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Antarctic Climate Research Expedition Trapped In Sea Ice
First time accepted submitter Stinky Cheese Man writes "An Antarctic climate research expedition, led by climate researcher Chris Turney of the University of New South Wales, has become trapped in heavy ice near the coast of Antarctica. The captain has issued a distress call and three nearby icebreaker ships are on their way to the rescue. According to Turney's web site, the purpose of the expedition is 'to discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.'"
It's not about being the frist pole. It's about being the first best poler who can spell.
> the purpose of the expedition is 'to discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.
Looks like they found some.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There's about 1.53 million more square km of ice than what is usual.
...it's starkly beautiful, and nothing compares to hiking an extinct volcano and looking down on a colony of hundreds of penguins.
But I don't recommend getting stuck there. No. Definitely not.
Anyone who would insinuate that there is any ice left anywhere on Earth after Global Warming must be an anti-science denialist and must be purged in the name of tolerance.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
They can call it the "Endurance Centennial Reenactment".
Have you read my blog lately?
They are in the artic measuring climate change and its affect on reduced sea ice levels yet are now trapped in ice and have called in ice-breaking ships to rescue them, which in turn will reduce the formation of sea ice.
No, not yet.
Climate science’s predictive powers are poor. Which is the nature of young science, using scant data and unable to run many experiments. The worst case dire predictions make headlines. The hashing out of the important but dull details does not.
This is a good example. The scientist correctly predicted that the artic would warm, but they have tended to underestimate the speed that it has warmed. Asked scientists 10 years ago if the artic would be free of ice in 50 years you would have gotten a resounding “no”. Today? A tentative “yes”.
These aren't all scientists on board, they are a mix of tourists with some scientist guides. Such is the sad state of funding these days that you have to hold bake sales to rent a cruise ship which used to be a proud part of the soviet science fleet before it was converted to an amusement park ride.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/231948/icebreaker-on-way-to-ship
As you contemplate the likelihood of sea level rise, consider that just 20,000 years ago—a snap of the fingers in geologic time and well within the span of human existence—the North Sea didn’t even exist. Global sea levels were as much as 400 feet lower than today, Britain was part of Continental Europe and terra firma stretched from Scotland to southern Norway.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Never-Heard-of-Doggerland-Blame-Climate-Change-From-Millennia-Ago-208341111.html#ixzz2ocNb29cW
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12!: http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
Afaik, there are no ice breakers on the way to rescue but ordinary fright ships. But perhaps they are ice breaking and that fact never was told in germany. The likely closest one is: note, a chineese freighter that stopped unloading its freight and moved imediatly towards the hazardouse ship.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The GP posted a statement of fact, relevant to the story. Doesn't sound like a denialist to me.
They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let'm crash.
what it does prove is the complete intellecutual bankruptcy of the deniers
You AGW cultists are a real trip. When you say there will be less sea ice before you say there will be more, it means that the scientists arguing against your beliefs are the ones in intellectual bankruptcy?
Have the stones to admit you don't actually understand what you thought you did. But then, a real cultist will die before undergoing change to deeply held beliefs...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some people would use this as an opportunity to take pot shots at climate change theory and Al Gore.
Others would take it as an opportunity to wonder why the previous climate models failed us and how can we improve them.
Only one of those two attitudes is of any use to the rest of us.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Your post is unbelievable.
The GP poster posted a subject of:
Seems there's more ice than usual in the antarctic
And then they posted a LINK to a graph that proved their subject.
THIS IS ALL THEY POSTED!! No follow on sentences about global warming. No links to any other sites about global warming or to sites denying global warming for that matter.
The post stated only facts, and made no arguments. Facts that seem to be backed up by the research vessel being stuck in the ice.
YOU brought global warming into the discussion, YOU called the GP poster a denier (note: I am speaking only to evidence in the GP post, if mc6809e is a raging denier elsewhere I don't know it).
This isn't really cherry picking of data, it is only presentation of data.
If there is an increase in antarctic summer ice at the same time there is a decrease in arctic summer ice, we should study what is happening.
