Study Links Human Actions To Specific Arctic Ice Melt (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes from a report via Science Magazine: Since at least the 1960s, the shrinkage of the ice cap over the Arctic Ocean has advanced in lockstep with the amount of greenhouse gases humans have sent into the atmosphere, according to a study published this week in Science. Every additional metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) puffed into the atmosphere appears to cost the Arctic another 3 square meters of summer sea ice -- a simple and direct observational link that has been sitting under scientists' noses. If current emission trends hold, the study suggests the Arctic will be ice free by 2045 -- far sooner than some climate models predict. The study suggests that those models are underestimating how warm the Arctic has already become and how fast that melting will proceed. And it gives the public and policymakers a concrete illustration of the consequences of burning fossil fuels. For instance, a U.S. family of four would claim nearly 200 square meters of sea ice, based on U.S. emissions in 2013. Over 3 decades, that family would be responsible for destroying more than an American football field's worth of ice.

Comments

DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels. CO2 was at 1950ppm, 5-7 times modern levels. The temperature was a whole 3 DEGREES C over modern times! Oh no! The Jurassic DGW, Dinosaurogenic Global Warming, shows that those Dinosaurs - with their Airplanes, SUVs, Coal Fire Plants and Cars and stuff, you know, those Dinosaurs and their DGW destroyed THE WHOLE PLANET!! With their DGW! Look, who wants 26% atmospheric oxygen? More air to breathe? Who wants that? And who wants more CO2 @1950 ppm, you know, to make all those plants and trees convert that CO2 into a higher O2! Who wants that! And we DON'T want the massive biodiversity of the Jurassic, no, we don't want more plants and animals and trees, no.
Any time period the warmunists want to "prove" there is AGW the warmunists just cherry pick ranges. And now I give the warmunists what the need on a silver platter - now they have the perfect example - the Dinosaurs and their horrible DGW (Dinosauric Global Warming) that destroyed the Jurassic... Wait, no, it didn't, it was the best time for life on earth with 1950 ppm atmospheric CO2!

Debt is Wealth. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Cold is Warm.

Another Cult of the Church of Climatology propaganda piece with High Priest Al Goreleone's nod of approval.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[ArmoredDragon]

I think that a better mark against this (TFS at any rate) is that they mention this:

For instance, a U.S. family of four would claim nearly 200 square meters of sea ice, based on U.S. emissions in 2013. Over 3 decades, that family would be responsible for destroying more than an American football field's worth of ice.

So we have a length and width, but no height. So say we assume a height of 1um...doesn't seem like much ice.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no. Its Botanogenic Global Warming. The plants are farming humans for food - waiting for them to die and decompose, using fungi and microbes to render them into digestible food. And they have selected for the strains of humans that produce the most CO2, since plants thrive on that stuff.

I, for one, am turning vegan right now.

Re: DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously that much of prat? Yeah, I'm sure they meant 1um. Any fucking excuse to not admit responsibility I guess..

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[AxeTheMax]

Arctic ice is floating and hence, unlike glacial and continental ice it has a limited range of total thickness - you can look it up. It probably varies less than the carbon footprint range of US families of four. This average family was chosen as a crude comparator, and you should take it as such.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You forgot to mention the different arrangement of continents and lower solar flux levels. And the fact that higher oxygen concentrations would mean a lot more fires and more unhappy firemen. Oh, but you only pick the things you like, right?

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Maritz]

There is no point in posting anything about climate on slashdot. It is full of rabid deniers. OP is perfectly typical.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Opportunist]

Again my question, why is it the dumbest people that usually feel entitled to invent new words?

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[nukenerd]

Arctic ice is floating and hence, unlike glacial and continental ice it has a limited range of total thickness - you can look it up.

Sorry, why didn't the writer of the article (or at least the summary here) look it up and quote it to us? The GP's point was that an area seems to be meaningless without a thickness being given (which his mention of 1um was surely meant only to highlight, not as a serious suggestion *). The same point brought me up short too when I read TFA.

* Technically, it is a Reductio ad absurdum, a valid debating tool.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Stephan Schulz]

The Jurassic period. [...]

Yawn.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amused by the statement:

A curveball, such as a shift in the amount of CO2 the oceans can absorb, could upset the pattern by breaking the correlation between emissions and Arctic warming.

So we have correlation, which by definition is causation. Wait, what? Where is the exclusion of other variables? The whole AGC platform is based on the premise that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures to a degree that makes all other sources infinitesimal in comparison, and its doctrine does not allow dissent from the premise.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Joce640k]

So we have a length and width, but no height. So say we assume a height of 1um...doesn't seem like much ice.

Arctic ice floats, at any given point in the arctic there's either ice or water.

"One football field" less ice means "one football field" more water.

It's not difficult to understand.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

"Arctic ice floats"

So do witches, and we burn them! Right?

And of course, more witch burnings lead to more GHG emissions and next thing you know, Global Warming!

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Arctic ice floats, at any given point in the arctic there's either ice or water.

Actually, most "Arctic ice" is mostly open water - scientists use an arbitrary threshold of ice-to-water ratio to determine whether or not a unit of area is considered "ice" or not.
Additionally, many scientists use only "multi-year ice" in their measurements, since first-year ice comes and goes too quickly in response to weather changes, rather than climate changes.

So, it can be very difficult to understand, depending on what ratios and standards the scientist in questions has chosen to use for the current report.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Arctic ice is floating and hence, unlike glacial and continental ice it has a limited range of total thickness - you can look it up.

Sorry, why didn't the writer of the article (or at least the summary here) look it up and quote it to us?

Because A) there is no point in doing so because it doesn't really matter, and B) you fuckers would find something else to bitch about anyway.

Case in point: deniers always talk about Sea Ice Extend (=area) and never about Sea Ice Volume. Because we know the latter shrunk even more than the former.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[dywolf]

you can copy pasta this ignorant garbage all you want, on every GW thread.

but its still ignorant garbage.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

nukenerd has answered adequately in the previous post. More seriously - you and the grandparent poster really have to take on board your responsibility to understand these basic things before commenting on them. It's not hard - I understand why sea ice is of limited thickness, and I've not studied any of the relevant sciences.

Re:DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, who wants 26% atmospheric oxygen?

I get the impression that the oxygen levels around you are actually lower than usual.

Re: DGW - Dinosauric Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this would be about a ice burg sinking so now we crave ice coffee....

Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

We're killing this planet and I don't know what to do about it. I think the human extinction movement is probably right. We're the only organisms on the planet that can't live in harmony with it (with the exception of maybe beavers).

I know I'm not going to have kids for this reason.

Re: Humans are a virus

[rickb928]

Think globally, act locally. Or individually.

Re:Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Having kids is selfish and irresponsible just for the fact of overpopulation, let alone environmentalism.

If you *really* feel you need a house full of children, why not adopt from some Eastern European orphanage rather than make more humans? This seems like the much more sensible approach. As for me me, I'll chose to remain childless and stick to my two Argentinian tegus, thank you very much.

Re:Humans are a virus

[khallow]

We're killing this planet and I don't know what to do about it.

Well, how hard are we killing the planet? Global warming is pretty mild stuff as such things go.

We're the only organisms on the planet that can't live in harmony with it (with the exception of maybe beavers).

Except for all the many, many other plants and animals that don't live in harmony with Earth either. Unlike the vast majority of plants and animals, we've actually figured out how to control our population (in the developed world, of course).

I know I'm not going to have kids for this reason.

There you go.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

If only your parents felt the same way.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday one of your tegus may find a cure for cancer, or write an epic poem.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

If two people have two children, how does that increase the population? That's not selfish. What's selfish is those asshats who have more than two (on purpose).

Re:Humans are a virus

[dissy]

Humans are a virus

Humans are mammals. Would have thought the tits were a dead giveaway.

Re:Humans are a virus

[jandersen]

I think we can show a little bit of sympathy here; I know the gp is exaggerating and very negative, but it is easy to get depressed about the inadequate responses we have managed to mount so far.

I'm not worried about life on Earth, as such, but we should be worried about whether we are going to take much part in it. I think it is clear, if we look ahead to a far future - say in 500 to 1000 years - we will either have found a way to live sustainably on this planet, or we will be in rapid, possibly catastropihic, decline. The present time really is a sort of turning point, and we ought to be clever enough to adapt.

Except for all the many, many other plants and animals that don't live in harmony with Earth either. Unlike the vast majority of plants and animals, we've actually figured out how to control our population (in the developed world, of course).

Whether life in general lives in harmony or not, is much complex than people generally imagine. It certainly isn't as simple as whether they somehow cooperate (like in symbiosis) or compete - even competing species, or predators and prey, are normally in a sort of beneficial relationship, at least at the species level. The only cases where there isn't this balance, is when it comes to invasive species (another blot on humankind's cv), because they have escaped their predators and competitors, at least temporarily. Of course, at some point a balance will be achieved, because when an invasive species is overwhelming the native ecosystem, the processes that maintain the environment tend to break down, and the newcomer runs out of the resources that it has been so good at exploiting. We humans are in many ways comparable to invasive species: we over exploit resources, we drive other species to extinction - and at some point, we will either find a way to live sustainably with the ecosystem, or we will stand on the brink, with a huge population and no resources. And then nature will take it's inevitable course. We still have time to avoid that, and we are, as a species, clever enough. We just need to realise that, yes, we actually, really must.

