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Study: Man-Made Global Warming First Became Evident In the Mid 20th Century
TapeCutter writes: In 1958 the US National Academies of Science (NAS) warned the US government that they had detected a robust Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) signal, they have not changed their mind on that claim for 57 years. Like the modern day Al Gore, Frank Capra publicized the possible effects in a popular documentary (video). Today we have news of a study from Melbourne University claiming the effects of AGW first became evident in the mid 20th century. In other words, the NAS could not have picked up the signal much earlier than they actually did. The fact that the last serious scientific objection to AGW (as a theory) was overcome in the mid 20th century by improving spectrometers in heat seeking missile was a remarkable coincidence, NAS took full advantage of that opportunity.
While saying there is no agw is presumptuous you make a very good point.
One of THE key tests of a scientific theorem is that it can predict.. And yet these 'state of the art' models have so far had a dismal record of prediction.
And yet their 'findings' are treated as science.
Global climate change is obvious, inevitable, and continuous as it always has been of course. There is no static climate.
However AGW is a very different proposition.. And there is a wide continuum of possibilities within in from minor self adjusting changes to serious positive feedback.
However so far no model has shown any actual predictive capability.. Therefore all we can say is no model is useful yet.
That's the problem with complex iterative models.. They need to be close to perfect or their output is complete junk as the errors compound.
THIS is the big issue always swept under the carpet.. If we are going to believe the models they need to demonstrate predictions.. Not in daily weather but in ongoing climate. As yet they cannot.
Until they can anything based on them is politics. In either direction.
If and when they can let's hope people can turn their energy to a true solution.. The obvious ones of course being nuclear power in its more modern versions.. And cut through the red tape and bs that a generation scared stiff by iron curtain nuclear Armageddon propaganda hammered in to their children.
Oh course most are all far to addicted to rampant consumerism to actually change.. So that is pretty much the only solution if there really is a problem.
People like you are why the world is doomed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Despite various publications of results where hand washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands.
If the "externalized costs" were incorporated into the prices you use to make your decisions, then you would decide more wisely.
The cost of a pack of cigarettes isn't just the cost to grow, process and deliver the tobacco to you, it is also the cost of treating lung cancer - not to mention the social cost of pissing off everyone who doesn't want to die prematurely.
The cost of continuing to pump greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere isn't just the cost of extracting the fossil fuels and using them, it's the cost of relocating our cities to higher ground, and other very expensive consequences. We may pass this cost off to future generations and get away (dead) without paying for it, but it is a price that will be paid.
Interesting that you cite history when arguing your point, but when it comes to information to the contrary, "collected data doesn't go back far enough" to provide a conclusive pattern.
I love how the AGW stories always bring the lunatics typing from their mom's basements out of the woodwork.
You know nothing about science. Really, nothing.
> One of THE key tests of a scientific theorem is that it can predict
What is a 'scientific theorem'? Oh maybe you mean a scientific theory? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... And yet these 'state of the art' models have so far had a dismal record of prediction.
Wrong. The reputable models from the 80's and 90's (those that had a good level of peer-review and were based on sound assumptions) quite accurately predicted our current warming rate. The reason you don't know this is because you probably derive most of your 'information' from sources that actually don't deal in science.
> The obvious ones of course being nuclear power in its more modern versions
I knew you'd segue into nuclear power at the end, and you didn't disappoint! Somehow anti-AGW lunacy seems to be highly correlated with nuclear lunacy.
Nuclear energy is not going to solve our problems. It is obscenely expensive - far more expensive than wind or solar. This is true both for construction costs, maintenance costs, total lifetime costs, and also costs per final delivered kWh. Nuclear is only feasible for a very specific set of scenarios - scenarios where you have a large population or industry center located in an area that is poor in renewable energy sources. And even then, only as an augmentative power source to renewable energy, not as a sole source of power.
Nuclear is also non-renewable and reprocessing (to make it renewable) adds even more expense to the point that it could never hope to be commercially competitive. You guys believe in the free market right? That the market always knows best? Well the market decided on nuclear, and it decided that nuclear sucks. It also decided that nuclear reprocessing sucks even harder.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
The fact that the last serious scientific objection to AGW (as a theory) was overcome in the mid 20th century by improving spectrometers in heat seeking missile was a remarkable coincidence, NAS took full advantage of that opportunity.