There really wasn't a global warming argument being made in the GP. You just saw one there. Check your glasses.
Non-canonical. No karma for you!
Bitter and proud of it.
:-) welcome to climate "discussion". It is like talking to religious fanatic -- logic just doesn't work. I gave up trying to argue with them long ago and probably this is exactly what they want -- to control mass media (in this case chats/reddit/etc).
You cherry pick the data, and only choose what seems to allow you to take the Ancient Aliens approach of "Oooh, an anomaly - Ancient Aliens."
There is plenty of cherry picking of data by all sides of this argument, and far more money to be had for those who support the anthropological global warming hypothesis (especially for "reputable research groups").
Science should not be as completely contaminated by politics as this particular issue has become, as it really is now a political issue and not a scientific issue as well. That scientists are being active in politics (to keep that money flowing if for no other reason) is one of many reasons why this whole debate is becoming very tiresome for me. Arguments at science conferences about the value of the Hubble Constant or the status of Pluto are one thing, but deciding the fate of entire industries, literally trillions of dollars and how the world's economy is going to reshaped to fit the consequences of this discussion is why so many people have such a huge stake in such a thing. If Pluto is demoted (or has been demoted), nobody really cares other than a bunch of science museums where curators need to rework their orrery and planetarium systems (tens or hundreds of dollars at most at stake). Well, I guess a bunch of school kids have spent a bit more money chewing out Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but it doesn't get even into the million dollar rages at the worst possible estimate of economic impact. More than a million dollars gets spent each time a climate scientist talks at a congressional hearing on AGW.
Which should make you question why we are continuing to argue Global Warming versus Climate damage by human causes which we can prove and know exists.
In the early 1970s we all heard about how we were messing up the world with pollution. Ocean dead zones have grown by leaps and bounds since somehow the topic was diverted from "clean shit up" to "global warming". We could say the same for massive amounts of pollution on the land, water supplies, oceanic garbage pits, deforestation and destruction of terrain, uninhabitable zone increases, etc...
It should also beg the question regarding geoengineering which has been happening without much public knowledge. But hey, you were right about that "Global Warming". Now can we get back to the real problem instead of yelling about how right we are?
Science is not like politics.
That is an arguable statement, because what gets published and gets attention _is_ political. I think I'd agree that long ago your statement was true, but certainly not within the last decade or so.
And before you jump to an incorrect conclusion, I have never been an advocate for either Global Warming or it's counter. I have said for a very long time that it's the wrong argument to be having numerous times and numerous places including here. I'm glad you can believe you won an argument, but there is plenty left to debate and try to resolve.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
....chemtrails do work.
I started out intending to past a comment similar to yours, so I went through comments by mc6809e for about 20 minutes, and can't find any indications that mc6809e (McFhaie?) gives a fig one way or the other. I found one other post relating to climate (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3588831&cid=43296077) and one post indirectly discussing pollution (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3167773&cid=41568249).
No their predictive powers are not poor; they are better than psychics, TV pundits, most political advisers, many investors...
This is not weather forecasting, it's a long term science akin to geology. You can use geology to predict projections into the future too. It'll do about as well in the end but watching year by year to see how the century comes out is like complaining a rocket is off trajectory by meters... what matters is if it ends up within meters of the target and you are not going to know until it gets there.
In this case, we are adjusting the whole model as the projection plays out which makes it impossible - even if you are 100% correct, the answer changes as you alter the problem. CA is going into the ocean, slowly - not a hard projection to make and we can't conceive of altering that course anytime soon-- but it may happen and it doesn't make that projection wrong. This is more like some sci-fi time travel story line where small probabilities can impact the outcome greatly.
No the worst case projections were NOT reported, the average projected trend-line was. They figured we were too stupid to read a proper projection graph. The extreme disasters possible were reported... with each one trying to out shock the other, I'm surprised the Planetary Science people were not pulled into it with all the known extremes that happen on other planets... wrap those around implied connections to Earth by the "reporter" and they could have warped it even more. I remember the 80s stuff about how we only use 1% of the brain; which is still true, but they reported it inaccurately as if that was ALL the time when the science had different levels for different activities - setting up a strawman was setup against brain science.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
grab an atlas, learn the difference between the arctic and Antarctic retard.
