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Scientists Marvel At 'Increasingly Non-Natural' Arctic Warmth (msn.com)

mmell writes: Recognizing that this is a dreadfully old story (at least by Slashdot standards), current developments make this once more a current story. Scientists studying the Arctic environment are used to seeing broad variations in average temperature readings, but recent results have been so far beyond the normal range that they are only able to conclude that they are being caused by human activity. The temperature data (which includes a great many days with readings above 0C) is bolstered by measurements showing that the Arctic ice shelf is both thinner and less extensive than has ever been previously recorded. I wonder if the Arctic ice cap will reform in the winter, or if it's possible that its absence will cause irreversible changes to the Earth's ocean currents (and by extension, Earth's climate)? "[A]fter studying the Arctic and its climate for three and a half decades, I have concluded that what has happened over the last year goes beyond even the extreme," wrote Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, in an essay for Earth magazine. According to The Washington Post, the scientists' simulations predict some places in the high Arctic will rise over 50 degrees above normal. One chart, embedded in the report and shared by several meteorologists online, shows a "jaw-dropping and emblematic display of the intensity and duration of the Arctic warmth. It illustrates the difference from normal in the number of 'freezing degree days,' a measure of the accumulated cold since September."

276 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. slashdot standards? by aktw · · Score: 2

    You think slashdot news is somehow cutting edge?

  2. Nothing of value will be lost by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Homo sapiens, R.I.P late 21st century "they denied the truth of their actions to the very end"

    1. Re:Nothing of value will be lost by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

      I feel reminded of the Dead Parrot sketch by Monty Python

      cue a flooded street, two men standing in front of a wall of sandbags that tries its best to keep the flood out

      A: Hello? I'd like to register a complaint. About the climate change.
      B: Oh yes, yes, the climate change, the biggest science hoax of the century, yes, what about it?
      A: What about it? It's coming right up to my front door here!
      B: Oh no, no, that's just ... rain.
      A: Look, matey, I know a flood if I see one, and that's a flood, no rain.
      B: No, no, that's rain. We get that a lot lately. Wonderful weather, ain't it? Relaxing and soothing the pitter-patter of drops...
      A: Pitter-patter? No pitter-patter enters into it, it's a flood!
      B: Oh, that water you mean? Yes, that's coming down the hill. Happens sometimes.
      A: Down the hill? The hills are dry as bones since the glaciers went away, but there's no beach anymore. Actually THIS IS the beach!
      B: It's not (take a pump and pumps some of the water back out behind the sand bags) See? It's reciding!
      A: You pumped it out.
      B: That was you moving the water.
      A: I never did such a thing!
      B: (pulls a sand bag out of the wall, an arm thick stream of water starts to flood the area). See? It's flooded!
      A: You made it!
      B: I what?
      A: You made the water appear. You're trying to trick me into believing you.

      and so on.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Nothing of value will be lost by hey! · · Score: 2

      Claiming that humans will go extinct just hands the denialists a convenient straw man to attack. Scientists aren't predicting anything that humans can't adapt to. But they are predicting changes that spell the end of things that many are emotionally attached to, like species endangered by changing habitats, or ways of life which are no longer possible in certain places (e.g. drought-driven failure of family farms in certain locations).

      Another way of looking at climate change is purely as an economic tradeoff between present income and future expenses. We will adapt, but that adaptation will cost money.

      And here's the important bit: not everyone benefits equally from widespread use of cheap abundant fossil fuels and not everyone will pay equally for the adaptations that will be required. Nearly everybody benefits from cheap fossil fuels. But not everyone benefits equally: that's why the money behind the denialist PR movement is so carefully laundered to obscure its sources. And what's more not everyone will pay for the adaptations equally.

      In fact people who make their living primarily from investments will make money off both cheap oil in the short term and expensive adaptations in the long term: all they have to do is rebalance their portfolio annually and they'll largely escape the consequences of climate change -- other than the higher prices for things like coffee everyone will be paying. And there's the emergence of new diseases like Zika as ranges of disease vectors increase and habitats are disrupted by people adapting to climate change. But by in large people with large amounts of liquid assets can avoid most consequences.

      The question for the rest of us is this: do you want to prepare for the coming change or just hope for the best?

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Nothing of value will be lost by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      We can adapt with energy, moreso than economic inputs. When the fossil fuels become harder to get to, dust makes PV ineffective and causes erosion of wind, and water is in different places, energy gets harder, as does the food supply. While extinction is unlikely, it is quite reasonable to picture a world with massive environmentally caused human die-off... this century.

      May we live in interesting times...

    4. Re:Nothing of value will be lost by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I fucked up in the middle, I shouldn't redress old comedy routines before I had my first coffee.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. A more understandable graph by nadaou · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pettit's Ice Volume Death Spiral graphs are somewhat more understandable, but no less depressing.

    https://sites.google.com/site/pettitclimategraphs/sea-ice-volume

    --
    ~.~
    I'm a peripheral visionary.
  4. Let's hope it's true! by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    There is a reason I chose to live at elevation in the colder north of England.

    At 50 degrees (Fahrenheit right?!) I should be living in a tropical environment very soon. If sea level rises significantly land value will rise as well.

    This simulation model really does sound fantastic...but for full disclosure, was my estate agent involved in the creation of this model?

    I mean, not that it does not sound awesome but isnt a computer simulation a thing in which scientists make educated guesses as to parameters and then "reliably predict" an outcome?

    Wouldn't it be cool to max-out all the factor multipliers and simulate what would happen? will the 'greenhouse effect' continue to spiral temperate out of control to +200c in less than 3 years?! -you know like when you change nuke yields in scortched Earth and it takes the entire map out with that radiation "effect".

    Cool jaw dropping simulations bro.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    1. Re:Let's hope it's true! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You're forgetting about the Thermohaline cycle: I temperatures rises and ice melts the salinity in the area between the isles and Scandinavia will plummet as the less dense fresh water will push back the warm salt water from the south. This will lead to colder temperatures so while the planet heats up, the most of north western Europe might get colder!

    2. Re:Let's hope it's true! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      At 50 degrees (Fahrenheit right?!) I should be living in a tropical environment very soon. If sea level rises significantly land value will rise as well.

      You know what happens in a tropical environment? Tropical storms. You know what tropical storms plus sea level rise equals? You're fucked. HTH, HAND!