Nobody mentioned it to me.
And I was working from the mid '60s through the early '70s in the "Infrared and Optics" lab that did the guidance systems for the BOMARK and Sidewinder, processed multispectral (including several infrared bands) aircraft and spacecraft data (from the ERTS - later renamed LandSat - and Skylab scanners), and much of the industrial-scale processing as well as the development of the equipment. The missile stuff was classified and before I joined, but the multispectral stuff was not, and was contemporary (as was the synthetic aperture radar in the other lab I worked for at the start of that period).
I did some of the software that processed that data, some of the running of the mainframes in question, maintained and augmented its OS and libraries on one of them, and, though a lowly undergrad techie at the time, talked with the researchers a lot. Some of them loved to tell me what they were up to and bounce ideas off me for my comments and opinions on them.
So I find it strange that, if they (or anybody in their field) had found a "strong" or "definitive" signal for AGW, using equipment derived from their work, they wouldn't, at least, have been talking about it a bunch, including with me, while celebrating and/or trying to get another grant out of it (and seeing if I could come up with a way to process the data to detect or falsify the signal).
As I recall, the dominant paradigm at the time was that the interglacial was ending and we were about to crash into the next ice age (or the next piece of the current one). But while that was discussed on campus it wasn't mentioned at this remote-sensing lab, either.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Pollution sucks. [...] Someone who argues for it is arguing that pollution is OK. It is not."
I wish things were so simple.
Yes: pollution sucks. But shutting down my AC in the middle of summer or my heater in the middle of winter also sucks and both my AC and my heating pollute. So the point is how much it sucks one versus the other. And, of course, there probably won't be an easy agreement about the sweet spot. Moreso, the sweetspot probably will change as costs prices and technologies change.
So, sorry, things are not so simple.
You mean like the IPCC? Perhaps you could explain why the objective, full-coverage satellite data shows no warming for nearly 20 years while the CO2 level has continued to rise exponentially. This suggests that the CO2 sensitivity used by the alarmists in their failed predictions is way too high, at the least. Also, the issue is not "AGW"; it's Catastrophic AGW caused specifically and exclusively by CO2 concentrations. (As doomed-to-fail plans to limit CO2 emissions is the only thing the alarmists are even talking about, rather than feasible, cheap plans like geo-engineering.) Every time someone takes a step, they cause a small earthquake. Does that mean they should sit very still and starve to death? Similarly, if a small amount of AGW isn't seriously dangerous, does that mean we should kill hundreds of millions of people through energy poverty to fail to solve something that really isn't that much of a problem? What will you do if the global temperature starts falling in the next five years while CO2 concentrations continue to rise exponentially? Will you admit you were wrong?
graph
This graph shows all the predicted models versus observations. If you look you will see not a SINGLE model is even close. Beck_Nerd tells you they have been quite accurate, he hopes you believe him and don't look for yourself. The actual reality is they are 100% wrong, every single time.
Its so completely true and unarguable, yet they can't seem to show it with facts. Funny how that is and how many times they have "manipulated data" to match their conclusions instead of modifying their theories to match actual observations. If AGW is real, it will be sad because people who look into the claims can only see the pack of lies and have to assume it is a hoax because that is the only conclusion you can make if you honestly look at what both sides present.
Scientists never predicted the Earth is flat. Anyone with a decent knowledge of geometry can show the Earth is round. Erastothenes calculated the diameter of the Earth 2300 years ago. Pythagorus is generally bel,ieved to be the first Greek to state the Earth is round. That was well before anything we recognize as science.
I love how he used the word 'theorem' incorrectly, and you repeat his incorrect use without batting an eye! I'm really enjoying this thread from people who have absolutely no idea what science is.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Pick another topic then, Crime, Disease.
We know a lot about both topic, we can definitely say both exist, and I am sure you have been the victim of one or both.
Now like temperature, we can't predict who will be the next victim.
And neither can we with any certainty predict their future patterns, will crime increase/decrease, how much by, will this be by state/country/globally.Flu season, they estimate possibly which strains may be prevalent next flu season and make vaccines, and yet they get that wrong a lot too.