That's a bit harsh, but perhaps more manly. These sissies are missing their chance to freeze to death studying global warming; how awesome that would have been! Back in the days of real men like Scott and Amundsen, if you got stuck in the ice, you stayed stuck in the ice until summer. These days people are such wimps; a little ice on the hull and they call for an icebreaker, "oh please save our poor souls! We did not bring any food or warm clothes, but don't hold that against us - we're adventurers!"
Only one of those two attitudes is of any use to the rest of us.
Actually, they are both useful.
But far more useful is the person who points out that sometimes scientists are not really scientists, so that we ALL be be skeptical of scientific claims and not just believe it "because Science (bitch)".
Science is only a useful tool to humanity when it's facilitating a conversation as to what we want to do. When Science is holding a virtual gun to our heads and making unreasonable demands based on questionable data and theories not proved by experimentation, then it's far more a danger than a help.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess you're having a bad day.
Me too, I have to work on Christmas week. But look on the bright side, Slashdot is a good work substitute!
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I know some people have trouble with the concept, but Antarctica and the Arctic are different places. Also, Gore didn't predict that the Arctic would be ice free in the winter, FWIW.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't see how Arctic air temperature is at all relevant to a story about a ship stuck in Antarctic ice.
But you also seem to be reading things that just aren't there. The post *did not* say "Ha!". It was a statement of a fact. That's all.
MV Xue Long
French icebreaker Astrolabe
Aurora Australis (icebreaker)
Arctic sea ice extent in 2013 has increased from its unusually low value in 2012 to be within the normal range (within a 2 sigma band around the mean value). Antarctic sea ice extent is unusually large in 2013 (outside of the 2 sigma band). Global sea ice extent (Southern Hemisphere + Northern Hemisphere) is above average and trending higher.
...because right now we're wishing it was in fact "warming" going on...
-Styopa
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you have predictive power, that it is less than 100% (i.e. weather forecasting), but it is better than flipping a coin (i.e. psychics ). In short, you are not making any statement about its predictive powers. How about this – let’s say that the climate scientist with their models can get with 2 standard deviations – or be about right 5 to 10% of the time. Check out the top chart.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions
I will point out that most investors and political advisors can get below 2 standard deviations.
As you say, when the model diverges from reality you make adjustments. Or junk the model and try something else. This is something you do with science – in particular in a young and developing field. Not so much with older fields. I was taught Newtonian physics long after Einstein had debunked it.
Personally, I would reference seismologists, not geologist. That is another subject where the science is making huge bounds but has low predicting power of when, and how big, the next earthquake will be. And just because seismologist have poor predictive powers does not mean one should not prepare for earthquakes.
Pot shots? The whole world was supposed to warm exponentially and all the sea ice was supposed to have melted by now. Al Gore was horribly wrong. There hasn't been significant warming in a decade. The "deniers" have been largely correct. And yet, the climate change promoters are just saying the models need to be adjusted. Al Gore is a buffoon.
Science can't prove there is no God. It can only provide evidence that suggests that what people claim to have seen God do cannot have happened.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
mc6809e noted that in the SOUTHERN hemisphere, there is a +1.53 million square km ice anomaly.
However, in the follow-on post, it shows that in the NORTHERN hemisphere, there is a -0.63 million square km ice anomaly.
So, +1.53 - 0.63 = +0.9 net global ice difference over the past 3 years. And this is relative to the mean from 1978-2008.
Personally, it does make sense to me that there is AGW, but these graphs indicate a net global sea ice increase over the past 3 years. Is it the last word in the discussion? No, but it is an interesting data point.
Still not enough to merit an accusation of dishonesty. It's just an interesting fact, that people with working brains can take into account without hyperventilating.