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Let's hope it's true! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      At 50 degrees (Fahrenheit right?!) I should be living in a tropical environment very soon.

      Says who? Another likely outcome is that ocean circulation patterns will change and we'll lose the North Atlatic drift. The northernmost point of England is comfortably above Goose Bay in Canada, just across the Atlantic. You might like to look at pictures of the area in Winter, in order to see what a not entirely unlikely outcome for England is.

      Global warming means the amount of thermal energy stored by the planet is going up. It does not mean it will get warmer where you live.

      If sea level rises significantly land value will rise as well.

      Yes, I hear that real estate in a country for whom almost every metropolitan centre is underwater is super valuable. The land will be valuable only if the economy can support it.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Let's hope it's true! by budgenator · · Score: 1

      You know what happens in a tropical environment? Tropical storms. You know what tropical storms plus sea level rise equals? You're fucked. HTH, HAND!

      Sea level rise has been estimated to be on average between +2.6 millimetres (0.10 in) and 2.9 millimetres (0.11 in) per year ± 0.4 millimetres (0.016 in) since 1993 Sea level rise

      One tenth of an inch a year, I'm just not feeling your sense of urgency here; especially since

      new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008. NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses

      the Antarctic ice sheet is growing fairly robustly.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    5. Re:Let's hope it's true! by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      One tenth of an inch a year, I'm just not feeling your sense of urgency here

      Yeah, let's wait until it's urgent, and then find out we're too late to change anything.

    6. Re:Let's hope it's true! by gsslay · · Score: 2

      You have a cute idea that raising sea levels will just mean property values of higher land goes up.

      That is not what will happen. History shows us that people dispossessed of land (by, say, flooding) don't just roll over and disappear. They don't turn up on your street, decide it's too pricey and meekly head off somewhere else where they won't be a bother.

      They are refugees. They need somewhere to live. If they can't buy property, they will squat. They will set up a tent in your front garden, and to hell with your property rights. If you have a problem with that they will fight you. To the death if so necessary. They have nothing to lose. They must live somewhere.

      So your luxury property in warmer climes is much more likely either to become a densely packed slum, or a fortified encampment surrounded by dispossessed hoards. It won't matter who was there first, we will all be losers in the upheaval.

    7. Re:Let's hope it's true! by budgenator · · Score: 1

      Assuming that CO2 causes the Planet to warm, if the United States, emitted no anthropogenic CO2, it would make no measurable difference in the warming rate. If all the countries of the world did not change their anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and the US and the EU emitted no anthropogenic CO2, the warming would only stop, but there would be no cooling. As long as China and India get a free-pass, nobody anywhere else can do enough to get any effect on this supposed climate change!

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    8. Re:Let's hope it's true! by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      So what are you trying to say ?

    9. Re:Let's hope it's true! by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      So what are you trying to say ?

      He's pointing out the exact reason why GWB didn't sign the Kyoto Accords: There's not much sense allowing China and India to pollute to their hearts' content while curbing some greenhouse emissions in Western countries. It felt like a fairly transparent attempt to transfer wealth out of the western economies and into developing countries. If you want to solve the problems, emissions controls have to apply to all major players, because just because there is a climate crisis doesn't mean the individual players won't use it as an opportunity to jockey for more power.

    10. Re:Let's hope it's true! by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Tropical diseases. Bloom of tropical insects and parasites.

      The rush of people from the equatorial reqions.

      The lack of 10,000 years of buffalo crap to sustain heavy crop growth.

      A few billion people won't die easily. It's going to be ugly.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    11. Re:Let's hope it's true! by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I get that, but we were talking about the need for urgency. Does a problem become less urgent, when you don't have a fair solution ?

    12. Re:Let's hope it's true! by budgenator · · Score: 1

      No it just becomes obvious that when people state their is a severe problem in need of an urgent solution, and they reject effective solutions out of hand and embrace ineffective solutions without question, that they are emotionally invested in the problem rather than the problem's solutions. When people are emotionally invested in a problem, but not in the problem's solution, you simply can't believe anything they say, Back in the 1960's researchers employed by tobacco companies said smoking didn't cause lung cancer, so send us your money, today researchers employed by climate research organizations say CO2 will Cause Catastrophic Climate Changes, so send us your money; same shit, different day.

      What you see is part of a hard sell, They're Amplifying the Pain, they're twisting the knife in the bleeding neck, then when they have you emotionally worked up to save the Polar Bears or save the planet, then they offer you a solution. It doesn't matter if the solution is effective, in the long run it's better if it isn't because it always involves, send us your money. It's always a "limited time offer" or a "They need your help now" because you want the emotion to rationalize the logic, you don't want them to have time to see the invalid logic.

      Now when you send them your money or do your part your solving the problem, you can feel self-righteous and altruistic, that releases endorphins in your brain, which of course makes it easier for them to have you sending them your money or sacrificing more to do your part eventually if you go to that well too often it becomes a full blown addiction.

      And that my friend is why they talk about the need for urgency . If you don't believe all of that, no problem, OBTW I got this Sure fire tip, I want to get you in on the ground floor because I like you, your special, I was like you once, we'll just go down to the bank so you can draw out your life saving right now and I guarantee you'll triple your money by the week after I skip town.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    13. Re:Let's hope it's true! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I think the "they" you're talking about is rather distributed, and doesn't include most of the scientists who actually document this stuff. In the 1960, there was tobacco-funded research that said cigarettes weren't that bad for you, but there wasn't a call for people's money, just continued cigarette sales. The amount of money that climate research groups want is trivial in comparison to the income flow from tobacco or the costs of global warming.

      People haven't been rejecting effective solutions out of hand. Cutting fossil fuel use in China and India is currently ineffective unless and until someone comes up with a good way to get them to do it. We US citizens have a lot more say in what the US does than in what India does, and the US is a major CO2 emitter, so we can do things to slow down global warming. The fact that Bush didn't sign the Kyoto accords means that he wasn't interested in doing what he could, complaining that a partial solution he could do was useless because he couldn't get a more general solution.