Climate is significantly more complex.
each square mile of land impacts the climate of the one surrounding it, as do the clouds, dust, water vapour, pollution, solar output, position of the moon, tides, etc etc etc, there are billions of variables. However we KNOW CO2 and other pollutants trap heat, thats a simple experiment to perform and prove, we know water vapour traps heat, again simple provable , we know the polar caps reflect light back out into space, we know a LOT of things that impact how much heat our atmosphere holds and in general how this impacts the climate. Based on this, we are making models, crude models but testing them and improving them.
Generally what it shows is that we ARE having an impact.
However we are where the cigarette industry was 50-60 years ago, their industry had a strong vested interest in science denial, people had smoked them for years, hell there were people in their 90's who had smoked them for 70 plus years and they weren't dead. However as we now know smoking is bad for your health.
In another 50-60 years, we will look back and wonder how people could be so ignorant about climate change.
We it will come back to the same problem , people judge it based on how much it impacts their lives. If its going to increase the cost of petrol, it does not exist, if it means they may have to use public transport and loose their car, it will not exist, same with being forced to pay for recycling, global warming will not exist because without it there is no need for higher costs.
On the flip side an increase in extreme weather, well their house being blown away or burned to the ground will be "gods will".
The way I see it is
If we acts as though global warming is real, and we take steps, guess what we will have more efficient cars, computers, lighting, etc etc and a cleaner environment , there is no down side where at all..
If we do nothing and we are wrong , the problem is global and will be too big for us to just stop.
Think of it as putting your breakables high enough up so the grandkids can't reach them, prevention, versus trying to glue back that vase that belonged to your great grandmother, once it becomes obvious it is destined to break, there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Really? It doesn't seem to be the case, at least according to this source : http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/. Are you saying NASA is part of a conspiracy?
The majority of people, are like this guy. He makes a very good point. "The only real solution is going to be figuring out how to provide power cleanly for less money than doing it dirty." In the UK, the governments are slashing funding for students. Research into modern nuclear is almost non existence and we have to go to the french to get them to build us a nuke. The figuring out has been outsourced.... it is gutting. We need a manhattan like project to create clean nuclear power. And we need it now, and for the same reasons - the threat of being wiped out by a second party. Its not germany or russia, this time its mother earth who has the finger on the button, and has been warning us to stop fucking with her for the last 50 years.
It's kind of cool, actually. You drop a tube into the ocean moderately deep, so the water can only enter through the bottom of the tube. That smooths out all the wave motion, so the surface of the water in the tube is stationary, and easily measured.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
> It is worth noting that the various regulations and "oh my god the nuclear" fears, along with the "oh my god someone might reprocess into plutonium or nuclear weapons so we ban half of it", has caused the above...
Not really. Nuclear was already expensive in the 50's and 60's, way before these things were a huge issue. In fact most of the time the people insisting on safety were the nuclear scientists themselves, not the 'eco warrior bogeyman' you've constructed in your mind. The reason was because the scientists were responsible and acknowledged the actual real threats posed by radioactive contamination and the relative ease by which unprotected nuclear reactors could leach radioactive material into the environment.
Is there a lot of unwarranted, irrational fear about nuclear power? Sure. I'm with you 100% on that. But that doesn't mean that nuclear reactors shouldn't be made safe! It's not just accidents either. What if someone crashes a jet into a power plant with the goal of making a large area radioactive and uninhabitable? US regulations require containment buildings to be resistant to bombs and plane impacts, for good reason.
Now as to what makes nuclear power expensive. There are three major issues. One is that the economics of nuclear power favors large, multi-gigawatt, one-off designs that have huge up-front costs that simple can't be made smaller by mass production methods (attempts at small modular reactors have failed and will always fail as the economics of those are even worse). Another issue is decommissioning. Nuclear decommissioning costs are MASSIVE, because you have to extremely carefully take the reactor apart over a period of years. The third major issue is the advanced level of technology required. Custom materials, custom manufacturing processes, labor-intensive fuel preparation, reactor maintenance, and inspection costs.
> It now take more than twice as long to build a new nuclear reactor as it did to invent the things in the first place, when we didn't know how to make them work. That is absurd, imagine if cars took a month to build, you'd be saying that they didn't make any sense either...