Re:Humans are a virus

[Opportunist]

Old joke:

Two planets meet:
"Hey, you look bad, what's the trouble?"
"Homo sapiens"
"Oh, don't worry, it will pass"

Re: Humans are a virus

[nukenerd]

What's selfish is those asshats who have more than two [children] (on purpose).

Bin Laden's father had 56. Bin Laden only had about 25 himself; such restraint.

Surely you are not suggesting that billionaire arabs should alter their lifestyle?

Re: Humans are a virus

[Imrik]

It increases the population relative to adopting two from an overpopulated region.

Re:Humans are a virus

[khallow]

Whether life in general lives in harmony or not

My point is most life will consume as much resources and space as it can, they just don't have parking lots. They don't live in harmony any more than we do, they just don't have the same power to alter environments or transport themselves as we do.

I think it is clear, if we look ahead to a far future - say in 500 to 1000 years - we will either have found a way to live sustainably on this planet, or we will be in rapid, possibly catastropihic, decline.

I believe the developed world already figured that out. It's just a matter of spreading that knowledge to the rest of the world.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike mayflies human parents don't tend to die immediately after reproducing, so for some period (50 or so years) there are twice as many people, and about 30 of which there are four adults.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

Ni ggers and Mexicans are very selfish.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

What ?!?!?

The developed world has by far done and continues to do the most damage.

Re:Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the developed world already figured that out. It's just a matter of spreading that knowledge to the rest of the world.

How rude to declare the US undeveloped.

Re: Humans are a virus

[khallow]

The developed world has by far done and continues to do the most damage.

And by "damage" you mean? When I say damage, I mean actual harm now and in the future, not fantasy projections of the future based on exaggerated models.

Re: Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

sad sad person you are

Re:Humans are a virus

[funwithBSD]

Yeah, I got depressed as a teenager in the 1980s because the Russians and Americans were gonna blow the world up with nukes...

and then I grew up.

Re: Humans are a virus

[presidenteloco]

What kind of damage has the developed world done and continues to do?

Well, looking at greenhouse gas emissions:

http://www.wri.org/sites/defau...

http://www.wri.org/sites/defau...

And looking at issues like deforestation, species extinction, and fresh-water pollution, it is overwhelmingly the transnational corporations originating in the developed countries and supplying the developed countries which have had the largest destructive effects cumulatively, and are continuing to do so.
I don't have time to source all of that for you, but you can look it up for yourself.

You need to understand that just because, say, we've cleaned up the litter on our city streets better, and that we TALK about environmental issues more than the rest of the world, does not mean we are doing better than them on the serious global environmental destruction factors. We are still doing way worse, especially if you rate it on a per person basis. Way way worse. Orders of magnitude worse.

Re:Humans are a virus

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

Spoken like someone who has no damn clue how close he came to not growing up.

Re:Humans are a virus

[nukenerd]

Unlike the vast majority of plants and animals, we've actually figured out how to control our population (in the developed world, of course).

It isn't even working in the developed world. The people who actually want the Earth to become like the city of Coruscant, or like in Soylent Green, only use the relatively stable numbers of the indigenous people of the West as an excuse to import immigrants. Unfortunately the people who want this tend to be the more influential - business magnates who want the short term cheap labour, and politicians who love bigger crowds listening to them.

Re:Humans are a virus

[Anonymous Coward]

From your statement it seems that it's actually certain Eastern Europeans who are selfish and irresponsible. If one wants to adopt, that is a fine and noble thing to do- but it is pure idiocy to claim that having your own children is a selfish and irresponsible act.

Re: Humans are a virus

[khallow]

Well, looking at greenhouse gas emissions:

Exactly. The only thing that the developed world emits more of per capita.

And looking at issues like deforestation, species extinction, and fresh-water pollution, it is overwhelmingly the transnational corporations originating in the developed countries and supplying the developed countries which have had the largest destructive effects cumulatively, and are continuing to do so.

Exactly, these are issues of the developing world, caused by themselves. Just because it is the fad to find some way, no matter how contrived, to blame developed world countries, it remains that the developed world has in reality solved these problems.

You need to understand that just because, say, we've cleaned up the litter on our city streets better, and that we TALK about environmental issues more than the rest of the world, does not mean we are doing better than them on the serious global environmental destruction factors. We are still doing way worse, especially if you rate it on a per person basis. Way way worse. Orders of magnitude worse.

And you need to look at who's actually solving problems rather than spin tales.

Re:Humans are a virus

[khallow]

The people who actually want the Earth to become like the city of Coruscant, or like in Soylent Green, only use the relatively stable numbers of the indigenous people of the West as an excuse to import immigrants.

You do realize that third generation immigrants have dropped to that developed world low fertility? Immigration from the developing world helps reduce overall population growth.

OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

"The polar ice caps will be completely melted in 10 years."
--Al Gore, 11 years ago

Re: OK I believe you this time

[rickb928]

This.

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

A) Gore isn't a scientist, and B) his statement was that "some models" predict it in summer months. For what it's worth the summer arctic sea ice extent did fall to half of the 1981 to 2010 average in 2012. (Middle of the road models may have been spot on...)

Re: OK I believe you this time

[ArmoredDragon]

So which model is the accurate one?

Re: OK I believe you this time

[ArsonSmith]

The one that makes us the most money.

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

They all are. Same basic physical laws underlying them, and the uncertainty has been on what humans will do with regards to emissions. The most optimistic scenarios would be that humans somehow drastically limit emissions, the next set of predictions is usually projections of current emissions levels, and the worst case tends to be "business as usual" where people completely ignore the issue.

But hey, thanks for being the problem.

Re: OK I believe you this time

[AmiMoJo]

You don't understand how modelling works.

Since it is usually impossible to predict the future of complex systems with perfect accuracy, instead you come up with a number of models based on different parameters, weighted by likelihood.

With climate change we have the added requirement of wanting to know what will happen if we make different amounts of effort to tackle it. Do nothing, do a little, do as much as we can without reducing quality of life etc. So there are multiple models based on those different assumptions of what we can agree to do.

We then look at all these models, weighted by likelihood and similarly to observed performance, and can see that they all say things will be bad, it's only a question of how bad.

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand how modelling works.

As a professional statistician, I say: "Right back at you".

Models make assumptions. They contain errors, which is to say, variance (Some climate scientists deny their models have 'errors' - ignore these). Thus, the models have what is frequently called a confidence interval, or margin of error.
As long as you made the correct assumptions, and those assumptions hold true for the entire predictive interval, then the predicted confidence interval is likely to contain the true value (dependent on the alpha chosen).

But the assumptions made by most predictive climate scientists aren't justified. They aren't verified, and frequently are proved incorrect in just a few years. Take the ever-changing value over the CO2 forcing value. Is it 1.1 W/m^2? Is it 8.5 W/m^2?
Many times, scientists manipulate data to make it easier to work with - rounding, eliminating outliers, ignoring measurement or proxy model errors, smoothing or averaging the data, even applying data from one location to other places hundreds or thousands of miles away. This violates your assumptions, and reduces the accuracy of your models.

In addition, some of the most famous predictions are based on pure bunk 'science' - such as producing a data set with mean and variance from just one observation.

Each model needs to have the methodology clearly explained, the data made available for everyone to access, and any supposed conclusions need to include accurate error bounds. If a released report doesn't include these, it isn't science - its PR.

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Layzej]

For what it's worth the summer arctic sea ice extent did fall to half of the 1981 to 2010 average in 2012.

Good point. Here's a graph of Arctic summer ice extent: Fairly stable until 1995 and then it seems to have fallen off a cliff. 2016 isn't shown here but it was the second lowest value on record after 2012. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/n...

(Middle of the road models may have been spot on...)

In fact the IPCC report projected much less arctic ice loss than has occurred.

Re:OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

"The polar ice caps will be completely melted in 10 years." --Al Gore, 11 years ago

Once you guys learn the difference between "will" and "may", you will be closer to know the difference between "sceptic" and "useful idiot".

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the real observation. These loonies got stuck in the ice in the artic because there is so much ice up there right now.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/20/global-warming-expedition-stopped-in-its-tracks-by-arctic-sea-ice/

Re: OK I believe you this time

[Layzej]

Take the ever-changing value over the CO2 forcing value. Is it 1.1 W/m^2? Is it 8.5 W/m^2?

The first order forcing of CO2 is 5.35*ln(C/C0)Wm^-2 . Not a lot of controversy there. You've given it as a constant without regard to relative C. Are you sure you understood what you were looking at?

shrinkage...puffed...emission

[turkeydance]

yeah, it's porn

This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who denies that human activity is causing global warming is a troll. There's a ton of evidence to the point that it can't be reasonably disputed. Nonetheless, stories like this predictably fill with posts claiming that global warming isn't occurring. Anyone who denies the overwhelming facts is obviously a troll and should not be taken seriously. Please do not feed the trolls.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Doctor_Jest]

Spoken like a true troll.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump says he will bring back the US coal industry by repealing stifling regulations put in place by the EPA, DOE and other Federal agencies.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Best and most honest comment of the thread.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who denies that human activity is causing global warming is a troll. There's a ton of evidence to the point that it can't be reasonably disputed. Nonetheless, stories like this predictably fill with posts claiming that global warming isn't occurring. Anyone who denies the overwhelming facts is obviously a troll and should not be taken seriously. Please do not feed the trolls.

