Slashdot Mirror
NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures In 2015 (nasa.gov)
vikingpower writes: Earth's 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much. The British Met office also reports on the same phenomenon, even forecasting that global temperatures are very soon going to reach the one-degree-Celsius marker. According to Stephen Belcher, Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre, "We've had similar natural events in the past, yet this is the first time we're set to reach the 1 C marker and it's clear that it is human influence driving our modern climate into uncharted territory."
This has been discussed here so often that even I have heard about it.
You have 100 100-year-old monitoring stations. You have new ones that were started more recently. To examine 100 year trends, do you
[a] ignore the more recent stations and do not correct for anything, even though this will bias your results towards more warming due to urbanization
[b] ignore the more recent stations and adjust the historical temperatures based on ???
[c] use all available data and try to correct for as many effects as you can think of
Doing anything, or not doing anything, has the potential to throw your numbers off. Unless you have some specific evidence that what has been done is not statistically rigorous do shut up. That also goes for the case where you don't have data to say one way or the other. There is not some massive conspiracy to fuck with the numbers here.
[D] Use all available data as-is and track trends only across the same groups of instruments.
[E] Be an actual scientist and control your variables. If you want long-term studies you need long-term data so you need to make sure all measurements are taken reliably and in the same way from the same type of device, if possible.
If you want to be called a "climate scientist" you NEED to do E.
If you want to be called anything other than a charlatan you need to at least do D.
You stop paying attention to temperature recording stations, which have never been a constant, and you rely on multimillion dollar satellites that we put into orbit for a specific reason.
Check out the satellite data for lower tropospheric temperature, and the balloon dataset for correlation. These are both fairly robust measurements of temperature, in that urban heat island effect etc do not have to be 'adjusted' out (or not). It is also interesting to look at the trends in individual well sited terrestrial weather stations with good histories. For some reason these on average show a lesser warming trend than NOAA and GISS and all the other self publicists.
Having said that we probably will see +1 deg C relative to 1880 before long, and I wouldn't be amazed to see +1.5 by 2100 (except i'll be dead). But a sthe IPCC says anything up to +2 is on average beneficial for mankind, and there isn't enough fossil fuel left to get us much over that.
temperature recording stations, which have never been a constant, and you rely on multimillion dollar satellites
The satellites are also not constant. You have to adjust for orbital decay, diurnal cycle, remove stratospheric signal, accommodate for sensor degridation, and you need to stitch data from multiple satellites. On top of that, satellites don't measure temperature, they measure radiance which needs to be reinterpreted as temperature using a model. Yes, they are very expensive, but that doesn't really mean that they are infallible or somehow a gold standard. Even Carl Mears who develops the RSS satellite data set says he trusts surface temperature measurements much more than the satellite models. Watch the video in this link: http://climatecrocks.com/2016/...
When all else fails, watch the way the parties debate and assess their credibility from their actions.
On one hand, there are scientists who tell you what their error bars are, talk in terms of probabilities, and tell you where they need more data to offer firmer forecasts.
On the other side I have heard
o The planet is not warming up, satellite measurements prove it
o The warming, which isn't happening, ended in 1998
o The warming, which isn't happening, which ended in 1998, is caused by carbon dioxide from volcanoes
o The warming which isn't happening which ended in 1998 which is caused by CO2 from volcanoes has nothing to do with CO2 but is caused by solar output changes
There's more.
Some of it is honest backlash against people who go beyond the evidence. I dismiss anyone who talks about "saving the planet". The planet was just fine with palm trees growing in Antarctica.
Most of it is cynically calculated intentional disinformation. See the book "The Climate Coverup" for examples of how talking points were tested in focus groups without any investigation into whether they were true.
Then consider, if you don't believe the scientists, that they could be wrong in either direction and things could be worse than they expect. There's actually some data to suggest exactly that. See the book "With Speed and Violence", from a science magazine editor who has excellent BS filters.
Whoa whoa whoa dude... stop trying to factor in everything that should be in the equation. Its making it hard for both sides to ply their agenda!
Not to mention you are missing a few million factors.
At best it's an "unadjusted" aggregate of adjusted, manipulated, and otherwise tampered-with raw data.
Each sensor has its own different "corrections", "adjustments", reasons for exclusion, etc.
http://berkeleyearth.org/sourc...
Open up Monthly Climatic Data of the World TAVG, for example.
Look at the characterization files and look at how many missing values there are. In many cases there are more missing values than included values, with no reason given for the missing values.
Look at all the data where they know the sensor fucking moved.
Look at how noisy the recordings are for any given sensor.
Look at the data itself, not some digested and abused shit from some group with an agenda. Go read the raw data and think, Slashdot.
Before anyone decides to mod me down as a troll, consider that teh denialists still deny when even one of their stalwarts of denial - Exxon - has known for years that AGW was real, but decided on a tactic of "sowing doubt" http://insideclimatenews.org/n... while their own researcers concluded AGW was real.