It actually makes perfect sense once you realize that the first generation of nuclear power plants were built recklessly and with insane design decisions that made them extremely unsafe and vulnerable to both accidents and terrorist attacks. Over time, we've realized the steps that need to be taken to build safe and secure nuclear sites and these add expense and time.
And as for proliferation fears, well you can blame that on the right wing politicians who insist on backwards arms control methods like total nuclear abstinence instead of rational procedures like international inspections regimes.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
For chrissake, step out of the basement and READ. I beg you. I deplore of you. Every single point you're making has been debunked to death for years. There is no such thing as 'global warming hiatus'. Only bad data, measurement inaccuracies over the oceans, and a regional pause in warming over North America and Europe, which has been more than compensated for by an incredible degree of warming at the poles. http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...
> Every time someone takes a step, they cause a small earthquake. Does that mean they should sit very still and starve to death? Similarly, if a small amount of AGW isn't seriously dangerous, does that mean we should kill hundreds of millions of people through energy poverty to fail to solve something that really isn't that much of a problem?
Actually climate change is a very serious problem and by far the cheapest way of dealing with it is to deal with it right now. It is projected - based on optimistic predictions! - that the economic damage caused by climate change would dwarf the expense of dealing with it. And if you do it in a smart way, it doesn't even need to be that expensive to deal with. Solar and wind are already pretty cheap and could create lots of jobs. The price of oil is going to continue to rise; the sooner we reduce our oil consumption the less we have to pay in the long run. Any way you look at it, it's beneficial economically and environmentally to deal with climate change as soon as possible. Except, of course, if you're a coal magnate, which anti-agw people either are or are useful idiots for. Sorry to say this but it's true.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
The full-coverage satellite data show continued warming in the last 20 years. I don't know which data you are looking at, but of the 20 year period you are talking about, nine out of the ten warmest years are after 2005, and 2015 might set a new all time record. If it wasn't for the extreme outlier 1998, the warming in the last 20 years would have been nearly linear. Actually, one of the Anti-AGW propaganda tricks is to take an ok sounding period like 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, in which 1998 is close to the start. Until 2008, it was always "the last decade doesn't show warming", after that it was "the last 15 years", and now, since 2013 and thus more than 15 years since 1998 are over, it's obviously 20 years. But for some reason, 2013, 2014 and probably also 2015 were pretty hot years globally, and thus the graph, that looked so convincingly anti-warming in 2008 was mildly constant until 2013, but since then, even 1998 does no longer help the argument, as even the graphs that take 1998 as their starting point have a rising trend.
"My own actions will make zero difference to the outcome. Only the actions of a majority of people on this planet are going to really matter." Saying it will make zero difference is incorrect. Your contribution might be almost unrecordable on a chart but it will contribute. To say "zero difference" just plays into those that find a reason not to do something
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
rather than feasible, cheap plans like geo-engineering.
I don't know what's happening. My models don't quite predict what's going on. I thought it had something to do with some gas but I'm not sure. None the less I know how to fix it.
What could possibly go wrong.
People like you are why the world is doomed.
He represents the social norm. It's not people like him. It's People Period. The number of people who would give up the things they take for granted in life in the name of some scientists saying it'll get 1degC hotter (and not understanding what that actually means) is an even smaller proportion than the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
All of the models are wildly wrong in predicting climate, so the "evidence" is pointing against any of the alarmist models you are peddling being correct.
Well that there is just flat out a lie.
You can dig out the most recent IPCC report if you like. It contains the predictions from the previous IPCC report and compares them to what actually happened. And what happened is that the actual data lay comfortably within the error bars of the temperatures predicted by the models.
Since you're such a "skeptic", I assume you've actually looked at the IPCC report in order to read it rationally and with a clear head, so I don't need to point you to the specific graph.
So, carry on, I'd love to see you twist and turn in the face of indisputable evidence.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
... but for the fact that, each and any and every time AGW is mentioned on Slashdot, we have a majority of comment posters either flat-out denying AGW or engaging into a shouting-and-flaming war. There seems to be no other subject polarizing the /. public as strongly as AGW. Why is that ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
CO2 has risen substantially in the last decade or two - with very little corresponding warming. ... so you are simply: wrong.