Quoted for truth.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

No true Scottsman .... I'm starting to think that certain people are incapable of simple logic. They have believed the lie so thoroughly that they won't even allow themselves to think. And no there isn't a ton of evidence. A ton of confirmation bias, yes, but not evidence. Models aren't evidence they're automated hypotheses.

Re:This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Science doesn't work like politics. Bandying about false equivalencies and complaints of need for "balance" or "fairness" and "both sides" have no meaning. Science is science - publish your counter evidence or shut the fuck up and get the hell out of the way.

Re: This story will be full of trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

scientists use the scientific method and conduct scientific experiments using controls and variables. when did we find Earth2??

these people are NOT scientists, they're mathematicians making models.

Time to take nuclear seriously....

[pollarda]

If greenhouse gases are truly a concern it is time to take nuclear seriously. As plenty of people on /. already know, our current reactors are based on nuclear submarine technology so there is cross pollination of ideas and techniques. However, there are plenty of alternative reactor designs such as pebble bed and molten salt reactors which are self modulating and are physically impossible to have a "melt down" or get into runaway situation. Similarly, there are plenty of ways to deal with waste that are safe and won't be disturbed for 100,000 years if we are willing to actually move forward and not get stuck in the same ruts we've been running in for the last 50 years. Nuclear is one of the few (if only) alternatives to oil that has the energy density to power a modern civilization like it or not. It's that or we continue to spew greenhouse gasses and in that case we should stop whining about it as we made our choice.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Doctor_Jest]

I'd love for nuclear power to take off. But every time people try to put it forth, there are a squintillion (that's a lot) naysayers crapping all over the concept. They talk about anti-AGW people being thick-skulled.... Try telling a Green that Nuclear Power is a vastly superior and cleaner alternative.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and it was "physically impossible" to sink the Titanic and look how that turned out. I, and most people, don't trust engineers and scientists ("better living through chemistry", anyone).

The future is solar and wind. I don't want any more nukes anywhere in the world, period.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[ClickOnThis]

Try telling a Green that Nuclear Power is a vastly superior and cleaner alternative.

Actually, the "Greens" have been telling us that very thing:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/en...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06...

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[pollarda]

The problem with the Titanic is that it failed because of an engineering failure. Something didn't work as planned. Reactors such as pebble bed reactors and molten salt reactors do what they do because of the laws of physics (vs the laws of engineering where everything gets screwed up if a valve breaks.). For example, with both pebble bed and molten salt reactors, they have run tests where they have turned off all coolant. Yea, they get hot but they self modulate because of how they are designed. For them to not work would require the laws of physics to stop working as well. To dive further into the example, pebble bed reactors are basically a giant tub of balls. Each ball has a specific amount of nuclear material in the center and are surrounded by an outside shell. As the reactor runs, they get hot as you'd expect. However, as the balls heat up, they also expand and when they expand, they push the neighboring balls away which slows the reaction. For pebble bed reactors to overheat, the laws of physics that cause hot items to expand would have to cease working. Molten salt reactors work a bit differently though not that much differently.

I like solar. It is great. I'm considering installing it on my house. It just doesn't have the energy density needed to drive modern societies. How many solar panels will it take to power a steel mill? The solar projects in the Nevada desert have been a failure by and large and are more a kickback for Harry Reid than anything else. Wind it cool too. Not many places where you can install it. My brother works for the company that fixes windmills. He says they are far from environmental and are frequently abandoned as soon as the federal funding runs out. The fiberglass blades need to be constantly repaired and then replaced while the old ones go to the landfill as there isn't any way to recycle fiberglass. They leak oil like a sieve and the gearing breaks down due to the immense torque needed to ramp up the RPMs. (They gear up the RPMs from approximately 6 RPM to 1,000 RPM to get the generators to work.) I'm all for alternative sources of power. In fact, I think that most new houses should have passive solar as a matter of course. I've always been puzzled why people don't do this as it is basically free power / lower energy bills. Even so, nuclear is the only power source that can power a modern society.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear is better than coal not only because it is "clean" of CO_2; it actually produces MORE energy!

8 kWh of heat can be generated by 1 kg of coal
24,000,000 kWh of heat can be generated by 1 kg of coal
(from https://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/f/fuelcomparison.htm
Look at that comparison. It's not even close in degrees of magnitude!

Energy density is a measure of energy that may be produced vs mass. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density)

via wikipedia:

Storage material Energy type Specific energy (MJ/kg) Energy density (MJ/L) Direct uses
Uranium (in breeder) Nuclear fission 80,620,000[2] 1,539,842,000 Electric power plants (nuclear reactors), industrial process heat (to drive chemical reactions, water desalination, etc.)
Thorium (in breeder) Nuclear fission 79,420,000[2] 929,214,000 Electric power plants (nuclear reactors), industrial process heat
Plutonium Nuclear decay 2,239,000 ? Thermal-Electric Generator (Space)
Tritium Nuclear decay 583,529 ? Electric power plants (nuclear reactors), industrial process heat
Hydrogen (compressed at 700 bar) Chemical 142 5.6 Rocket engines, automotive engines, grid storage & conversion
Methane or natural gas Chemical 55.5 0.0364 Cooking, home heating, automotive engines, rocket engines
Liquified Natural Gas(LNG) Chemical 53.6 22.2 mostly methane with a variable amount of ethane (so numbers are approximate), liquified for transport by ship

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem with pebble-bed design isn't coolant, it is jamming of the pebble-release mechanism. When they jam it IS possible and in fact inevitable to reach criticality and generate heat to melt the uranium suspending medium of the pebbles. Then it is the same risk, run-away reaction and breach of containment and real fallout.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[BlueStrat]

Even so, nuclear is the only power source that can power a modern society.

You're assuming the goal includes maintaining a modern industrialized society, or that it is even desired by many environmental/climate activists and proponents who would see de-industrialization of places like the US and a switch to a highly structured and centrally-planned low-tech agrarian society as a good thing.

Strat

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Controlling global warming is the only way to ensure continued industrial society. There are stable markets in which to sell things when natural disaster destroys a population center.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[BlueStrat]

Controlling global warming is the only way to ensure continued industrial society. There are stable markets in which to sell things when natural disaster destroys a population center.

It's not like one day things are fine and then one day suddenly OMGAGWTSUNAMIHURRICANETORNADOEARTHQUAKEFLOODDROUGHT!!!11!!!

Changes will generally be extremely gradual, as changes to the climate in the past have generally been extremely gradual, occurring over large periods of time relative to the pace of change in human societies and technology. We also have the power and will have the time to adapt just as humans have always done throughout history. The climate IS going to change no matter what we do, and so far everything that's been proposed seriously would only slightly mitigate the rate of change by a few tenths of a percent, but coming at a huge cost in lives lost and human suffering.

Strat

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

can't get the "pebbles" uniformly round. gas coolant allows air and water *in* when the structure starts to get towards the end of its service life. it is a complicated reactor with complicated failure modes, like jammed balls (sounds kind of kinky though, make mine strawberry!!). The balls are covered in graphite (hello Chernobyl failure modes)

Even the very worst things that solar do is no where near the accumulated harm of nuclear. Nuclear isn't the *Only* way to power modern society, geothermal has extremely desirable characteristics for a modern society. Saying we can't develop the technology and adapt modern society to the conditions is ludicrous. Learn to use less electricity and go from 3 steaks a week to 2 or 1.

If we need to adapt, we adapt, that's what humans do. What we shouldn't be doing is pumping radionuclides into the environment that will affect out genome and DNA. we don't adapt to transgenic disease, we die.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[dbIII]

The problem with the Titanic is that it failed because of an engineering failure

Minor nitpick - I used to think that too but what changed my mind was an opinion article that had been written at the time by Joseph Conrad, you can read it on Project Gutenberg. The ship hit the iceberg at speed. Whether the steel was brittle or not and whether the compartments were large or not is unlikely to have saved it. It's not as obvious situation as the "Liberty Ships" of poor design, poorer materials and where it was politically expedient to ignore the problem for as long as possible.

Back to nuclear - "economic rationalism" is why it's not being used much. China, Russia and until recently France were not encumbered by that view so they didn't see anything wrong with huge projects with huge capital costs so long as they provided a return in the long run. In most of the west small things with rapid returns are the only things seen as viable - and you can't build a viable nuclear power station to fit that bill. You need a lot of steam to have something that gives you decent MW/$. They can be tiny reactors, in fact that is a very good idea, so long as you have a lot of them feeding a few enormous turbines. If you don't have a lot of steam waste a lot of the energy you put in just to overcome friction while if you have a lot a steam even low pressures can spin a turbine (hence multiple passes in modern steam turbines as the steam gets used again and again until it is very low pressure). Nuclear power projects are by their nature large. If it isn't large it's either an experimental thing or in some way connected with weapon production and not a nuclear power project all.

Even so, nuclear is the only power source that can power a modern society.

Time for a major nitpick - nuclear is best at very large unit sizes running 24/7/365 - base load. It is crap at following demand especially with sharp peaks in demand. There is no "one true energy", there are types of base load generators and peak load generators. If you don't have a mix it ends up being a mess. Among other power sources those little windmills providing less power than an aircraft engine can be brought online a few at a time to make up the difference between demand and base load supply. They compete with gas turbines not nukes, hydro or coal. It's fine to be a fan, but quotes like the one you've used above are somewhat divergent from reality and look a bit cargo-cultish.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Reactors such as pebble bed reactors and molten salt reactors do what they do because of the laws of physics [...]