      People have looked for effective solutions. The geoengineering ideas aren't testing well. Building nuclear power plants runs into some people's irrational fears, unfortunately, and if you think your house is going to be irradiated if we build one and that there will be a slight increase in global warming if we don't you're probably going to be against the nuke, Pushing solar and wind energy and electric cars seem to be the best ideas right now.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    14. Re:Let's hope it's true! by budgenator · · Score: 1

      The amount of money that climate research groups want is trivial in comparison to the income flow from tobacco or the costs of global warming.

      Obama illegally transferred a half a billion dollars to the UN Green Climate Fund, 1/2 billion and trivial don't quite belong in he same sentence; hell over the years we've probably paid that much for electricity to run the computers at NCAR over the years.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    15. Re:Let's hope it's true! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      It was decades ago that a Republican Senator (Dirksen?) said "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money." Half a billion out of the Federal budget is pretty close to trivial. BTW, who said the transfer was illegal?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    16. Re:Let's hope it's true! by budgenator · · Score: 1

      Pretty much the entire US Senate,

      a 1994 U.S. law passed by Congress and signed by then-President Bill Clinton. Among other elements, the law prohibits the distribution of U.S. taxpayer funds to “any affiliated organization of the United Nations which grants full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood.” Last month, though, the UN climate bureaucracy, known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), decided to admit the U.S. taxpayer-funded “State of Palestine” as a member. That means no more American money may legally be disbursed to the UN's climate bureaucracy, Oops! Federal Law Prohibits Obama Funding UN Climate Bureaucracy

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    17. Re:Let's hope it's true! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      So, who determines whether a UN member has the internationally recognized attributes of statehood? And what are they? Without knowing the process of declaring failure of attributes of statehood, it's not possible to tell whether the action is legal or not.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  5. Cue... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Tweets to come out of that place in DC saying that it is natural and is a good thing for the USA and will 'Make America Great Again'.
    Then the people in Colorado will be 're-assigned' to the the middle of the Saudi Desert with the words,
    'If they want heat let them have heat'.

    Joking aside, I fear for their jobs. They know that the Dear Tweeter does not like anyone speaking out of turn and even less disagreeing with his orangmess.

    1. Re:Cue... by Rakarra · · Score: 2

      Trump, on the other hand, disdains the Republican-antithetic "Flip Flopper" epithet and is willing to change his mind, given sufficient incentive.

      It's a little difficult to believe that, given Trump's extreme reluctance to ever, ever admit that he was wrong or made a mistake. He is always willing to pin blame on someone else for his decisions, and when it suits him he will flat-out lie, even about things that are easily fact-checked.

  6. The end is near? by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

    Long story short. We're all fucked..despite what president Cheeto says.

    --
    sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
    1. Re:The end is near? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      And how is this different from the previous case, where we're all fucked?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:The end is near? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Long story short. We're all fucked..despite what president Cheeto says.

      In geological terms, the Earth normally doesn't have ice caps.

      We're not fucked at all, overall. Some people will have to move. Just like they've had to due to changing conditions since, oh, forever.

      Is accelerating the pace of climate change good? Almost certainly not. So we'd best be served by not making things worse.

      But overreacting just kills credibility. Telling everyday people that they have to pay twice as much for electricity and $5/gal or more for gasoline to get to work because CARBON BAD!!! while China India, Brazil and Al Gore game the system to their benefit just pisses people off.

    3. Re:The end is near? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Long story short. We're all fucked..despite what president Cheeto says.

      In geological terms, the Earth normally doesn't have ice caps.

      In geologic terms humans don't exist.

    4. Re:The end is near? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And you've done what? So you're going to sling insults at the guy who hasn't been in power for a full month but forgive everything before?

      I bet you're one of the same people who are outraged and terrified about a temporary stay in immigration but didn't blink when the US was actually bombing places like Syria and Libya.

      But all that aside, Americans are naive in thinking that the scrawling of a presidential pen is going to fix this problem. Your lifestyle probably isn't helping and you likely have no intentions of changing it as long as you can keep laying the blame somewhere else. Clean up your own backyard first.

    5. Re: The end is near? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So once again, even in the face of the clear destruction of our one and only habitat, human greed trumps common sense. THAT is why we're fucked...

    6. Re: The end is near? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm going to sling insults at the orange shithead who is dismantling the EPA, and who will most certainly approve the repeal of the Stream Protection Act soon. Take a look at China to see what happens when you expect capitalists to self-regulate. Once again, the Republicans shit where they eat for the love of money and expect future generations to deal with the fallout.

    7. Re:The end is near? by JWW · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But overreacting just kills credibility. Telling everyday people that they have to pay twice as much for electricity and $5/gal or more for gasoline to get to work because CARBON BAD!!! while China India, Brazil and Al Gore game the system to their benefit just pisses people off.

      Yep. Also, refusing to build zero emission nuclear plants to replace dirty coal plants, proves that the issue must not be that big of a deal.

      Why is it that all climate change responses are about people giving up personal freedom and living under more restrictive laws and any change that really wouldn't be noticed by people is not really fought for...?

      We can build the necessary nuclear plants, except the very same people saying "we're all gonna die unless we do something!!" are also out in force to protest against nuclear being one of the answers....

      Oh and as for Gore and Leo and all the other celebs lecturing us on how much more control over our lives is needed to save the planet , they continue to fly around the world on charter jets. It is literally the worst thing you can do, carbon footprint wise. We should ban charter flights because of they uselessness and wastefulness. Fly commercial Al and Leo!! Or do you just not care about the environment..?

    8. Re: The end is near? by haruchai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Take a look at China to see what happens when you expect capitalists to self-regulate"
      Or take a look at what many parts of the USA was like 40+ years ago. China has done it all on a larger scale but they haven't done anything new wrt pollution.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    9. Re:The end is near? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Why is it that all climate change responses are about people giving up personal freedom

      You're going to have to give up your personal freedom when we run out of fossil fuels anyway. Better get a head start on the rest of the world.

    10. Re: The end is near? by helsinki92 · · Score: 1

      the Republicans shit where they eat

      Since when is this a "Republican" problem. I've seen Democrats shit where they eat too.

    11. Re: The end is near? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So you're assuming that everything the EPA is good? You don't mind having an agency write their own laws? Make their own regulations? You should be horrified by that even if you're a strong supporter of the EPA.

      Would you want customs agents making their own regulations? How about police departments? Hell no.

      The laws and regulations ought to come from Congress.