Not being able to produce credible research to prove their denialism, they are left with a smaller and smaller set of cherrypicking data, character assassination, and the always popular "I looked out the window and its cold today - so much for global warming!"
So in moves remarkably similar to tobacco idustry lawyers managing to deny that there was proof that tobacco caused cancer when there was ample evidence in the 1800's, or creationists claiming that dinosaurs and humans romped merrily together - but nol earlier than 4004 b.c.e. - based on long discredited fossil tracks in places like http://www.talkorigins.org/faq... Paluxy, Texas - Indeed, Ken Hamm's Creationism museum has that as biblical proof of young earth creationism - the denialists are getting backed into a smaller and smaller corner, soon to be left only with fingers stuck in their ears, and chanting "Neener never never - I can't hear you!"
So if anyone has the disproving research I'd love to see it. If not, just mod me down to oblivion, and prove what I just wrote.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
People get nasty when you discuss global warming no matter which side you're on or even if you just ask questions. It's like discussing religion or politics.
You're joking, right? thermal expansion coefficients are very stable in time and have long been applied to manufacturing very consistent thermometers. I'm pretty sure that a Hg-based one built 100 years ago still has the same accuracy today as when it was brand new.
As long as the glass inner tube is uniform in size, calibration for 0*C in an ice bath and for 100*C in boiling distilled water at 1 atm takes care of its accuracy and linearity.
A thermistor, with its highly nonlinear R=f(temp), is difficult to use to make an accurate thermometer. A thermocouple is better, but you need the cold junction reference.
Just because you can't figure out how to calibrate your equipment properly doesn't mean trained lab scientists couldn't calibrate a thermometer properly 100 years ago. Mercury thermometers were easily accurate to within 1/10th of a degree back then, and once they were calibrated they were a sealed glass tube whose calibration would be VERY stable over time. For the past century or so, there have also been standard calibration protocols in place where you could send you thermometers away to be tested and properly calibrated, and existing weather stations often had logbooks noting this sort of thing.
Oh, and as for yourself, if you're making a calibration ice bath properly, it should definitely not be 36F. Read up on the proper way to make a slush bath (use crushed ice, usually more ice than water, if the ice floats, there's too much water, etc.), which should at a minimum get you to within 1 degree of freezing even in poorly controled conditions.
Ever notice how you human-made climate change morons never have any evidence to backup what you say?
Ever notice how you just coveniently ignore any evidence presented to you about anthropogenic climate change?
They aren't constant, but the factors are well known and predictable. They are also under complete control and observation of their operators, unlike the thousands of surface stations located world wide.
The data in the past gets adjusted down... and the data set gets tweaked... again and again and again.
Part of the problem is that all the data is ultimately controlled by the NOAA... I mean all of it. People make much of there being multiple datasets but all of them ultimately refer back to the NOAA. Which means there is only one data set. One. It has never been audited by a third party.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm curious how the data can be compared reliably seeing as even assuming that all the thermometers used at the turn of the century were perfectly crafted, properly calibrated, cared for properly, placed properly, and recorded properly they STILL would have had an error rate of +-0.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In reality you can almost certainly at the very least double the error rate. Which means that any trends prior to more accurate recording devices aren't possible to compare.
That being said, even assuming arguendo that CO2 driven AGW is occuring, the solutions still have jack all to do with renewable energy. There are three possible solutions to the problem of large impact AGW, they are slaughter 90+% of the human race, try to chemically engineer the weather with various geoengineering attempts, or figure out a way to sequester carbon on a VERY large scale. Any other options are the fucking definition of whistling in the dark.
"When all else fails, watch the way the parties debate and assess their credibility from their actions."
I agree.
Watch anyone who dares suggest AGW is still open to question get savaged in ANY public forum - from how the OP phrased the question, I believe he/she's seen that.
Google Bjorn Lomborg - someone who says "Global warming IS happening, there are just many many other things that are more imperative" - and see how he's been raked across the coals.
We've had 15+ years of prediction of doom from the Global Warming camp (a partial list at https://anotherslownewsday.wor... ), which are continually proven wrong, desperately quickly rationalized, explained away, then buried under the NEXT "forecast of doom".
Let's also review all the things that have been blamed on global warming: http://whatreallyhappened.com/... (it's hilarious, and fully linked)
I don't know if warming is happening. I don't believe anyone anymore either. I used to try to find raw sources, but I've been told dozens of times that I can't be expected to understand temp data and hell, it's probably been tweaked anyway. It's hard to imagine that 7 billion people busily generating heat and burning hydrocarbons wouldn't have SOME impact.
All I know is that the paleotemps seem to indicate very quick spikes of temperature and CO2 every 120k years or so for the last 2+ million years. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg)
The current spike looks EXACTLY like the others, and is coming pretty much right on time.
For me, the AGW crowd has failed to explain in broad terms why something that's happened periodically, and is happening again, is somehow "THIS TIME" characteristically different than all the previous instances.