Yah. I guess Titanic engineers said the same. You sound so convinced, that's cute. Do you even know what "a law of physics" is? Because most of the people I know who are so full of it as you simply don't.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is EXACTLY how it works - see Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Matt, etc.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

[Citation needed] The engineers of the Titanic were full of Hubris, they made many claims about the safety of the ship, but as soon as the accident happened the exceptions were recognized. Unsinkable as long as only four of the compartments were compromised by a leak, Unsinkable as long as the water didn't top the compartment walls. I have never seen or heard any of titanic engineer claiming that the laws of Physics meant the ship could not sink. Because no understanding of the laws of physics since they were identified would ever back that claim up.

You are the one who is so full of it.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Weather is not climate. An individual hurricane is weather, an increased likelihood of hurricanes is climate. People can and do plan based on the likelihood of future hurricanes.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Imrik]

You realize the incidence rate of hurricanes in the area has significantly dropped in recent years.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is EXACTLY how it works - see Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Matt, etc.

Not much "etc" there. Hurricane numbers and intensity are still way down from predictions. Another failed prediction from the cult of climate-alarmists. And you wonder why people laugh at you.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[110010001000]

Who do you think designs solar and wind turbines? Engineers and scientists and chemists. Moron.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[vinlud]

The main problem with nuclear is simply that it is fairly expensive if you calculate in the all the costs outside of operating costs. You see almost no commercially funded nuclear power plants and that is for a reason.
With the rapidly increasing efficiency of solar panels and subsequently lowering price per unit of energy, even though sources like solar are not optimal to provide baseline power. the costs are coming down so rapidly that it becomes feasable to just transform solar into stored forms of energy or simply plant so many of them that a significant portion of your base load is guaranteed

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[khallow]

When they jam it IS possible and in fact inevitable to reach criticality

Because? Last I heard, it was not possible, much less inevitable. And air cooling was enough to prevent said heat build up.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[khallow]

Controlling global warming is the only way to ensure continued industrial society.

And adaptation is the obvious way to do that.

Re: Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

That characterises very few environmentalists; none that I know.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[AmiMoJo]

If you look at the demonstration/R&D reactors using these great new technologies, they failed because of unforeseen engineering problems. If you look at existing commercial reactors, the ones that have failed did so because of poor management and operational mistakes.

Say you want to develop a thorium reactor. It's going to cost you tens of billions of Euros, and in the end it might not work. You also have not solved the human factor problems, because although the design is a bit more fail-safe it only works if build correctly and maintained properly. In Europe at least, nuclear projects tend to be very expensive, and not because of NIMBYs or anything like that.

At the same time, renewables and utility scale batteries are getting cheaper at a rapid pace. By the time you have finished building your new reactor they will be cheaper than coal.

If you can convince someone with tens of billions of Euros to invest in your idea, go for it. You would probably have more luck developing renewable technology though. If it's a government you are trying to convince, its money would be better spent upgrading people's homes to be more energy efficient and doing R&D into more efficient technologies at universities.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, radionuclides from burning coal are so much safer.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[chiefcrash]

In West Germany, in 1986, an accident involved a jammed pebble that was damaged by the reactor operators when they were attempting to dislodge it from a feeder tube. This accident released radiation into the surrounding area. While things have improved, I can't imagine how it *wouldn't* be possible for pebbles to get jammed. Pretending it can't happened is simply dangerous.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone with half a brain takes nuclear seriously. No greenhouse gasses is fantastic. Nuclear waste sucks. Everything in life is a trade-off, and until these debates are able address both sides of an issue we're stuck. The black/white logic dominating public discourse is destroying the ability of the population to make informed decisions.

My view? Nuclear is a good stopgap to reduce the amount of air pollution released while we get our energy sector heading in a direction more viable in the long term. Waste reprocessing needs improvement. The leaky barrels buried under the western US are kind of a bummer...

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Lazy ass language/logic, come on.

Your point is weird. The greens *have* been saying just that. More to the point, nuclear waste isn't really what I'd consider 'clean'. Nuclear power releases less air pollution, however, and that is the key point at this time. Calling it 'clean' is disingenuous.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

It just doesn't have the energy density needed to drive modern societies.

Untrue.

How many solar panels will it take to power a steel mill?

Cant answer because lacks sufficient information. That's an engineering question and as such requires numbers to be given in order to get numbers back. But incidentally many mills already make us of electrical induction heating in the manufacture of steel. So the implied criticism (that solar cant run a steel mill) is firmly rooted in ignorance.

Also, another engineering question has been asked and answered:
Q: How much area would it take to power the world, all 7 billion people of it, at current usage rates?
A: An array of typical installation density that is 137 miles square (18769 sq miles)

Note that the US alone has enough rooftop between residential and industrial rooftops to install that much solar capacity.
And that's just rooftops, not land dedicated to the purpose.

Obviously, you'd need more total installed area, due to the planetary rotation, so that that much area plus a buffer is always in generation, but even so, it's obvious that we have the space, we have the tech, we have the knowledge.

The statement that solar lacks the density* is ignorant and untrue.

The only thing lacking is the political will to make it happen, for it would truly require a global effort to pull off such an engineering feat as a global smart grid and solar installation. But it is possible.

The solar projects in the Nevada desert have been a failure

Untrue.

by and large and are more a kickback for Harry Reid than anything else.

Untrue.

Wind it cool too. Not many places where you can install it.

Untrue. It's all over the Midwest, particularly Oklahoma and Texas, where the wind blows more or less 85+% of the time and open farmland is plentiful. the land isn't even close to completely utilized yet for the purpose, and yet it delivers an increasing % of each states power.

He says they are far from environmental

Opinions vary on the cost/benefit of the power derived vs the bird strikes.

and are frequently abandoned as soon as the federal funding runs out.

Untrue. There isn't any federal funding to run out. Most are owned by your local/state power utility, and mostly paid for by local utility fees and taxes, and operated on private land, usually farmland, for which the landowner receives rent. The idea that they go away when federal funding goes away is rooted in ignorance of both how they are built/maintained, and how they are funded.

The fiberglass blades need to be constantly repaired and then replaced while the old ones go to the landfill

Untrue

as there isn't any way to recycle fiberglass.

Untrue

They leak oil like a sieve

That's going to depend on the quality and design of the turbine generator used and is not an inherent fault of the windmill in general

and the gearing breaks down due to the immense torque needed to ramp up the RPMs.

See previous answer

(*the statement is mildly true for case specific scenarios where individual applications are unable to be tied into the global grid, but its not specific to solar, but to all similar electrical sources that seek to replace truly energy dense power sources. example: Jet aircraft fuel. Jet fuel provides a lot of energy in a relatively small form factor; achieving similar power output and performance as a modern turbofan jet engine will be difficult, and our global fast carriers, like FedEx, and their DC-10s could either stick around, or be replaced with slower aircraft where the electrical source is more able to replace prop/turboprop driven aircraft. but again: this is not specific to solar.)

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[dywolf]

Seriously, the only people calling for that, are the caricatures that exist solely in your head.
Reality is far different.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[dywolf]

yet the hurricane season is beginning earlier, lasting longer, and thus ending later.
hurricanes are also vastly complex systems that are both weather AND climate, that both cause and impact both.

besides, limiting yourself to hurricanes limits you geographically, since the term is geographic.
the proper term is tropical storm, of which tropical cyclone is a subset which includes cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons.

and last year saw several record setting typhoons, that are ignored by the fallacious statement about hurricanes, including the Cyclone Chapala, the 2nd strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Arabian Sea, and the first to ever make landfall on the Arabian peninsula in Yemen.

in fact, in your ignorance, your untrue statement misses that the 2015-16 season for tropical cyclones in the Pacific was in fact one of the most disastrous ever recorded.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

costs outside of operating costs

Means, out of control government regulations.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not their Presidential Candidate.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[jdschulteis]

My view? Nuclear is a good stopgap to reduce the amount of air pollution released while we get our energy sector heading in a direction more viable in the long term.

I used to share this view. Now I see nuclear as just too expensive. A nuclear plant in my state shut down a few years ago because it wasn't cost-competitive with burning fracked natural gas. As the R&D is done to make nuclear safer and cheaper, it has to chase continuing cost reductions for solar and wind. Improvements to the grid (which are a good idea anyway), and storage are probably a better use of resources. Distributed production and storage of electricity could make for a more resilient energy infrastructure.

Waste reprocessing needs improvement.

Reprocessing is not done mostly because making new fuel from raw uranium is cheaper. With solar becoming cheaper than coal, reprocessing may never become economically viable. We should look into whether building some fast reactors to "burn" existing spent fuel stockpiles is the best way to deal with them. (Expensive electricity, but there is value in reducing the radioactivity of the waste.)

The leaky barrels buried under the western US are kind of a bummer...

Bummer indeed, but those barrels mostly originate from weapons production, not power production.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

costs outside of operating costs

Means, out of control government regulations.

Yeah, those darn safety regulations, always getting in the way.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[lazy genes]

I am working on developing a free energy source that produces ten times the amount of energy than nuclear . Unfortunately it doesn't produce enough energy to clean up the waste from the last free energy source.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

construction,decommissioning,mine redmediation, enrichment. the list goes on. p. Government regulations, like the price anderson act, is what props the nuclear industry up. Without government regs it would be uninsurable.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[khallow]

In West Germany, in 1986, an accident involved a jammed pebble that was damaged by the reactor operators when they were attempting to dislodge it from a feeder tube.