It actually *is* a quite interesting fact, because it shows how the relationship of antarctic ice to global temperatures is quite complicated, as are weather conditions in any one region of the Earth at any particular time. It's something to keep in mind, next time you look out your window and see a little unseasonable snow, or unseasonable sunshine for that matter.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Is that you, Phil?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
maybe you should read some more, then:
http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/6120
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013NatGe...6..376B
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I hope they brought a copy of Shackleton's book to read.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Which should make you question why we are continuing to argue Global Warming versus Climate damage by human causes which we can prove and know exists.
I just get annoyed with idiots. You post something that would appear to be a no brainer, and suddenly you become a liberal marxist socialist tool of the evil Kenyan Overlords. And that the intellectual heavyweights in the opposition's corner are Creationist politicians and people who stand to make profit who use the same techniques they use to deny evolution as they do to deny the Greenhouse gas effects, and the energy being put into the atmosphere via that effect.
As for my real thoughts on AGW, I am of the firm belief that we are giong to ride that bus until we run off the cliff. My own admittedly limited investigations lead me to believe that not only are we well past the point of stopping what is going to happen, but any country that tries to do anything will be more than offset by other countries.There is too much low hanging fruit fuel available.
This roller coaster has left the ticket line.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Anonymous cowards are nobodies. I'd expect you to be saying it!
It cannot even prove that. All science can do is prove a supernatural power like God is not needed for something to have happened. Providing an alternative path does not mean it was taken or any other way didn't happen.
I will swear in a court of law that I did read things that were not there, and were no where in his linked graph. I read the reports it came from. Guilty as charged, you have found me out.
And the error (or is it intellectual dishonesty? I can't tell) comes when you attribute those things you read to someone who didn't say them.
By now? Exponentially? All the sea ice?
Citation needed.
I'm not sure how it's really relevant to the story. The ship is trapped in sea ice at a time of year when there is normally some sea ice around in Antarctica. They just got caught by some shifting winds or something.
> I am of the firm belief that we are giong to ride that bus until we run off the cliff.
Pretty much my conclusion too. Regardless of what the science shows there is no real political ability to alter the trajectory. So we are going to have an experiment.
I'm old enough that I don't expect to be alive when the results are in.
I wish you all good luck!
Seems there's more ice than usual in the antarctic
You really should distinguish between the different kinds of ice (sea, shelf & sheet ice) when you talk about Antarctica because they are very different things. The sea ice, that is ice that forms on the ocean from freezing of the water, has increased it's maximum somewhat recently. However the sheet ice, that is ice that is grounded on land that has built up over thousands and millions of years from snowfall is still decreasing. I'm too lazy to look it up right now but I'd bet that more Antarctic sheet ice is lost than is gained in sea ice so it's still a net loss.
If the shoe fits ...
So what do _you_ get by riding the proverbial bus off the cliff? Think about that long and hard, in parallel with what I mentioned about the real issue being derailed. It's not _you_ that benefits from the debate, and in fact society as a whole has no benefit. In reality a couple people with a whole lot of money benefit, and the rest of us end up suffering.
It doesn't take running off the cliff to make changes, it takes enough intellectual people to say "enough is enough" and convince the masses to revolt.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
He said Summer Ice. And its summer in the Antarctic. Where the ship got stuck. Apparently looking for global warming.
"Science is not like politics."
I see you have never applied for a grant. Sorry, that's "science", not science.
Hey, douches are people too!
You'll get further with the claim that ground up babies cures AIDS, even if you have irrefutable proof.
Climate denial is a litmus test. Deny that CO2 causes global warming as a scientist and you will lose EVERYTHING, no matter what your field is.
CO2 will warm up a cold planet that doesn't have an earthlike atmosphere. But CO2's heat capacity is on average about the same as the remainder of the atmosphere, barring water vapor, and a good bit less when it is included. Assuming a constant atmospheric thickness, more CO2 doesn't do squat.
