just happens to match consensus. Don't pretend for a second that you came to that conclusion on your own after spending years examining the data. You just read a few blogs and popular articles and decided that this is what smart people are supposed to believe.
If JQP is not a climate scientist, there's a good chance she did exactly as you did, and happened to come to a different conclusion.
You are not smarter, better looking, or more intelligent simply because your incompetent and uninformed conclusion just happens to match consensus!
You've also missed the point of her post entirely. This nonsense:
If the warming projections decrease, then that is a very serious problem with their science.
... and the other two like it, completely misrepresent her comment. Do you often have difficulty reading or was this purposeful? If this was intentional, why did you feel the need to flat-out lie about her post? If it was unintentional, why should we listen to someone's opinion on a complicated topic when that person lacks basic literacy?
The worst part about your nonsensical rambling? The +4 insightful your post has right now. Here's hoping that the competent mods can correct this egregious error.
Required reading for internet skeptics
If not, your opinion just happens to match consensus. Don't pretend for a second that you came to that conclusion on your own after spending years examining the data. You just read a few blogs and popular articles and decided that this is what smart people are supposed to believe.
If JQP is not a climate scientist, there's a good chance she did exactly as you did, and happened to come to a different conclusion.
I don't personally know either of the people involved, and neither do you. But your summary of the similarity of what they did is flawed. It's unlikely Microbox's opinion "just happens to" match the consensus of domain experts. It is the rational thing for non-domain experts to be informed by the consensus of domain-experts.
Jane Q Public's belief in a few "blogs and popular articles" which contradict the consensus of domain experts on the other hand is not rational. And from previous posts, it's clear that you share the same non-rationality. You both believe what you wish were true, rather than what is most likely to be true.
For many years the actual measurement from ground stations were been "adjusted" upwards, matching predictions of early models. Does that prove the science was bad? No. Is "adjusting" the measured data in such a way that now the predictions of your model hold a huge warning signal that justifies extreme skepticism? Yes. That sort of thing, in any field, is quite corrosive to the scientific method.
Now we see the predictions of the early models failing despite all the "adjustments", and a method proposed by which we invent data that happens to match newer models. That has bad science warning signs written all over it - no matter how well intentioned the actors, we know how hard it is to prevent "rounding in the direction of theory" even with actual measurements - unconscious bias towards accepted theory is a real problem in all fields. Again, extreme skepticism is called for.
If you're not extra-skeptical of all claims that would be wonderfully helpful if true, you have very poor BS filters in general.
Remember the previously skeptical Berkeley statistics professor---a favorite of the usual "skeptical" right-wing deception machine---who was convinced that the climatologists were doing their data analysis wrong and showing excessive global warming. And he & students got the underlying data sets and worked for years. And they found that the climatologists had the right answer all along (in fact their own estimates of warming were a touch higher than the climatologists).
Right - actual science happened, and it was wonderful. Publishing into an echo chamber of people who all agree with you gives only minimal vetting of your ideas. Believable science happens when some calls BS on your ideas, repeats your experiment to show how wrong you are, and instead convinces himself you were right. That is the most critical part of the scientific method, and "consensus science" sabotages it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
| If you want to discuss Dunning-Kruger, then please explain to me: why is it that you think a 100% error in the basic quantity (temperature) that this whole discussion is about, is not a problem with the existing "science"?
It's an error in the magnitude of a change. The basic physical quantity as you put it is temperature on the Kelvin scale, so it's something of the size of 0.5-1 degree divided by 300K.
The existing science was very well aware of the dearth of non-satellite measurements in the Arctic, which is one reason that the investigators of this paper performed the analysis that they did.
What's the problem with the existing science?
It would be better still if we had a large network of calibrated measurement instruments in addition to the satellite data, but that costs time and money which is not being allocated sufficiently to solve this problem.
Of course if scientists ask for the money to do this they get accused of fantastical self-dealing conspiracies.
Really, the point about Dunning-Kruger is that almost everybody except the climatologists who do this for a living do NOT know enough about the quality of the data, the quality of the models and the validity of the predictions to make major valid criticisms.
The problem is that countries think they own the air above their land. They don't own the air (air moves around), and they don't even own their own land (they are simply caretakers, tourists). How can an elephant pretend to own a waterhole? It does not belong to that individual elephant and neither to the herd of elephant. So how to hold countries accountable for the part of the earth that they are currently living on? Let the UN tax each country based on its pollution. The net taxes raised should be zero, i.e. the heavy polluters would effectively be paying taxes, and the countries who are polluting less than average would earn revenue. Effectively the heavy polluters would be paying to use up clean air. When the system is in place and net pollution needs to be brought down to levels in year x, then it is simply done by raising the overall net tax generated by the system, and using this revenue to research future clean technologies. Politicians do not have to decide to raise taxes, it is automatically adjusted each year to get back to the pollution levels in year x. This is clearly the only equitable solution, but who will enforce it? The UN. The UN should become a super government that can impose such taxes. Currently we are living in a village and villagers are allowed to throw trash in public areas. Legally it is encroaching on the rights of others in the village. It obviously does not work, which is why the natural evolution of any village in order to survive has been to appoint a chief. It is the only way.