And the result was:

On May 4, 1986, just 6 months after it was connected to the power grid, a fuel pebble became lodged in a fuel feed pipe to the reactor core. Consequently, some radioactive dust was released to the environment.

Nothing to do with criticality. We need to keep in mind here that criticality is a matter of sufficient density of nuclear fuel and neutrons of the appropriate energy. Fuel pebbles are designed to be insufficiently dense to allow this to happen. Damaging one doesn't change this in the least.

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot read the god damn thread - global warming results in weather-based natural disasters with economic impact

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, how about the energy and effort it takes to mine and refine nuclear fuel? How about the manpower it takes to run and secure a nuclear plant? (Although Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! as long as the slaves are happy working). And what is the strategy to handle the waste at the end?

Re:Time to take nuclear seriously....

[Areyoukiddingme]

and last year saw several record setting typhoons, that are ignored by the fallacious statement about hurricanes, including the Cyclone Chapala, the 2nd strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Arabian Sea, and the first to ever make landfall on the Arabian peninsula in Yemen.

So you're saying that Yemen got much more rainfall than normal and is likely to continue to? It's a desert, ya know. Now we know why Saudi Arabia is pumping oil just as fast as they can—they're trying to improve their climate and that of their neighbors.

3 square meters?

[Bartles]

Um. Any one else see a problem with using surface area to describe a volumetric substance?

Re: 3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, assuming sea ice that contributes to the extent number is somewhat uniform in structure. Good question, but unlikely they haven't considered this.

Re: 3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Maybe there is an average thickness at the edge of the caps? So when they shrink, again the new edge is similar thickness? At least over the observed period. So they just hand wave it away. But maybe the thickness factor will become more significant and affect the rate later on?

Re:3 square meters?

[Dutchmaan]

They're likely referring to the earths surface area, as that is the what they would use to estimate how much of the suns heat is reflected back out into space because of the ice.

Re: 3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

First AC back again... Yes, a simple model of a disc of ice, very large and somewhat thick will have thermal mass or inertia that helps keep the air and water over and under the middle relatively cool. If surrounded by warmer air/water there will be a taper down to the edge. The taper is likely pretty uniform in slope but with a slope that depends on the temperature difference at the edge. Seems a simple 2D finite element model might show the linear relationship the paper shows in the measured data.

Re: 3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

A!so, if you read the Science summary, the author's findings are based solely on measured data, not a model. They specifically do not present a physical theory about it, though they offers some suggestions. In other words there is not much to waive away...

Re:3 square meters?

[TapeCutter]

Um. Any one else see a problem with using surface area to describe a volumetric substance?

Yes, it's misleading. Since the 1960's, 40-50% of the ice has melted when measured by surface area, but 70-80% of has melted when measured by volume. The volume measurements come from the US navy who declassified historical ice thickness data from it's nuclear submarine fleet about a decade ago. More recent data comes from satellite measurements.

Re:3 square meters?

[hey!]

Sure, but they aren't describing a volumetric substance; they're describing a parameter -- sea ice extent. Sea ice volume is a different parameter.

These two parameters are of course correlated, but not in a simple way. For example wind can blow ice away from regions of ice formation, resulting in much greater extent and volume, but less volume/extent (e.g. thinner ice). This by the way is why sometimes Antarctic ice extent increases as temperatures increase -- because winds can also increase.

Re: 3 square meters?

[SuperKendall]

Hi, it's the Internet Science Fairy reminding you that Correlation does not imply Causation. There's nothing to wave away and nothing to build conclusions on either.

Re: 3 square meters?

[serviscope_minor]

Bullshit. If it was impossible to build conclusions then it would be impossible to do any science at all. Viz:

* Hey look, F=ma
* No ma is *correlated* with F.
* Uh but I have this nice equation which describes all these results perfectly
* Correlation is not causation.
* ... but I have good reason to think it's the case too
* Correlation is not causation.

You can't wave away every causative relationship simply because there's a correlation in there. Causation does imply correlation so the presence of a correlation is not a negative thing.

Re: 3 square meters?

[smallfries]

You seemed to have missd the step in the middle where the hypothesis is tested by predicting fresh empirical results - you know, "the science bit".

Re: 3 square meters?

[serviscope_minor]

You seemed to have missd the step in the middle where the hypothesis is tested by predicting fresh empirical results - you know, "the science bit".

That was implied in step 2. The point here is people keep on rabbiting on about "correlation is not causation" as if the presence of a correlation was a mark against something rather than in fact completely 100% necessary.

Re: 3 square meters?

[smallfries]

Indeed, there is a good xkcd about it. But what you have stated does not imply further measurements: it is also a valid description of a fishing expedition. Dating mining for correlations does not imply causations. Your description covers both approaches rather than implying one of them.

Re:3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not talking about glaciers, we're talking about ocean surface that freezes during the winter and partly melts during the summer. No floating ice is permanent, but the extent to which it melts is dependent on temperature and projected to go up to 100% over the next few decades. As that happens, any ecosystem dependent on floating ice being present will fail. Besides the sympathetic mammals like seals and polar bears, sea life is also concentrated around the edges of the ice cap.

Re:3 square meters?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they probably averaged the thickness to make it easier for people to visualize. They didn't want to say, if the ice is 1m thick in this spot, then it is this much, but in some spots it is 3m thick, so it only is this much.

Home delivery

[Anonymous Coward]

Artic ice melted and delivered at home via hurricane... Take that Amazon's drone.

Soooooooooo artic ice will be gone in 75 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the averages, arctic ice area/ football field area / (~330 million US citizens / 4= 1 family) * 30 years, comes out to 75 years left until the arctic ice is gone. should be interesting to see how this goes, assuming something doesn't come in to muck everything up. Say random asteroid, madrid fault line kicks off, sudden solar flare strike on the earth, or any other fun event. The new doomsday clock, will we kill ourselves (on purpose or by accident), or will we get wiped out by other motive forces.

Are you getting paid?

[ChrisMaple]

Just keep on pushing this hoax.

Re:Are you getting paid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change deniers on /. are busy modding the posts I see.

Traitors to civilization. YOU SUCK.

Re:Are you getting paid?

[Imrik]

Flamebait is flamebait, no matter which side of the argument it is on.

And yet again...

[hyades1]

GW denier trolls have thoroughly infested this page. The Koch Brothers must be paying well, these days.

Re:And yet again...

[russotto]

It's not that Koch pays so well, it's that Soros is overextended with the election.

Re:And yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need to get paid (unlike Hillary trolls) to come here and poke holes in your silly AGW religion.

The sky is not falling.

Re:And yet again...

[hyades1]

Ah...I bet you're a Trump lover, too. They also are so stupid they'll cut their own throats for free.

Re:And yet again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than paying Obama to cut them for us, friendo.

Moderator guidelines

[TapeCutter]

Misquoting Al Gore is "funny" not "informative".

Re:Moderator guidelines

[Troed]

To be fair, I'm not sure the actual quote is better.

"North Polar Ice cap....75-80% chance that during summer months it will be completely and totally gone in five years..."

If you want to check the authenticity, here's the video. I was in the audience at Web 2.0 Summit when he said this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

(He's also factually wrong on the "millions of years" since there was no ice cap during summer in the beginning of the Holocene, or during the last interglacial)

Australlian Jack Rabbits

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that the population of Australian jack rabbits predicts the US Dow Jones Industrial Average!

That perfectly explains why every Australian citizen is a multi-Billionary!

Ha ha

Re:Australlian Jack Rabbits

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot

Doomsday Cult

[knorthern knight]

Jehovah's Witnesses have done this, as have other cults...
1 predict the end of the world...
2 screw up badly on prediction...
3 revise date of end of world...
4 GOTO 1

Replace "end of world" with "end of Arctice icecap", and you get the idea...

Sunday 21 August 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/en...
'Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice'

Saturday 4 June 2016 http://www.independent.co.uk/e...
Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University predicts we could see 'an area of less than one million square kilometres for September of this year'

Monday 17 September 2012 https://www.theguardian.com/en...
One of the world's leading ice experts has predicted the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years.

Wednesday, 12 December 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/713... Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'

Rinse... lather... repeat.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[dave420]

What's so difficult to understand about the process of learning?

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

This is what is happening to the arctic sea ice:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen...

the line is noisy so predicting the next year is always a crapshoot, but the one thing that isn't going to happen is that the trend will change.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[khallow]

What's so difficult to understand about the process of learning?

The part where you call it "learning". Words have meaning.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[CajunArson]

So.... there's been a relatively minor decrease in arctic sea ice over about 40 years since the late 1970's, a time when the exact same people screaming about Global Warming were claiming we were all going to die due to a new ice age?

Yes, I did see that the scale on that graph was intentionally changed to make the decrease look "scarier" than it actually is. I also noted that it started at a time of unusually high ice concentration to provide a false benchmark of what supposedly "normal" or not.

I'm not sufficiently terrified. Please go doctor up some more numbers.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

a time when the exact same people screaming about Global Warming were claiming we were all going to die due to a new ice age

Oh I see. You are what is technically known as "fucking knobhead".

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

"Another ice age?" - published in Time magazine 1974, with lots of quotes from scientists.

"the area of ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since"

"Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in the summer; now they're covered all year round."