That doesn't mean that increasing CO2 concentration isn't a problem. It's fucking catastrophic! The seas are boiling masses of carbonic acid now, with jellyfish taking over our fisheries. But hardly anyone talks about THAT. No, it's all about "climate change". Honestly, who gives a fuck about a couple of degrees of change when the ocean ecosystem is collapsing?
Huh? Physicists have GREAT predictive power. You have to build multi-billion dollar devices to get unpredictable results these days.
Don't care about the rest of your post. Don't drag physics down to the level of climate "science" and geology, you filthy dirt person.
which in turn will allow England to cool to a temperature more in keeping with it's latitude ( North Dakota type latitude).
North Dakota runs from about 46 to 49 degrees north. England is 99.9% north of 50 degrees. It would be more accurate to say it's "James Bay type latitude".
You should be more careful when you're criticizing people for their ignorance.
(as always subject to revision with new information)
Shouldn't that be "As Never"? Because you never, ever change your CONCLUSION. You just change measured data until it fits the CONCLUSION you know is true.
That's not science man. Even a guy who builds Vacuums understands this far better than you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Deny that CO2 causes global warming as a scientist and you will lose EVERYTHING, no matter what your field is.
To deny that an increase in CO2 will cause warming goes against fundamental physics and the radiative absorption properties of CO2. Even such noted contrarians as Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen will tell you the increase in CO2 will cause warming due to the physics. They just think there are other factors that cancel that warming.
The heat capacity of CO2 and the atmosphere in general has very little to do with global warming. It's the radiative properties that cause the effect. Over 90% of global warming goes into the oceans.
You are right that ocean acidification may turn out to be as big if not a bigger problem than global warming but when you say "who gives a fuck about a couple of degrees change" consider that the temperature difference between the depth of the Little Ice Age and the mid-20th century was only about 1 degree C. What difference will 2 C of further temperature rise make?
When that alternative path from science is more plausible than the theory that a supernatural being discovered by ancient desert goat herders who no one has seen for 2,000 years did it, it may not prove that the being didn't do it, but it sure makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
So if CO2 displaces an equal amount of, say, water vapor, the net effect will be warming? How about if it displaces the same volume of CFCs? Now, how about if it displaces an equal amount of the weighted average of the atmosphere? Anyone proclaiming AGW MUST peforme these thought exercises.
Now, if you could tell me that climate scientists are actually concerned with the THICKENING of the atmosphere, rather than the increase of the average heat capacity, then I would be happy to listen. But from what I have heard, that is not the argument, and I have been on this tack for quite a long time, as you are probably aware, having gone into it with me before. I have mostly argued with idiots on the internet who never took a physical chemistry course, and thus are unable to understand the significance of an IR spectrum, and certainly not the significance of an IR+RAMAN spectrum.
Rising temperatures help humanity up to a point. The vast tundra of Canada and Siberia turning into grain belts would greatly benefit humanity by any measure. But that won't happen because of CO2. Perhaps sustained water vapor emission, or a nice dose of CFCs would dot the trick. I'm not one to want to engineer the climate, though.
I'm glad you acknowledge that ocean acidification is a major if not THE MAJOR problem going forward.
There is nothing more plausible about any of it. It is either possible or not. The rest is only your belief or disbelief in that supernatural being and the amount of faith you keep in the possabilities you choose to believe in.
I planted a tree in my front yard. Of course naturally some how the seed could have been burried in the front yard when the conditions were just right to sprout and i mowed around it until a sizable tree waz there. Which is more plausible. Which makes more sense? Either could be true, it is impossible for you to know whithout being told.
The only difference between a scientific explaination and a supernatural one is the usefulness to the person using it. And even to that extent, both can be just as true as a scientific inderstanding can be the direct result a supernatural process/creation.
It is unscientific to compare the two.you just use the one that is most usefull to you when you need it.
Their most significant finding, though will be that "ice breaker ships are tearing up all the sea ice!".
The Antarctic ice volume is about 10X that of the Arctic. A 10% change in Arctic ice is equivalent to a 1% change in the Arctic; we haven't seen a 10% change in the Arctic, but we're close to that change in the Antarctic. Which is more important?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I'm not sure how it's really relevant to the story. The ship is trapped in sea ice at a time of year when there is normally some sea ice around in Antarctica. They just got caught by some shifting winds or something.