      Oh - "but Congressmen don't have the time and energy to work on such laws". That's why a lot of the "responsibility" given to the Federal Government should be in the states. Examples include HUD, Education, etc...

      Then let the Federal Government focus on Federal problems - you know, little, inconsequential things, such as pollution, war, immigration, international treaties, selecting court justices.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    12. Re: The end is near? by pastafazou · · Score: 1

      Destruction of our one and only habitat? Destruction?

    13. Re:The end is near? by pastafazou · · Score: 1

      The sea level rise is slow enough that people will be able to move in an orderly fashion. Nobody is going to find themselves suddenly overwhelmed by ocean. I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but in North America and Europe, it's the rich people that own the beachfront property, so I don't think they'll be suffering. In fact, it's kind of a bit of schadenfreude that they'll be losing their very expensive real estate, since their carbon footprint is likely the 100x the size of the average citizen. What's more likely to happen, however, is a bit of construction and engineering to prevent much loss of land overall. Over a quarter of Holland is below sea level because they've done a fantastic job of reclaiming land from the ocean. And most of this was done or is doable with old fashioned tech. Dykes, canals, windmills, and pumps.

    14. Re:The end is near? by pastafazou · · Score: 2

      We're not going to run out of fossil fuels. There's enough known reserves to keep us going for several more centuries. Advancements in nuclear tech and other areas will see fossil fuels become obsolete long before we run the risk of running out.

    15. Re:The end is near? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      "...build zero emission nuclear plants to replace dirty coal plants..."

      If we really wanted to screw the Green left, we would accept the carbon warming hypothesis in full so we could resume doing exactly this.

    16. Re:The end is near? by vakuona · · Score: 2

      Brazil has a population density of 22 people per square mile. To put that figure in context, the US has a density of 84, China of 142 and India of 386.

      It is easy for Brazil to lead the way on renewables because, per capita, they have way more resources than others.

      That isn't to say they shouldn't, but they cannot be a realistic example for all countries to follow.

    17. Re: The end is near? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So you're assuming that everything the EPA is good?

      It sounds like you're arguing that if something isn't perfect then it isn't worth having. I think that mindset of no nuance stems from the puritanical influence. Sex outside of marriage? Yeah you're going to hell. Genocide? Also going to hell.

      In reality, nothing is perfect and so perfect is the enemy of good. If you strive for perfection and discard anything falling short, then you will never get anything.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    18. Re: The end is near? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

      Yeah, destruction. What, you think we're improving the planet?
      We almost killed the ozone layer, we've driven countless species to extinction, we're destroying the rainforests, the oceans have literally 50% of the fish they did since the 1970's, we pollute the air, we pollute the water, we pollute the soil, we're heating the planet and fucking up countless ecosystems, etc.. etc..
      You don't think that's destruction of our habitat?

    19. Re:The end is near? by Bartles · · Score: 1

      We're not fucked at all, overall. Some people will have to move. Just like they've had to due to changing conditions since, oh, forever.

      And it will happen so slowly no one will even notice.

    20. Re:The end is near? by bigpat · · Score: 1

      We can build the necessary nuclear plants, except the very same people saying "we're all gonna die unless we do something!!" are also out in force to protest against nuclear being one of the answers....

      Nuclear could be THE answer to preventing future climate change. We could quadruple the capacity of our existing nuclear electricity plants with new reactors, especially the sites located miles away from large population centers and pretty much solve the problem of climate change.

      We have dumped more money into wasteful or futile government programs than it would cost to simply write a check and solve the problem of climate change in the next ten or fifteen years. No mass sacrifice of our productive capacity, no huge hit to the world economy, no shifting of pollution to other countries like China to pretend that we have solved the problem, just solve the energy problem (for hundreds or maybe thousands of years) and allow us to put our intellectual and engineering resources to work on solving all the other problems that face us.

    21. Re:The end is near? by HelpTheNewOverlord · · Score: 2

      List of countries and territories by population density

      Brazil: 24.31 people per sq km and 62.97 people / sq mile
      USA: 33 people per sq km and 85.46 people / sq mile

      It seems that you got Brazilian population per square KILOMETER while using the MILE values for other countries...

      It makes sense as Brazil is only a bit smaller than the USA and has about 2/3 of its population.

    22. Re: The end is near? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      No. Not saying that at all. But the objection to the EPA is not it's stated goal of clean water and air.



      The objection is that it oversteps its role; that it's acting as an unaccountable agency and therefore it needs to be reigned in.

      Reigning in the EPA is not the same as eliminating the EPA or not wanting clean air and water.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    23. Re: The end is near? by ljw1004 · · Score: 1

      Would you want customs agents making their own regulations? How about police departments? Hell no. The laws and regulations ought to come from Congress. Oh - "but Congressmen don't have the time and energy to work on such laws". That's why a lot of the "responsibility" given to the Federal Government should be in the states. Examples include HUD, Education, etc...

      In most scientific and technical areas, I'd like to leave regulations to the people who have a good understanding of that area (i.e. scientists and engineers). As for the political leaders at federal or state level, what expertise do they bring to scientific and technical areas? a liberal-arts or law degree? good rhetoric and campaign-funding skills?

    24. Re:The end is near? by gsslay · · Score: 1

      Some people will have to move. Just like they've had to due to changing conditions since, oh, forever.

      Except this time at a speed never seen before. And where are they going to move? Do you think that it's all going to happen and you're going to be living in happy isolation somewhere, untouched by the chaos around you?

    25. Re:The end is near? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      There's enough known reserves to keep us going for several more centuries

      Reserves don't mean much if they can't sustain the current production rate.

    26. Re:The end is near? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The people in Miami are noticing.

    27. Re: The end is near? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      The fine tuning of said laws - of course. But that's not what's happening. We have an out-of-control bureaucracy that's unresponsive to state or federal legislators. The legislators take priority over a regulatory agency.

      It is not a case of science versus politician. It is a case of individuals making decisions capriciously. The EPA is subordinate to both the legislative and judicial branch. It cannot "take" property without oversight. Lands are reclassified as "wet lands" and farmers are put out of business. If there is scientific evidence that this land must be put into the public domain in order to maintain the health of the ecosystem then fine. It is what it is. We have now appropriated the land from said farmer, rancher, whatever, and we, as a society, must pay for it.