One thing that has me perplexed reading these threads is that the "warmistas" don't really seem to base their opinion on actual science, or published facts. It seems they (you) have a belief that they're so sure is correct that any indication to the contrary must be a lie.

Now, it is true that the majority of published science predicted warming even in the 1970s, but it's also correct that there were some studies that predicted cooling. Luckily we're warmer now than then - or to quote the scientists in the Time article again:

"I don't believe the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row."

source: http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

"Another ice age?" - published in Time magazine 1974, with lots of quotes from scientists.

Out of interest are you one of the people that laughs at the popular press' poor reporting of tech related issues?

Global cooling was never more than a very much minority opinion among scientists. You'd know this if you were interested in actually what's going on rather than taking cheap shots based on two very old, thoroughly debunked popular press articles.

It seems they (you) have a belief that they're so sure is correct that any indication to the contrary must be a lie.

Says the guy quoting a "Time Magazine" article from 1974. Do you even listen to yourself?

Now, it is true that the majority of published science predicted warming even in the 1970s,

Yes.

but it's also correct that there were some studies that predicted cooling.

It was a minority opinion then and it rapidly became not even that. Science moves on. I love how you're pretending to be all sciency while cherry-picking minority opinions which have long since fallen out of the small favour they ever had.

"I don't believe the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row." source:

http://www.skepticalscience.co...

That quote isn't in that article.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

That quote is in the Time article as linked from the page I gave you. As to why you felt you needed to repeat the information in the page I linked to back to me I don't know. Obviously I knew it quite well.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

As to why you felt you needed to repeat the information in the page I linked to back to me I don't know. Obviously I knew it quite well.

Yet you don't seem to understand it.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

That's you confirming that you don't seem to be able to separate actual facts from your viewpoint of what you think they should be. I'm a regular reader of Skeptical Science, the IPCC reports, various journals etc. I even linked the very page that documents what scientific support there was for cooling vs warming in the 1970s.

With that said, the grandparent _was_ correct in that scientists claimed we might be heading back into glacial conditions ("ice age"), and that it would be catastrophic for human survival.

Your comment to the grandparent was to call him "fucking knobhead". I posted the relevant supporting facts.

Maybe you should try the latter instead?

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

With that said, the grandparent _was_ correct in that scientists claimed we might be heading back into glacial conditions ("ice age"), and that it would be catastrophic for human survival.

Hardly. The OP actually said this:

a time when the exact same people screaming about Global Warming were claiming we were all going to die due to a new ice age

Furthermore, saying "scientists" implies some sort of support, not strictly greater than one scientist. It was never more than a small minority opinion and never had anything like the scientific consensus behind it. Bringing it up continually is the deepest form of fuckwittery.

Your comment to the grandparent was to call him "fucking knobhead".

Yep. Bringing up what amounted to a tiny minority opinion and a couple of popular press articles as some sort of evidence against science makes him a fucking knobhead. I stand by that.

Maybe you should try the latter instead?

I've lost track of what you're trying to say. The GP was being a right dickhed. You've jumped in with facts supporting not what the GP actually said but some rather peculiar interpretation of what he said. Oh you also ignored the supporting facts I did in fact bring up in the previous post to the GP which he summarily ignored during his act of dickheaddery. I really no longer have any idea what point you're trying to make.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

"Consensus" is not part of the scientific method.

In all your posts here you've managed to validate exactly what I described from the start. Those who scream most loudly (and use foul language to describe others) are the ones who know the least science.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

Cherry picking long debunked results from at best a very tiny minority of scientists is even worse than using consensus. Remember, I'm only guilty of using foul language, you're using foul thinking which is infinitely worse.

And besides, consensus in practice is part of the scientific method. It's not the super simplified schoolboy version that non scientists like to spout, but in real science it's there. The consensus is that Newton's laws hold far from c, relativity works and that the standard model works. If you want to overturn the consensus, you need significant evidence because the consensus is itself supported by significant evidence. Consensus works surprisingly well and means scientists don't need to waste time on every crackpot theory that comes along.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

Which each new post you continue to prove my original point. I suggest you call it a day.

consensus in practice is part of the scientific method. It's not the super simplified schoolboy version that non scientists like to spout, but in real science it's there.

vs

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
  Galileo Galilei ... and no one "cherry picked" anything (let me guess - you spout random words in debates hoping that eventually you'll get something right?). The grandparent talked about the 70s. I quoted from one of the well known articles about it. Nothing in it has been "debunked" (again, random spouting of words) - the statements by the scientists in that article are as correct today as when they were written. Nothing was wrong with their observations.

I don't think you've ever read a scientific article actually.

http://www.goodreads.com/quote...

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.",

Sure, but that requires a *reasoning* individual. The people here going against the consensus have political, financial or borderline religious reasons for doing so.

In practice, glib quotes aside, consensus does not exist in a vacuum. It exists because the edivence does not make it obviously wrong, and in fact supports it. That doesn't mean the consensus is right, but to overturn it, you have to have more or better evidence.

the statements by the scientists in that article are as correct today as when they were written. Nothing was wrong with their observations.

You know except their observations disagreed with the majority and then it turned out shortly that hey the majority were right and cooling wasn't happening. Apart from being wrong nothing was wrong.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

Sure, but that requires a *reasoning* individual. The people here going against the consensus have political, financial or borderline religious reasons for doing so.

No, we were talking about the respected scientists having published peer reviewed papers with regards to global cooling in the 70s, as referenced and counted by Skeptical Science.

... as I said. With each new post you continue to prove my original point. Cooling was happening. We had hypotheses as to why. You should really study some climate science before posting.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

No, we were talking about the respected scientists

No, *you* are. You seemed to bring it up not in relation to the actual conversation which was going on..

Cooling was happening.

No it wasn't. Some people thought it was. But not many because as it turned out the data didn't support it. You are taking a not disregarded very much minority opinion and presenting it as fact all the while claiming you're being scientific. That is, frankly, laughable.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

But not many because as it turned out the data didn't support it.

Again, I'd urge you to read some actual climate science before spouting off your beliefs.

The following is a quote from IPCC TAR, Working Group 1:

Twentieth century temperature trends show a broad pattern of tropical warming, while extra-tropical trends have been more variable. Warming from 1910 to 1945 was initially concentrated in the North Atlantic and nearby regions. The Northern Hemisphere shows cooling during the period 1946 to 1975 while the Southern Hemisphere shows warming. The recent 1976 to 2000 warming was largely globally synchronous, but emphasised in the Northern Hemisphere continents during winter and spring, with year-round cooling in parts of the Southern Hemisphere oceans and Antarctica. North Atlantic cooling between about 1960 and 1985 has recently reversed. Overall, warming over the Southern Hemisphere has been more uniform during the instrumental record than that over the Northern Hemisphere. ... but I'm quite sure I could quote IPCC reports all day long and you'd still spout of random words about "debunking", "minority opinions" and other things you pick up at strange places (none of them even coming close to reporting actual science)

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

WTF.

Does that say anywhere that we're slipping into a new ice age, or even that the globe (i.e. aggregate air + ocean stored energy) was cooling?

Please read the post you're trying to defend before rabidly jumping to its defence.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

Here you go again, spouting off words in the hope that you'll eventually get something right.

The topic was the scientists as quoted in the article in Time. They were not incorrect, they were not fringe, the findings they reported have not been "debunked".

(Why don't you read more of the actual science instead of just shouting off random things?)

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

Here you go again, spouting off words in the hope that you'll eventually get something right.

Are you claiming the ggggp didn't say that?

The topic was the scientists as quoted in the article in Time. They were not incorrect, they were not fringe, the findings they reported have not been "debunked".

Except you know the world wasn't cooling. Apart from that saying it was cooling was correct.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[Troed]

Except you know the world wasn't cooling. Apart from that saying it was cooling was correct.

I'm quite sure you believe your viewpoint to be true. I'd say your conviction borders on the religious kind, where no matter how much facts you're presented with you keep shouting your conviction louder and louder in the hope that it will drown out everything contrary to it.

I'll just repeat the previous post. They were not incorrect, they were not fringe, the findings they reported have not been "debunked".

Now please go read some climate science. Less posts, more study.

Re:Doomsday Cult

[serviscope_minor]

You are pretending that the ggggp didn't say that it was claimed we were slipping into an ice age, yet accuse me of being delusional.

You want me to read science, I want you to read the post you're actually defending.

Al Gore's footprint yours

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we make him and the other extreme polluters (celebrities, businesses, etc) pay for the damage they've caused? You know it's at least several trillion dollars.

I came looking for something more interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

The way the title is worded, it implies that some human action was caused by ice melt. That would be a really interesting article to read.

Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[hyades1]

Your pet moderators are here in force. Let the lying begin!

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you insist on coming here to post content free noise? Real adults who actually know things, not propaganda from known liars, are here to discuss science and computers and other nerd things that matter.

You don't matter. Not because your ideas are stupid. But, because you don't have any.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[hyades1]

I offer many ideas (good ones) and lots of facts. I just don't bother, for the most part, engaging with global warming deniers anymore. They're liars and cheats, and I don't waste my time. On the other hand, I do enjoy pointing out that they are, in fact, liars and cheats in a low-effort, accurate manner.

Heck, I even respond sometimes to anonymous cowards, and that's really going the extra mile.

Bet I've got a lot more "5" comments than you. :-)

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn, another butt hurt denialist bitch, typical antiscience shill pretending to be clever.
Why not fuck off and leave the adults to thier conversation.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[khallow]

I offer many ideas (good ones) and lots of facts.