Maybe the something is a growing Antarctic ice sheet?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No, not yet.
Climate science’s predictive powers are poor.
Quackery and divination and spiritualism also have pretty poor predictive powers. We should weight the quality of the predictions of an "realm of research" based upon the quality of past predictions, not the dire nature of future, unproven predictions.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Did you even read the article you cited?
First of all you need to get your terminology right. The article is talking about sea ice (ice that forms on the surface of the sea) not the Antarctic ice sheet (ice on land that's the result of over a million years of snowfall). The other term you should know is ice shelf (ice that's floated on to the ocean at the tongue of a glacier/ice sheet).
Second, the article explains that about 80% of the increase can be explained by the strengthening and converging winds around the South Pole. It doesn't appear to have much to do with colder temperatures. In fact in spite of the record sea ice this year Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole set record highs for each month from June to September (winter in Antarctica).
I don't think "displaces" is the right word to use here since the added CO2 is in addition to the already existing gases. It doesn't directly force anything out of the atmosphere. As for water vapor some places are very humid and some places are very dry. Since the absorption bands of CO2 and water vapor overlap somewhat the less humidity in the air the more significant the CO2 becomes as a greenhouse gas.
Yes, I recall having gone into it with you before. I still don't think the specific heat of CO2 has anything to do with it. You'll have to enlighten me about what the IR+RAMAM spectrum has to do with it. I spent 15 minutes looking around and didn't find much. I guess the vibrational state of CO2 molecules must be what you're getting at but I don't make the connection. A CO2 molecule in the atmosphere doesn't hold on to the energy from an absorbed photon for long. As I understand it it either re-radiates it in a random direction or passes it along in collisions with other molecules in the atmosphere.
Logic is derived from observation of this world. It doesn't hold outside of it. Let's return to Plato's cave for a moment. I show a cylinder, it gets rendered as a rectangle first, then i rotate and it's rendered as a circle. If your universe is limited to the projection, and can't conceive 3d, you will say that whatever it was, it has morphed. I will say it hasn't. You will say that the law of non-contradiction states that a thing is either a square or a non square, either a circle or a non circle. Guess what, you are correct from your point of view, yet your POV is useless for me. Either you trust me or not. This has been correctly understood by the makers of some religions (if they were made up, if they aren't then we are not really having something to debate) 2000 years ago, yet can't enter the skull of "intelligent" people today?
I don't care about what beliefs one has, one can be atheist. What I care about is that atheists realize they are the most inconsistent of the whole bunch every time they assume a randomly chosen logic system is able to determine anything about the hypothetical divine plane.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
You said you don't get it, but you demonstrated that you do. It's not about being able to "hold" photons, it's about the number of different energies of photons it can absorb and re-emit. CO2 can only absorb a very specific few, like having a blanket that only holds in a specific wavelength of IR (heat). You'd get pretty cold pretty fast, even if you piled on more and more layers of that "blanket". Water vapor, however, has a very broad peak, meaning it can absorb and reemit almost ANY IR photon that comes into contact with it. A much thinner water vapor blanket will keep things much warmer than a much thicker CO2 blanket. Taking the metaphor a little further, on average, the water vapor "blanket" is much thicker than the CO2 blanket anyways, and the amount of heat forcing from the CO2 amounts to little more than noise as opposed to the signal from the water vapor.
Water vapor is more significant to global warming, and human activity is a fairly minor source (compared to say, the oceans, or the rainforests), but significant enough to account for the warming we have seen. The CO2 blanket may be twice as thick as it was a hundred years ago, but a water vapor blanket that is 1% thicker than 100 years ago will cause much, much more warming. Even if you throw away said blanket every three days, that doesn't mean there is no more water vapor being pumped into the atmosphere from combustion, or from cooling towers, or from water that can't absorb into the ground because it is blocked by concrete or asphalt, or water that is being run across crop land. This theory matches fairly closely the profile of actual economic growth we have seen over the last century too. Humanity's real economic growth stalled starting about 15 years ago (the tech bubble), with China and other emerging markets growing while the west shrinks.