-Styopa
Climate Science:
(a) The current theory of 'Greenhouse Gases' relies on the observation of the temperature at the earths surface, which fluctuates less than we would expect and is also (on average) higher than we would expect in comparison to a control body (say, the Moon). A similar observation may be made at various heights within the atmosphere. This phenomena can't be explained by observing the properties of the most common atmospheric components (Nitrogen and Oxygen) but less common components demonstrate behaviors (in terms of how they absorb and radiate radiation in the visible and infra red spectra) which account for the differential in both base temperature and variability. These are termed 'The Greenhouse Gases'.
(b) These observations are recorded and can be remeasured by anyone who feels the urge to do so. Repeated observations have yielded the same result, without exception, for 150 years.
(c) Various mechanisms were misunderstood in the earlier hypothesis (by Fourier and Tyndall) but these were acknowledged, corrected, and the modified hypothesis did not contradict the earlier observations.
(d) No fallacy, or rhetoric is necessary to prove the hypothesis, it is entirely demonstrated via independent, objective observation.
The Denier Hypothesis
(a) There is no apparent hypothesis. NO hypothesis has been proposed to explain the atmospheric temperature differential from a baseline control, or the measured differential at different zones within the atmosphere.
(b) There is no way to independently verify any observations because no observations have been published.
(c) Numerous assertions from Denialism have been disproven, without any forthcoming acknowledgement, nor adjustment to the underlying theory to match with new observations. The assertions include: saying that no temperature rise has occurred (disproven by observation), saying that the temperature was due to solar variance (disproven by observation), saying that the increased concentrations of CO2 were due to volcanoes (disproven by observation). et cetera. These theories are inherently contradictory but are often present in the same conversation (2 of these can be noted in this very thread)
(d) The Denier hypothesis makes frequent use of rhetoric: it is rarely presented without some rhetorical device (appeals to emotion e.g. "I'm concerned/confused" false equivalence e.g. "I'm not sure who to believe anymore" burden of proof fallacy e.g. "Why doesn't someone explain x to me?" ).
When considered using these criteria the choice seems pretty clear.
I'm curious how the data can be compared reliably seeing as even assuming that all the thermometers used at the turn of the century were perfectly crafted, properly calibrated, cared for properly, placed properly, and recorded properly they STILL would have had an error rate of +-0.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In reality you can almost certainly at the very least double the error rate. Which means that any trends prior to more accurate recording devices aren't possible to compare.
See the law of large numbers. It is possible to get arbitrarily good estimates by combining sufficiently many fuzzy individual measurements. This is not an invention of some communist cabal of climate scientists, but was formalised by Bernoulli and Poisson in the 18th and 19th century. And it is, of course, used in every modern tracking radar system, wether to keep moving bodies apart or to bring them together.
That being said, even assuming arguendo that CO2 driven AGW is occuring, the solutions still have jack all to do with renewable energy. There are three possible solutions to the problem of large impact AGW, they are slaughter 90+% of the human race, try to chemically engineer the weather with various geoengineering attempts, or figure out a way to sequester carbon on a VERY large scale. Any other options are the fucking definition of whistling in the dark.
Thank's for your well-considered opinion. I'm sure both I and the world will give it the attention it deserves.
Stephan
Volcanoes (http://www.livescience.com/40451-volcanic-co2-levels-are-staggering.html)
We already know that humans create, on average, orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanism.
Termite mounds generating methane gas (http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/31/us/termite-gas-exceeds-smokestack-pollution.html)
Not even close to what we are releasing by fracking, then storing it under Los Angeles, then letting it leak out.
Penguins pooping on the Antarctica ice sheets
A rounding error.
Evil climate heaters at the Trilateral Commission
hee hee
Tarps used by the UN that absorb sunlight too well
The story doesn't actually say anything about tarps that absorb sunlight too well — and the UN tarps are highly reflective.
Meteorites and asteroids polluting the atmosphere
Rounding error
Ancient Romans
...were making a lot of concrete. We're making a lot more. Nobody claimed that AGW didn't start a long time ago. The claim is that it's increased by orders of magnitude. Straw man.
People against increased food supplies
Only total fucking idiots who don't understand plants think that an increase in atmospheric CO2 is going to be beneficial to them. It isn't. The maximum amount of CO2 they can use is tied directly to their maximum rate of photosynthesis, which is in turn capped by the number of photons they can receive in any given period of time without being damaged by ultraviolet radiation. As atmospheric pollution actually harms the ozone layer that filters UV, what it does is reduce the amount of CO2 that plants are capable of using. When most any plant gets over about 100 degrees, it "shuts down"; its stoma close, for example, which renders it unable to respirate. You know nothing about plants.
Aliens who are causing the sun to heat up [...] (except for the aliens part)
You must be a fucking alien. Go back to the planet of the chucklefucks and let us be.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"