      The EPA is hated for good reason. It's not simply that big corporations don't want to clean-up their mess.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    28. Re: The end is near? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Informative

      The objection is that it oversteps its role; that it's acting as an unaccountable agency and therefore it needs to be reigned in.

      Based on your claim, I had a look around. As far as I can see, just about all of it is whining that the EPA rules will cost big companies money. Well, yes, that is true. It is much cheaper to operate if you can offload the true cost of operation onto other people.

      Reigning in the EPA is not the same as eliminating the EPA or not wanting clean air and water.

      I disagree. It's generally action from people who want to keep the profits private, but nationalise the costs.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    29. Re:The end is near? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      president Cheeto

      Hey now, call him by his proper name! It's 'President Pussy-Grabber'. Do that again and I'll report you to the Seekrit Cervize!

    30. Re: The end is near? by aquacrayfish · · Score: 1

      Also considering there are many instances of water pollution all over the country (Flint being the obvious most prominent version), I fail to see how the EPA is doing too much, when they don't have the power to clean up just the water issues.

    31. Re:The end is near? by andydouble07 · · Score: 1

      This is a strawman. Most environmentalists have no issue with nuclear power. It just seems that nobody (regardless of environmental concerns) wants it in their backyard.

    32. Re: The end is near? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Look up EPA and ranchers.

      https://www.google.com/search?...

      Here's the first two results

      U.S. Court Rules that EPA Violated Personal Privacy of Farmers ...
      northernag.net/.../US-Court-Rules-that-EPA-Violated-Personal-Privacy-of-Farmers-Ra...
      Sep 13, 2016 - The Environmental Protection Agency has violated the personal privacy of tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers, according to a ...

      Farmers, Ranchers Welcome Selection of Scott Pruitt to Lead EPA
      www.fb.org/news/farmers-ranchers-welcome-selection-of-scott-pruitt-to-lead-epa
      Dec 8, 2016 - Farmers, ranchers and many others cheered President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Scott Pruitt to lead EPA. In his position as attorney ...

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    33. Re:The end is near? by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

      And how did I contradict you exactly? It was a reply to "while China India, Brazil and Al Gore game the system to their benefit just pisses people off". The US has the highest CO2 emission per capita in the world. Brazil etc. have a smaller CO2 emission per capita.

      --
      sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
    34. Re:The end is near? by randomlygeneratename · · Score: 1

      These are all deflections of the argument. Different people are trying different solutions to the same global catastrophic problem, people with different opinions on what they don't mind giving up. Don't like the solutions? Then come to the table, and we'll negotiate a better one we can all agree on. Don't deflect and deny.

      Couple of side points: (1) No, it is not the "same people" protesting nuclear plants as trying to combat global warming. (2) Solutions don't have to be terribly invasive. Markets show great progress on the cost of renewable energy sources (Source), all we need is a slight bump (probably subsidy) to make sure they win in the near term instead of the distant future. (3) You want to ban charter flights, fine. It doesn't take away from the message. In fact it only strengthens it -- change will not ever happen at the consumer level, because it's very difficult to give up convenience for the greater good, especially if one's peers don't either. It's really just the prisoner's dilemma, scaled up. And as a really minor note, Di Caprio did pay a voluntary carbon tax to offset emissions from flying to produce "Before the Flood."

    35. Re: The end is near? by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Yeah, destruction. What, you think we're improving the planet?

      We almost killed the ozone layer, we've driven countless species to extinction, we're destroying the rainforests, the oceans have literally 50% of the fish they did since the 1970's, we pollute the air, we pollute the water, we pollute the soil, we're heating the planet and fucking up countless ecosystems, etc.. etc..

      You don't think that's destruction of our habitat?

      For many deniers, there are two options: "We're just fine," and "the end of human life on Earth." So when you say we're destroying habitat, their counter is "don't be ridiculous, we can still live here." They think that when Mass Human Migrations happen, that we'll be fine behind our walls, or that they're the ones who won't have to move.

    36. Re:The end is near? by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      But overreacting just kills credibility. Telling everyday people that they have to pay twice as much for electricity and $5/gal or more for gasoline to get to work because CARBON BAD!!! while China India, Brazil and Al Gore game the system to their benefit just pisses people off.

      Just like you are killing your own credibility (not that an AC had any in the first place). Because of investments in wind and solar power, these technologies are now amongst the cheapest ways to install new generation capacity. China knows this and invests more than any other country in renewable energy.

      The real issue is that, a decade or two from now, the US will have the most expensive electricity generation, because other countries will have moved on.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    37. Re:The end is near? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2

      You are arguing against scientific fact. Let's examine your thesis. It seems they are political in nature, stemming from a desire not to be told what to do. If I can restate it, you seem to be suggesting that the physical properties of carbon dioxide depending on which plane certain celebrities travel on.

      We've been studying climate change for about 200 years now, mostly in the context of trying to explain ice ages. The CO2-mediated theory of climate change was first described in 1896, and despite a scientific consensus against it which persisted until the mid-1950s, today it is the dominant scientific understanding. There have been a number of key observations, but the fundamental science was the work of Tyndall in 1859 on the heat properties of gases.

      Your Al-Gore-Airplane theory of climate change seems like it will be easily testable. I'll leave the experimental design to you. While we're at it, we should probably test the rest of the things you mentioned, to see if they also affect the optical properties of CO2. It sounds like Tyndall may be in serious need of revision. This will likely throw out almost all of our knowledge of extraterrestrial atmospheres too; you're not going to make NASA happy. Although it does provoke the question, if Al Gore affects carbon dioxide on this planet, does he also affect other worlds equally or is it more like an inverse square effect?

      </sarcasm>Hi. You're a person, I'm a person. We have this planet thing that we live on and it's really neat. Unfortunately we have only got just the one, so we do have to share it. Even more unfortunately, we have a bit of a pollution problem. Unlike every other pollution problem we have had, this one is global and really hard to clean up. Humanity, as a whole, will need to get together and clean it up. Humanity as a whole hasn't done anything quite like that before, and not everyone can be counted on to act correctly all the time. There may even be some sort of tradeoffs involved, where (e.g.) we pollute a little to make solar panels, which then gives us a non-carbon-producing method of power generation. If your criterion for taking action is universal adherence (or universal penury?) then you must be considered to be deliberately choosing inaction regardless of the consequences.