Not in your recent posts. It's a bunch of vapid quick posts as far as the eye can see. Why not practice what you preach instead of being another anti-scientific hack on the internet?

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[AmiMoJo]

I find them amusing. When they claim that modelling is useless because no modem is exactly right, I imagine them stepping out of their house in t-shirt and shorts, then wading through a metre of snow because they didn't trust the model used by the weather forecast.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Mashiki]

Reminder that the MET office said that there would be no snowfall by 2010, and children born in the 1990's would be the last to see it. 2010 was also the year you guys froze your asses off, and sent experts to us here in South-Western Ontario to teach you how to deal with rapid, fast snowfalls with accumulation amounts greater than 15cm/h. And 15cm/h isn't even hitting the high point of what we see here, seeing 30-38cm/h is common highest I think we've ever seen is around 1m/h driven by lake effect. And final snowfalls were in the 8-11m range in a 24hr period, that was the winter so bad that the OPP were asking for anyone with a snowmobile to check the Kings Highways for stranded motorists and take them to the nearest detachment before they froze to death.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[AmiMoJo]

Do you have a link for when the Met Office said that? A quick Google didn't turn it up.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[hyades1]

As I said...

And I will continue to dismiss denier trolls without wasting time debunking (for the hundredth time) yet another zombie myth.

And if you're trying to hold comments at Slashdot up to some mythical standard of excellence, you clearly haven't been paying attention. They're all over the map...as are mine.

I couldn't help but notice, by the way, that you have nothing to say even remotely acceptable by the standards you claim to espouse.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the one that brought up the karma comparison, not them.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[hyades1]

Liar

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

said the man with a Phd in Bullshitting.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet I've got a lot more "5" comments than you.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[Mashiki]

http://www.independent.co.uk/e... - they have of course scrubbed their original article which linked to the MET, and they independent has also scrubbed the original article. Just a FYI. Luckily there's some pdf snapshots around. You can start working backwards from that, and all you run into is scrubbed articles, stuff removed from web.archive.org and so on. Oops as they'd say.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[AmiMoJo]

I see your reading comprehension is up to its usual standards.

The guy from the Met said snow will become rare and some children won't experience it. That matches what has actually happened in some parts of the UK. We used to get snow every year, and now I have a five year old cat who has never seen it. His predecessor was rather shocked when it happened the first time.

When I was a kid the school would be closed every year due to snow and low temperature. Don't take my word for it though, simply review snowfall data for the south coast.

Re:Welcome Global Warming Denier Trolls

[khallow]

I couldn't help but notice, by the way, that you have nothing to say even remotely acceptable by the standards you claim to espouse.

Again, you don't even try. I'll note in comparison, that I have this thread.

[david_thornley:]This got started in a discussion of funding research, so I assumed you were talking about benefits that could be used to direct funding. This means that I'm thinking of benefits that are at least an obvious potential before the work is done.

I'll point out that you've claimed a number of things weren't predictable. But given that they came so soon after the relevant basic science issues, then maybe they weren't so unpredictable in the first place. The TV, for example, had prototype equipment dating back to near the turn of the century and the cathode ray tube goes back further (it was even considered a rival to the light bulb for a time). But with the discovery of the electron and the development of quantum mechanics, they were able to understand far better what an electron beam was and how to steer it effectively.

That's what real argument looks like, responding to someone's argument with your comments, not empty name calling:

Liar

Just to be clear

[argStyopa]

...there is no intrinsic necessity that the arctic be iced over.
The earth has had extended periods in which the arctic has been ice free, and it will have them again.
In fact, some might point to the fabled northwest passage that claimed so many explorers as probably a time when it was in fact ice free within human memory, at least seasonally.

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

...there is no intrinsic necessity that the arctic be iced over.

You are absolutely correct. Just like there is no intrinsic necessity that New Orleans, New York, and Miami are above water.

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

Many would agree that the world would be better off if one of those cities was under water.

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that would prove a real, long term benefit to the country, as it would give Republicans a structural advantage in upcoming elections.

Too bad it wouldn't, because sea ice melting doesn't raise sea levels (you blithering buffoon).

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no intrinsic necessity that New Orleans, New York, and Miami are above water.

This.

Our societies are set up in such a way that it is difficult, and causes all sorts of problems when people need to move. This doesn't jibe well with the fact that our settlements don't have nearly the permanence that we ascribe to them.

There are all sorts of pressures that build and destroy cities: Shifting Economics, Proximity to Resources, Geopolitics, the Environment... We'd be better off if we learned to build societies (and settlements) that can adapt to these realities, rather than attempt to control these factors, which is tantamount to pissing against a tsunami.

Re:Just to be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

The sea level does not rise when sea ice melts. Only when land ice melts.

Re:Just to be clear

[dywolf]

warmer polar regions = less ocean circulation.
less ocean circulation = more extreme climates. ie, if you live someplace cold, it's gonna get colder. live some place hot, its gonna get hotter. dry? drier. wet? wetter. ocean circulation is a gigantic moderator of planetary climate and weather.

and no, the NW Passage never existed with human memory, until now.

Its Not the Grid Power

[rally2xs]

We don't need nukes to feed the grid, I'm sure we can do it with wind, solar, and a global HVDC power grid. Problem solved, 'cuz if its midnight and the wind stops blowing, we'll get our power from the Ukraine... or maybe some windy place is Argentina.

What we _don't_ have a solution for is transportation. We cannot power cars, trucks, ships, planes, and locomotives on battery or grid power. We might be able to eventually electrify all the locomotives but not any time soon. Otherwise, 18 wheelers and riverboats and such all require big batteries that do not exist. They don't exist because they need to be cheap and small and cheap and high capacity and cheap and rugged enough for automotive use and cheap and quickly rechargeable and cheap. They need to be cheap so Joe Blow can buy a $12K electric car that does everything that a $12K gasoline powered car can do now. And that's no small feat. For instance, in the 1987 1 Lap of America rally a 1987 Yugo drove 9000 miles in 10 days to circumnavigate the USA. No electric car can do that right now, not even the Tesla because those doing that rally chose their own routes between certain identified points, so there needed to be gas stations pretty much everywhere, and not even Tesla has enough "supercharger" battery exchange stations to do that. And, of course Teslas are not cheap, and will not serve the lower classes with little disposable income.

So there's no electric solution for transportation, and we're forced to keep burning fossil fuels until there is. We can't stop, because stopping the travel, even a little, will have an outsized economic impact from people not being able to purchase and spend as they otherwise would, so those involved in the businesses they would otherwise patronize will go out of business, go on welfare roles, and the economy will be greatly harmed with much human suffering for those cast into poverty until the whole thing becomes completely unsupportable and collapses. We MUST continue burning fossil fuels.

I suggest to those that want to continuously whine about CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere suspend their protesting and marching and seeking new laws, but instead get their PHD's in electrochemistry and materials science, get their butts into a lab somewhere, and invent for us the magic battery that will make gasoline cars more expensive to buy and run than electric cars because the electric cars are so cheap, and not because you've done something to tax gasoline cars. Do that, and we can fill in everything else with wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc. and the world will be saved, maybe even cast into pre-industrial temperature ranges eventually. But no LAW you can pass will do anything to make this happen, and will likely have unintended consequences that end up impeding the move to electric cars.

Mars has ice and its CO2 is 2000 parts per million

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for all the environmental activists out there, but Mars has 5x as much carbon in the atmosphere than Earth, with wide ranging temperatures fluctuating between -80F to -11F. So why does such a dangerous and harmful gas (which has resulted in Earth having 14% more vegetation than before this crap was invented) cause such a wide variation in measured temps?

I guess if you repeat a lie long enough, even /. will believe it.

Silly snowflake, the planet will be fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if every human committed suicide at the same time, all humanity wiped out, the planet would go on.

I know you're being sarcastic but I felt the need to point out the obvious to others who take this all way too seriously.

Wonderful economic boom - northern route shipping

[peterofoz]

A softer or broken ice pack across Northern Canada would open a great shipping channel from Atlantic to Pacific avoiding the Panama Canal.

Bibliography?

[srw]

And in related news, US spending on science, space, and technology correlates with suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation. http://tylervigen.com/spurious...

Re:Bibliography?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite trend is how tightly coupled the relationship is between number of internet users and number of kneejerk, self righteous, uninformed, offtopic debunking attempts.

You believed someone in politics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame the scientists for what some guy in politics trying to get elected at almost any cost says.

Re:You believed someone in politics?

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't campaigning for any office when he said that. And he was supposedly quoting the scientists he'd consulted to make his movie.

Re:You believed someone in politics?

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't campaigning for any office when he said that. And he was supposedly quoting the scientists he'd consulted to make his movie.

Yes, unlike you he actually quote somebody instead of changing the words to change the meaning.

small, beneficial global warming and CO2...

[harvey the nerd]

Many of us think that human activity causes some **small** global warming (without warmunists' proposed multifold amplification claims) and some think that this small amount might be good in several circumstances, along with CO2 fertilization. Some expect global cooling to become evident by 2020 for a few decades or perhaps, centuries.

The things that coal needs to cleanup are aerosolized particulates, SOx, NOx along with heavy metals.

Re:small, beneficial global warming and CO2...

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot the disasters it has already caused have killed people

Re:small, beneficial global warming and CO2...

[Imrik]

What about the disasters prevented by the change in climate? How many people didn't die?