Last year was the hottest in recorded history
Also keep in mind: when you open the valve of your heating, it takes a few minutes until the radiator is hot, and it takes hours until your room is significantly warmer.
The same happens with CO2. The CO2 we produce today will show up on thermometers all over the world in a few years, not tomorrow.
the EVIDENCE is that CO2 rising does not lead to temperature rise, despite many previous predictions to the contrary.
There is no evidence like that. As a stone can not raise to earth orbit, but is firmly grasped by gravity, CO2 leads to increased temperatures. There is no doubt about that. No idea why you repeatedly write nonsense like this, are you payed by some american oil/denier lobby?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It always depends on how you compare. "All other things remaining equal" is one of the ways one can compare. It's valid but one has to be careful about conclusions because the other things are not remaining equal.
CO2 has a large impact on plants in arid regions because plants have to sacrifice a lot of water in order to get the CO2, and when there's more CO2 in the air the plants lose much less water. See for instance here
When water is not scarce most plants benefit from the extra CO2 but there are plants with an enhanced carbon metabolism that are more efficient at capturing CO2 and they don't benefit from rising concentrations: corn, sorghum, sugar cane , a range of tropical grasses.
Perhaps you could explain why the objective, full-coverage satellite data shows no warming for nearly 20 years while the CO2 level has continued to rise exponentially.
Why do you think there's been no warming? Are you still looking only at surface temperatures? Have you not seen the accelerating rates of rising ocean heat content, ice loss, and sea levels? Surface temperatures will climb faster when we move into an El Nino phase, if that's what you're looking for.
And why do you bring up the straw man of "energy poverty"? We don't have to slash our energy usage (though efficiencies of course help), we just have to produce it without burning carbon fuels. There's many ways to do that.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
To continue the analogy, your prediction is that over time the result will converge on 0.75. Your model of the coin is wrong.
At this rate, I don't see anything suggesting that we're really seriously taking the steps needed to get off of fossil fuels before it gets ugly.
Maybe you should try researching what's going on before posting then.
According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".
Ask, and ye shall receive.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
All of the models are wildly wrong in predicting climate, so the "evidence" is pointing against any of the alarmist models you are peddling being correct.
CO2 has risen substantially in the last decade or two - with very little corresponding warming. There are a lot of theroes and hand-waving why, but in the end the EVIDENCE is that CO2 rising does not lead to temperature rise, despite many previous predictions to the contrary.
oh dear... your denial activism is showing
Here is your fallacy...loaded words which are of course designed to halt discussion. A perfect example of using loaded words is if I hand out a petition to ban water? Not gonna get anywhere,
You, sir, are a hypocrite of the first degree. The comment you are defending is not only insulting, but it is also literally a pack of lies. Everything he claims in it is false. But his loaded words have roped you right in and dragged you right along, because you are so very malleable.
but if I pass out a petition to ban Dihydrogen monoxide I have zero doubt I got get a pile of celebs and SJWs on board to have it banned immediately. Maybe next time if you don't call people names and actually state your positions logically it would be better...
Again, you, sir, are a hypocrite. When you complain about people calling people names and then call people names, you lose all credibility which you had. You didn't actually have any, but now you have even less.
I have noticed that everyone who actually uses the term "SJW" as an insult is defending some shit behavior. You are no exception. I think I'm gonna get a big fucking SJW tee shirt and see what kind of shitbags I can attract shitbag comments from in meatspace.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well yes, some of the saner parts of the world have set moderately acceptable renewable energy targets. But the big picture is that we're still doing very little. The biggest polluters have not done anything meaningful. China seems to be gradually coming around to the importance of climate change, but all too slowly, I fear. And about the US, well, it still remains firmly entrenched in its own alternate reality.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
isn't just the cost of extracting the fossil fuels and using them, it's the cost of relocating our cities to higher ground, and other very expensive consequences. We may pass this cost off to future generations and get away (dead) without paying for it, but it is a price that will be paid.
Well stated, but I would add that one more cost may very well be a large shift of global power. As new weather patterns emerge, some of the folks who are global powers might end up having large parts of their land turn into a desert. Africa was teh cradle of civilization. The Sahara was once upon a time, rather green. Now? not so much. Things change, the the mighty can topple. The irony might be that they topple themselves sooner than natural processes do.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.