      I believe that all humans care about our planet. Earth is our home, after all. I believe that you do care about the world and the people in it, and I speculate that this is actually a strong reason for your denial: if it were true, it would compel action. I'm sorry to say that the science is unequivocal. We've tried like hell to prove this theory wrong, and for a long while we thought we had, but this is actually the way the world works, and the issue of who gets to ride which airplane has absolutely no bearing on that. I'm sorry if you think that the political consequences of this science won't work out well for you. I suspect that things will actually end up better than both of us fear. But arguing with global warming is like arguing with the tide. At some level I imagine that you know this, and that you know you're making a bad argument. I don't want you to stop fighting whatever political fight you think needs to be made, but I would suggest you not dispute climate science -- unless it is with rigorous measurements. Making ad hominem and tu quoque arguments against nonscientists is also not particularly clever.

      Why is it that all climate change responses are about people giving up personal freedom and living under more restrictive laws and any change that really wouldn't be noticed by people is not really fought for...?

      Confirmation bias. Also, it's not necessary to fight for things that don't affect people's lives.You also do not have a personal right to pollute, and on that basis I would suggest not taking up any supposed issues of freedom. Your personal philosophy may rank some freedom as more important that society's freedom not to be polluted, but you're not going to be able to convince anyone of

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    38. Re: The end is near? by Bartles · · Score: 1

      No. They aren't.

    39. Re: The end is near? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The ones that aren't in denial are noticing. The rest will notice soon after.

    40. Re:The end is near? by vinlud · · Score: 1

      Because it is not that economically viable in the long term, the price of solar and wind has been dropping tremendously in the last few years and is expected to continue to do so. Nuclear has to deal both with a lot of regulations (and rightfully so) and is simply more expensive with the current trends. I have nothing in itself against nuclear, but its simply more expensive. This will hopefully change in the longer run with fusion.

      Another point is why would you switch your country from being dependent on another foreign country with oil to replace it with uranium when you can become completely energy independent by using solar combined with the developing energy storage options, or fusion in the future.

      --
      Repeat after me: We are all individuals
    41. Re: The end is near? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The last of the great denier arguments is "Well, too late to do anything, might as well burn, baby, burn."

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    42. Re: The end is near? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In other words, your argument is that the EPA was found by a court to have overstepped its bounds once, and certain people (specifically, some of those who like to privatize their profits and socialize their costs) don't like the EPA.

      We've seen some ranchers recently destroy Federal property and irreplaceable Native American archaeology because their whining about not being able to graze wherever wasn't heard. I'm not impressed.

      Next in: Wall Street crooks cheer the downfall of the SEC.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    43. Re: The end is near? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In other words, farmers who trash the ecosystem to make money complain when they're told not to. We need wetlands more than we need people to come in and destroy them.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    44. Re:The end is near? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There's a Facebook meme going around that "Donald Trump" anagrams to "Lord Dampnut". I believe that should be just as acceptable to use.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    45. Re:The end is near? by pastafazou · · Score: 1

      New advances in technology continue to drop costs and allow development of previously too hard to recover reserves. That trend is unlikely to change any time soon. We definitely have enough to keep us going for a century, and as I said, nuclear technology will continue to advance apace.

    46. Re:The end is near? by JWW · · Score: 1

      I don't know where you get the impression I'm disagreeing with you.

      My personal opinion is that widespread adoption of Nuclear power is THE answer to solving climate change. I like wind and solar power too, but that whole "constantly available" thing is a struggle for those technologies to get past. Zero emissions is zero emissions that means no coal plants that means either we pave the world with the current tech solar panels or we use nuclear.

      So I'm really talking about doing what needs to be done instead of passing a bunch of laws and/or passing around a bunch of money (ie. carbon credits).

      And yes my dig on Gore and Leo is not key to solving a problem, but dammit, I'd like the people stating that this is a problem ACTING like they know its a problem and showing it in how they act.

      Right now Gore and DiCaprio come across like people telling us how horribly awful second hand smoke is while lighting up yet another cigar....

    47. Re:The end is near? by Ferretman · · Score: 1

      Nothing wrong with Florida that a few feet of global warming won't fix.

      Ferret

      --
      Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
    48. Re:The end is near? by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 1

      The problem with a "cost" analysis is that you're comparing apples and oranges. If it was only a matter of cost/kWh then solar and wind would be fine and dandy. There'd be no question that that would be the way to go.

      Unfortunately running on unreliable sources like solar and wind doesn't work as our use of the grid presumes stability of delivery and being able to follow load. We're already having problems in Europe due to wind having to be dumped at negative cost on the market (i.e. they produce more wind than we can use); wind being especially problematic in that the power delivered varies as the cube of wind speed. You only get nominal power in a very narrow range of wind speeds.

      Now, of course, these aren't problems that are insurmountable, but it would take a substantial change of the grid with large scale long range interconnects (to even out differences in wind/sun) and storage (to further even out e.g. day/night). These costs are substantial, and must be factored in when talking wind/solar.

      As it stands now we have the figures already. Sweden with a hydro+nuclar mix where we've switched as much to electricity as possible we emit roughly half as much CO2 per capital as the "forerunner" Germany. If we factor in industry production we're even better of. Germany's getting rid of nuclear means in actual fact that they have tied themselves to lignite coal (the largest source of particulate pollution in Sweden is actually coal power refuse blowing here from Germany and Poland). They pay about three times as much for electricity as we do, and hence do not use it if it can be avoided. They use fossil fuel for as much as is practical. (I.e. heating their houses etc.) Same is true of the Denmark to a large extent.

      But with the current government here, they'll finish off our nuclear in short order, and we'll be changing our energy mix to the same dirty mix as Germany in short order. Don't you worry... All in the name of becoming "green". It's enough to make you bloody weep.

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
  7. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's your broom. Now push back that ocean.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. ..climate for three and a half decades.. by SlOrbA · · Score: 1

    I surely hope that the data is representing more than 35 years for temperature variation. We can have a hybris and think everything is man made if we only look things in the scope of single human lifetime. I bet in the 1850's they believed that all the coal burning was the reason for the mini ice age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  9. Meanwhile in the ocean by MrKaos · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's been hot this summer, really hot so naturally, I'm catching some waves.