Re:small, beneficial global warming and CO2...

[presidenteloco]

Harvey, don't call yourself a nerd. You can't learn and think very well. Anyone capable of objective in-depth research and rational analysis would not reach the conclusions you just did there. You are not a nerd, or a geek. Consider that you might just have bad fashion sense.

Primary causes are?

[Anonymous Coward]

Four, cow farts. Three, diesel engine chips that make black smoke. Two, Chinese food cooking in a billion woks. And the number one reason for arctic ice melting DONALD TRUMPS HAIR DRESSER

'Climatedot'

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just rename this website 'Climatedot' and have done with it? Daily propaganda from the 'catastrophic man-made global warming' alarmists. It's not as if the prospect of millions of pounds of funding is incentive for these fraudsters to make up LIES to keep the money rolling in, is it...

www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com

Are you sick of this 'climate change' bullshit yet?

Re:'Climatedot'

[Anonymous Coward]

then why don't you just fuck off. People want to try to figure out what to do, that's what people with brains do. you are noise

Re: Mars has ice and its CO2 is 2000 parts per mil

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Just... wow.

Isn't this the reason we have a backup?

[Provocateur]

So the Arctic ice will be gone, but this time we are prepared: This is precisely the reason we have a backup Gentlemen, we have the AntArctic.

What?

Completely meaningless arithmetic

[larwe]

(I won't call it "math"). This is exactly analogous to saying "five million penguin farts are unleashed every year. there are 300 million people in the USA. Therefore, over a 30 year period, a family of four is directly responsible for two penguin farts."

Re:Completely meaningless arithmetic

[Anonymous Coward]

(I won't call it "math"). ***** This is ---------- analogous to saying "five million penguin farts are unleashed every year. there are 300 million people in the USA. Therefore, over a 30 year period, a family of four is directly responsible for two penguin farts."

Take out "exactly" and throw this in there and your analogy makes a lot more sense:

*****Assuming each family of 4 personally feeds a penguin 8 pinto beans

Football fields, again?

[c10]

What's that in square light years?

Re:Mars has ice and its CO2 is 2000 parts per mill

[Anonymous Coward]

Density of the atmosphere is veeeeerrrrrrryyyyyy low, and the ice is frozen CO2.

probably better if you just read /. - try to look for comment that challenge your belief system, it will help you learn.

Trump says Global Warming doesn't exist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly scientists. Trump 2016 Make America Great Again!

Then Kill yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so fucking sick and tired of this Bullshit.

Every time you get on Slashdot there is some retarded story about how we are killing the planet and to save it you have to live like a fucking pheasant while the alarmists fly around in jets and live in estates.

Fuck you

Re: Then Kill yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite was the amazon move into the cold where rich fuck A, takes trip to arctic for no reason but to ski across it. All self aggrandizing crap. The next hippie that tells me they learned about conservation after flying to s. America will also feel my rant.

I love these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

just to see how moronic and gullible the editors continue to be as they push their climate hoax agenda.

Re:I love these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

it also brings out the idiot deniers like you

Re:I love these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

And the useful idiots like you.

Jurassic period is an example case of greenhouse

[XXongo]

This guy posts exactly the same screed on every slashdot story about climate. It was slightly amusing the first time.

Basically, he's saying that the Jurassic period serves as an example case of greenhouse-induced global warming: it had higher carbon dioxide levels and as a result also had higher temperatures.

OK. We're working on putting in enough CO2 to start replicating the Jurassic, a time when the Earth had no ice caps. But we won't get the dinosaurs back.

How science works.

[Geoffrey.landis]

The whole AGC platform is based on the premise that CO2 is the driver of global temperatures to a degree that makes all other sources infinitesimal in comparison, and its doctrine does not allow dissent from the premise.

The way science works in the real world is by comparing models to observations,and excluding the models that don't match the observations. The null hypothesis-- that the average temperature isn't warming-- is strongly excluded. So, if you want to propose that the effect is due to other variables: do the numbers. Make a model and show that it fits the data.

Right now, anthropogenic global warming is a model that fits the data. If you think it's wrong, find another model.

Fake quotes

[Geoffrey.landis]

It's easy to make up shit that supposedly Al Gore said that he didn't ever actually say, and post it as anonymous coward.

Citation needed.

And not a citation to "well, here's something he said that was kinda vaguely on the same subject, I just posted that completely made up quote as clickbait to get you to engage." You put it in quotations marks. Give me a cite to that quotation.

I'm also puzzled as to why deniers are so fascinated with Al Gore. He's not a scientist. The people discussing anthropogenic global warming don't cite him at all, only the deniers. In the question of the science, it really doesn't matter what he said.

Re:Wonderful economic boom - northern route shippi

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be interesting to know how much an open NE passage would save in annual carbon emissions.

Repeat After Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Say this several times to yourselves over and over:

"Correlation does not imply causation."

Re:Mars has ice and its CO2 is 2000 parts per mill

[Anonymous Coward]

Neptune's atmosphere is almost entirely methane and look at its temperature! Neptune temps hang around -200C! That's MINUS 350F! We all know that methane is the most potent greenhouse gas. So, why isn't Neptune a vat of boiling lava???

Re:How science works. - EmailGate

[Anonymous Coward]

EmailGate: when you torture the numbers enough to make them fit your (broken/inaccurate) models.

Re:How science works. - EmailGate

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a fucking idiot

Re: How science works. - EmailGate

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a fucking poser

Re:Wonderful economic boom - northern route shippi

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean this open shipping channel

http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/07/20/global-warming-expedition-stopped-in-its-tracks-by-arctic-sea-ice/

Watching the world burn

[skoony]

Meanwhile at the North Pole,-19 F. http://www.yr.no/place/North_P...

Antarctic Sea Ice

[Anonymous Coward]

What is also happening directly under your nose and other climate activists is that the Antarctic Sea Ice is at a record high level:

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/qa-what-is-happening-with-antarctic-sea-ice/

Of course, if it was shrinking it would be listed as more concrete evidence of man made global warming.

Since the result doesn't agree with with the theories being advanced, this information is being minimized or spun to support man made global warming.

And of course my just bringing it up means I should be demonized or threatened.

How dare you suggest that the Earth orbits the Sun, Copernicus! In the name of science, I curse you and your family!!!

This Chicken Little Enviromentalism has to stop

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never take anyone seriously when they make wild claims. The pseudo-science makes me want to vomit. If we had rational people investigating the climate without agendas who have been proven to fake data it would be different. I don't believe a word from these people.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/

Correlation is NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

You know the drill. The atmosphere of this planet is INSANELY complicated, so much so that this is likely to be complete and total quackery.

S2 vs C3

[pubwvj]

"Every additional metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) puffed into the atmosphere appears to cost the Arctic another 3 square meters of summer sea ice"

That's an absurd statement. They're trying to correlate volume to area. Doesn't work. What is the thickness of the 3 sq-meters that is melting? 1 molecule? 1 meter? 1 kilometer? 4 kilometers?

Sorry, but this is a nonsensical comparison. It is disinformation and propaganda. They need to stick with science.

Arctic Sea Ice Diminished by Half Since 90's.

[Layzej]

I'm not sure that one data point is a great way to understand the trend over time. This animation shows sea ice evolution since the 1980s. It's quite dramatic: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4510

Analogies are for the birds

[presidenteloco]

You're obviously living like an ostrich with its head in the sand, not like a pheasant.

Some of us are carbon negative

[WillAffleckUW]

Some of us grew up on tree farms and have always lived low impact lifestyles with renewables that made them carbon negative.

It's not hard.

There are simple things you can do. The easiest is make a run to Costco and buy up LED lights on sale, which literally saves you tons of dollars on your utility bill. The second easiest is replace your old fridge, washer, dishwasher, and dryer with modern Energy Star appliances (use your tax refund), which literally saves you tons of dollars on your utility bill. The third easiest is replace one of your cars or trucks with a modern plug-in electric car (which would still work when gasoline spikes to $10 a gallon and even today tends to cost about 1/10th the cost of buying gas (and has half the maintenance costs).

Did you notice that every single one of those things saves you money. So, why aren't you saving money? Seriously.

Calling this a linear fit is a bit of a stretch

[Anonymous Coward]

I was curious so I googled up some images of the data in question. This is what I came up with: http://i.imgur.com/L15Bxh7.jpg

Re: How science works. - EmailGate

[Anonymous Coward]

Just saying. Science by computer model is rather new and the way most people do it is quite unreliable. Also the use of Stat packages by not very literate types is an abomination. But however nasty the warmists are, it does seem quite possible that we are killing the seas and part of the causation seems to be acidification from carbon dioxide. In particular, corel dying. And you can know it is true because the shills came out in force when it started to get attention.

Save Earth Planet and Life support

[Anonymous Coward]

Sub: Save earth Planet and life Support
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says there are 16,300 nuclear weapons located at some 98 sites in 14 countries, a vast majority in the United States and Russia. There are also 25 countries that possess enough nuclear and radiological materials to build a weapon, with such material held at hundreds of sites, many vulnerable to extremists.
  America is blind to realities. India is Lame by lethargic bureaucratic structure. Where Lies Wisdom ?
  intellectually hollowed societies has less future leave alone Vision index.
  History must be learned through Bhagavat Geetha and Wisdom should prevail upon not to fall prey to senses
Vidyardhi Nanduri {cosmology World Peace]