My theory gives a testable prediction--warming will correlate with economic growth. If the world economy shrinks, we will get cooler. If it grows, we will get warmer. It also suggests that runaway warming is unlikely, as we can take measures to reduce atmospheric humidity fairly easily (better drainage systems, vapor traps on cooling towers and combustion-based plants, planting more trees, use of improved irrigation methods, etc).
The level of water vapor in the atmosphere is strictly regulated by the atmosphere itself. It is a function of temperature and the availability of water to evaporate into it. Because of that water vapor can never force climate change but is strictly a feedback. If there is 1% more water vapor (really it's more like 4%) it's because the atmosphere is warmer.
Does anyone know the specs of whether this ship can withstand being ice bound? I know Shacklton's wooden ship was crushed like a match box by the encroaching ice. An ice ship's bow can break ice but what about the crushing forces from the sides. If so, and they need to camp out on the ice for months, do they have enough supplies? Do they have hard-tack (basically dog biscuits for humans) when the normal food runs out and enough fuel to burn?
It's penguin and camera.
Al Gore's movie didn't mention "Climate change" once, instead only implies future warming, by showing the "hockey stick" graph, which implied exponential warming. Google Al Gore Hockey Stick for a reference. As far as the Summer Arctic Ice, you can google that too. You really need a citation to figure out that Global Warming did not happen as predicted by the quack who got a "D's and C's" in Natural History at Harvard?
Linguistics can show that authors of books were charlatans. Examples: The new testament's foundation on a known translation error between Hebrew and Greek: born to a virgin. The Book of Mormon's inclusion of translation errors present in Joseph Smith's King James Bible. The Koran's inclusion of known period Abrahamic myths based on translation errors between Hebrew and Arabic.
Knowing that the author of Mathew, Joseph Smith and Mohammed were scammers is not the same as disproving god.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Huh, I must have been working with the wrong scientists. You must mean the ones who are making 7-8 figures, and bringing in billions of dollars every day for their pro AGW research. Then they have the marked ability to make sure that there is almost no disagreement.
I am not suggesting that an individual scientist is necessarily getting a pile of money, but trillions of dollars are indeed at stake in terms of shifting the economic situation of the world based upon the political arguments that come from both skeptics and apologists for the research.... particularly the apologists. If you are insisting that there are no research budgets from government funds being used to support climate research with the specific goal of trying to identify causes of global warming, and that active advocacy of political positions based upon that research is not happening, I really think you have your head in a hole right now.
I would love to see this issue settled in a calm manner that was just looking at the actual scientific rationale involved. Unfortunately those who are apologists just shout down anybody who even suggests that the emperor has no clothes.... just like the modding down of my above comment based only upon the idea of -1-- I don't agree with your politics. I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that sometimes things like this just strike a raw nerve, but unfortunately it isn't looking at the substance of the argument either.
The theory that came into being through science is most always much more plausible than any religiously derived one. Using your tree analogy with more apt examples: a human or animal planted the seed, or an invisible unicorn from one of the moons Pluto begat the tree magically one day. This is what scientific versus religious scenarios tend to resemble. To say that the religious one is just as plausible is nuts.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
It is nothing of the sorts. You fail when you start making crap up while trying to be offensive instead of sticking to established concepts that have been around more the 3000 years which are to some degree understood and implemented on over 80% of the worlds religions.
I too can make random shit up and claim something else is more plausible but it still doesn't mean it is or isn't correct. The example i gave was correct enough, the human being creation and animal being nature. The claim in comparison is about God which according to recent studies, 88% of the world's population belive in God. Do yoy want me to return in kind and cite some psudodcience then claim it makes the supernatural more plausible? It would be just as intelectually dishonest as what you did.