    The water is cold, icy cold and I'm only half joking when I say, 'now we know where the icebergs are melting to'. I know it's subjective, I posted this in previous years, however I have decades of experience in the ocean and I remember by month just how cold the water should feel for that time of year. My mental map of the way the ocean should feel is changing enough to notice.

    I can sustain a 2+ hour body surf if I have time. I had time the other day and could only stay in for an hour, it was that cold in the middle of summer on a 42C day.

    This used to be a pretty rare occurrence, now it is becoming more common at least to my local observations.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:Meanwhile in the ocean by rcharbon · · Score: 1

      Melted ice makes cold water.

    2. Re:Meanwhile in the ocean by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that's what you said last year.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  10. Evil Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Of course it's all the fault of evil humans ('evil humans' = Western civilization) and could not possibly be due to undiscovered natural climate mechanisms. We thoroughly understand how planetary climates work, that's why scientists never announce new climate mechanism discoveries, because all is known that is knowable regarding the Earth's climate system.

    Anyone who voices a different view or attempts to present conflicting data should be persecuted, ridiculed, prosecuted, and thrown in prison because they are evil. It is imperative that we cripple Western civilization as it alone is solely responsible for CAGW because Western CO2 is evil, but Chinese/Indian CO2 is climate-neutral due to not being generated by evil Western civilization.

    1. Re: Evil Humans by PoopJuggler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How exactly does combating climate change "cripple Western civilization"? I think what you really mean is that it inconveniences you and threatens your greedy opulent lifestyle as a privileged species. How can you possibly live without hamburgers and your Ford F350?

    2. Re:Evil Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Building solar panels, wind farms and nuclear power plants will cripple western civilization?
      News to me.
      Meanwhile, we know that CO2 traps heat, we know we're pumping it into the atmosphere, we know that levels are rising.
      Why not do something about it?
      Do you shit in a toilet, or just in a corner, because the smell won't kill you anyway?

    3. Re: Evil Humans by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      How exactly does combating climate change "cripple Western civilization"? I think what you really mean is that it inconveniences you and threatens your greedy opulent lifestyle as a privileged species. How can you possibly live without hamburgers and your Ford F350?

      He doesn't even have to do that. Cows can be de-methane'd with seaweed. Or probably we could come up with a GM fix for their gut biota. That Ford can be made out of Aluminum (it's about to be) and it can be a hybrid (likewise.) Some things will become more expensive, and some redundant things have to go away, and lots of things have to get better — no more disposable garbage electronics, for example. Now THOSE are killing the fucking planet.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Evil Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not about western vs chinese co2. It's about western technological advancements leading the world like we have since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We can't force China to stop producing co2, but when we develop more efficient ways to fuel our lifestyle than fossil fuels, the rest of the world will follow. We started this mess, and we need to finish it and fix the problems that were created by our previous generation of technological development.

    5. Re: Evil Humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      American immigrants had it easy. An empty (well, after all the natives were disposed of) land well stocked with pretty much all the plants and animals they had back in Europe, and a mild climate.
      They just walked in and took over.

      Now, the European immigrants to the Horn of Africa and Australia were truly tough bastards.

    6. Re: Evil Humans by heathenistics · · Score: 1

      How exactly does combating climate change "cripple Western civilization"? I think what you really mean is that it inconveniences you and threatens your greedy opulent lifestyle as a privileged species. How can you possibly live without hamburgers and your Ford F350?

      Yup, we absolutely need cherry-picking "scientific" studies that are funded by billionaires who consume exponentially more natural resources than entire towns to tell those of us who live significantly limited lifestyles (99% of us) that we are to blame for climate change and that we all should pay to cover for their environmental malfeasance. Yup, everything nowadays is every single human being's fault, except those that fund the studies.

    7. Re: Evil Humans by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

      Sorry, I didn't intend it as a flame. If you need a big truck, ok, but there's tons of people who buy giant trucks just for fashion. Those are the people I was talking about -- the people who could easily live without one.

    8. Re:Evil Humans by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      To translate your argument, "I shouldn't be inconvenienced because there's a distant possibility that scientists will find a remarkable mechanism in which the climate really isn't influenced by CO2 but by another factor that just happens to track it somewhat. Oh, and I like to babble and make crap up and pretend people I don't like said it."

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  11. Re: I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Actually, I withdraw my previous comment. Venice DOES seem to have major problems with flooding, something that will be very expensive to fix and will likely cause massive loss of life especially when combined with natural disasters, like tsunamis.

  12. Re:More fake climate news by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Funny

    By slashdot. Winter is usually the off season for these nuts. Not hard to drum up a leftist hysteric whenever they need one.

    Hey, is that you Donald?

  13. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Maritz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's weird to see the cultural difference between comments here and on Ars Technica. Ars seems to have a better educated and less politicised readership. Slashdot mostly doesn't accept climate change, apparently because they don't want to. The amazing power of motivated reasoning all over the comments on these articles. Weirdly, there is a dark matter denialism at work as well - but that one isn't going to fuck the planet up, so who cares.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  14. There's a bug in your code by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    It's still a friggin' simulation. Occam's Razor says it's a bug in your code.

    1. Re:There's a bug in your code by budgenator · · Score: 1

      It's still a friggin' simulation. Occam's Razor says it's a bug in your code.

      Occam's Razor says the simplest answer tends to be correct, when your trying to model systems with multiple nonlinear dependant varibles; the simplest answer is any output is chaotic crap, no matter how good your code is.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    2. Re:There's a bug in your code by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Occam's Razor says the simplest answer tends to be correct, when your trying to model systems with multiple nonlinear dependant varibles; the simplest answer is any output is chaotic crap, no matter how good your code is.

      OK, tell you what, I'll model a chaotic simulation and you bet against me being right.

      The weather is chaotic and so unpredictable.

      Bet you $1000 that it doesn't snow on August 1 in London.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  15. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 1

    I always find this funny that so many studies say "The Arctic is warming and there should be no more ice cap by 2050". I remember some US scientists said there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013, and look at this graph. The arctic ice cap is currently a little over 13 million square km.

    Yes, it may be shrinking a little, but the sampling period is extremely short, compared to our planet's age. This can or cannot be caused by humans. But hey, anyway humans won't survive Earth, which is scheduled to disappear anyway in the next 5 billion years... Unless we disseminate elsewhere in our universe, we're doomed.