Like i said, science doesn't prove or disprove a God or that any god did or did not do anything. It only proves that a God might not be needed for something to happen. Anything else you attempt to claim is nothing but your bias. People simply use whichever as it fits their needs at the time and noyhing is wrong with that.
READ: psychics. not physicists. big difference.
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How do you measure success in predictions? I would think if you are within the projected range then that is a success; while they did go outside of the projected range YEARS LATER it is after all a detailed simulation of a problem so complex you can never project that far in the future. So I would say their success was limited up to that point in time when the bounds were breached; guess I'm remembering something else... I was sure it was the high bound not the lower one... So next time, the projection will be for a shorter span of time (or they will just include a range so great that it is kind of useless after a few years.) They can make a projection that is almost impossible to be in error by extending the max/min projections and so then it can't be said to be a wrong prediction. Even then, they still had confidence levels so even in error one could say they were not incorrect. It's not like we can reboot the planet and see how many times out of 100 it falls outside the confidence level more than 5 times. You can do the odds for the lottery and say with high confidence nobody will win it (not absolutely but such a low number that it's nearer 0% than 1%)... but eventually somebody gets the numbers... and it's outside of your high confidence level.
As they get better at simulations they might greatly improve but this is still a vastly more complicated system they are trying to model where even 100% knowledge can't solve for all the chaotic variables being simulated - all one can do at that point is know at what point the information is useless because the projected range (due to chaos) is too vast. One one side you have simulated models-- which are extremely limited and on the other side you have broad understanding that describes long term macro level behaviors that are kind of outside the realm of simulation.
Fluid Dynamics may be something god doesn't understand (that's a reference to a physics joke,) but the macro level trends can be understood far better. Newtonian physics is macro level and works great but at the micro level it does not work anymore (lets not ruin the point by getting into other perspectives where it breaks as well.)
seismologists: good point. predictive geology. The one I knew only ever seemed to crush various kinds of rocks. But there you still have two sides-- the one trying to do immediate predictions by constructing models and the other one looking at the plate tectonics and how over 1000s of years how much grinding is going to occur, how fast it moves, etc. the long term one is probably going to be easier but less useful.
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Translation errors != scamming. Even deliberately exaggerating or tailoring a story so it fits better the propaganda you're pushing != scamming.
Claiming something came to you from god when you pulled it from your ass (god doesn't make translation errors) is scamming.
Taking one example: Joe claimed to have translated the books common to the book of Morman and the Bible from 'reformed egyptian' with gods help. Those translations wound up with identical errors as the 19th century King James Bibles that Joe carried. Nonsense. Joe Smith was a scammer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Working at Kearl lake, the largest emission by far is steam....water vapor... and I'm sure there's likely chemicals in that steam, maybe even cfc's... Hmmmm....
Claiming something came to you from god when you pulled it from your ass (god doesn't make translation errors) is scamming.
We don't have to stay wrong on the internet about the meaning of words. There are online dictionaries and such which define words. Scam means to defraud or swindle.
Those are intentional activities. Merely being wrong because of error, even if it is error that shouldn't be happening by your claimed belief system, is not scamming.
Similarly, as I noted, even if they are deliberately changing those stories, it doesn't imply scamming. Exaggerating or changing a story isn't automatically fraud or swindling either.
What? The translation error isn't the 'scam', it is incontrovertible evidence of the scam.
The scam is claiming divine inspiration, while making some stuff up and copying some more from another respected source.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The translation error isn't the 'scam', it is incontrovertible evidence of the scam.
Not at all. Evidence distinguishes between one hypothesis and other. Since "translation error" doesn't distinguish between scamming and any of the other outcomes mentioned so far (honest mistake, sexing up a story to sound more impressive or more applicable to contemporary situations), it's not evidence of scamming.
"The GP posted a statement of fact, relevant to the story. Doesn't sound like a denialist to me."
Thank you for this. I am so tired of seeing just about anything that doesn't toe the AGW line being called "denial". I don't get why THEY don't get that is just denial of another kind. Let's just stick to the science, please, and cease the name-calling.