  16. Has anyone here tried to analyze the data? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In this Science Friday interview, DJ Patil says that the climate data is available for anyone to download and that the results are so overwhelmingly clear that anyone can analyse the data and see the human impact. I never thought this type of analysis was so accessible. I am wondering if anyone here on slashdot has tried to look at the data themselves.

  17. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

    We only have about a billion years before the Earth is uninhabitable though...so we'd better get cracking!

  18. Of course the warming is caused by humans... by Faw · · Score: 1

    ... specially those scientist living there warming the place, if they moved out it would obviously cool down again.

  19. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the other hand, were Greenland's ice sheet to totally melt, we get roughly 24 ft of sea level rise. So if only 10 % of it melts, we get 2.4 ft rise. There goes Miami and most of southern Florida, Louisiana is...reduced. Virginia can kiss Norfolk goodbye. And if that rise also causes a shift in ocean currents, we can expect more effects.

    So please, let's gamble with the future. What do we have to lose, eh?

  20. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

    More confusing is the sentiment that it isn't the end of the world because humans probably won't go extinct, since some hunter gatherers will keep on going. I realize pro-nationalist sentiment can go too far, but not to have any attachment at all to one's culture strikes me as odd.

  21. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ars is a sickening bastion of groupthink, though.

    You must be new here, coward. (So go away. We have enough cowards already. More than enough, in fact. We're drowning in them. And they don't believe in climate change because it's scary.)

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  22. The Earth will do just fine by WormholeFiend · · Score: 2

    Once the humans are gone.

    1. Re:The Earth will do just fine by Bratch · · Score: 1

      Yep, it's about time for a good sized asteroid impact.

      --
      Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
  23. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Slashdot mostly doesn't accept climate change, apparently because they don't want to.

    Don't mistake a few very loud voices for the opinion of the majority.

    Only in a Republic does the volume at which you can project mean more than the number of people holding opinions.

  24. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    The article is talking about summer ice cap, and you're showing a graph of the winter. Current low record for extend of arctic summer ice is about 3.5 million km, from september 2013. Granted, 2013 wasn't ice-free, but that was an early estimate from one overexcited scientist. We're getting close, though, but the exact year depends on a lot on the particular weather.

  25. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by muffen · · Score: 4, Informative

    I always find this funny that so many studies say "The Arctic is warming and there should be no more ice cap by 2050". I remember some US scientists said there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013, and look at this graph. The arctic ice cap is currently a little over 13 million square km. Yes, it may be shrinking a little, but the sampling period is extremely short, compared to our planet's age. This can or cannot be caused by humans. But hey, anyway humans won't survive Earth, which is scheduled to disappear anyway in the next 5 billion years... Unless we disseminate elsewhere in our universe, we're doomed.

    You are not taking into account any changes between then and now, but even worse, you have no data on the depth of the ice, only on the area. The square kilometers says nothing about the volume, this however, does: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/q...

    Just because one model (and your BBC article was about ONE model which contradicted other model) didn't accurately predict when all the ice will be gone, doesn't mean that you should throw all models in the bin. Right now, most models say that the ice will be mostly gone somewhere between 2040 - 2100.

  26. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This has nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I find it interesting how Conservatives have started to use the term "Politically Correct" to mean "thing I disagree with." Here it means, "scientific." He disagrees with the scientific opinion on the matter, but since it's something he opposes politically, then it is - to him - the "politically correct" opinion that humans cause global warming.

  27. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better a "coward" than an attention-whoring idiot with an embarrassing username.

    In order for my username to be embarrassing, I would have to be embarrassed by other people's cultural ignorance.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  28. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    So, if this sudden warming is part of a natural cycles, what's causing it ? Why is it happening now ?

  29. "non-natural" by Malc · · Score: 1

    Whatever happened to "unnatural" or simply "abnormal"? Why do people keep insisting on using "non" as a prefix?

  30. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Joce640k · · Score: 1

    Call me when the sea level actually rises more than a few cm.

    Wouldn't you prefer it not to?

    Venice seems to cope with much more than that.

    No they don't. They're in constant panic and expensive shoring-up operations.

    Plus: The Mediterranean will be among the last to rise - not many places for ice to melt into it..

    --
    No sig today...
  31. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which part of that means it's perfectly OK to dump billions of tons of CO2 into the air now?

    --
    No sig today...
  32. Ice Caps by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, it may be shrinking a little, but the sampling period is extremely short, compared to our planet's age. This can or cannot be caused by humans

    This is very true. However, in this case we are certain that it is, in fact, being caused by human activity. The Keeling curve leaves very little room for interpretation.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Ice Caps by fatwilbur · · Score: 1

      But what is exactly so alarming about this? We're talking ice that remains frozen ALL YEAR ROUND here.. I have no doubts most people commenting here have no idea how cold this planet really is and live in warm climates. f anyone here realistically thinks we're in danger of having a unbearably hot climate in anywhere but small portions of the planet, I have some bridges to sell you.

    2. Re:Ice Caps by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      There's speculation, I don't know how credible, about the Persian Gulf area becoming uninhabitable. That wouldn't be the downfall of civilization, but it would be a serious problem.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  33. Re: I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1, Informative

    " Venice DOES seem to have major problems with flooding, something that will be very expensive to fix"

    Mainly because Venice is sinking:
    http://www.livescience.com/191...

  34. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    Melting of Arctic sea ice is already causing an increase in precipitation in the region:
    https://www.dartmouth.edu/pres...

  35. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    Really hot? Doubtful. 1.2C per doubling of CO2 according to the actual physics. Any additional warming would have to come from a positive feedback loop, which is an unproven theory and doubtful if one thinks about it. If our climate is so sensitive to CO2 increases and there were a positive feedback loop, a single large volcano could trigger a runaway climate catastrophe.

  36. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    The reference is from audio recording studios.

    Not quite. The reference is to theater, which is something people had in the days before Netflix.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  37. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Bongo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You're entitled to that opinion. And, if so many people can suffer denialism, how do you or I know that we aren't also suffering from some sort of political bias? I mean it is funny isn't it, that it is always the other people who are the stupid deluded ones. I am, for example, reading a book at the moment that goes into the massive scientific cockup that was nutritional science over the last fifty years. The book got a review in the BMJ to the effect that, admitting indeed that, we all thought science was this clear headed thing and actually, there can be screw ups that ruin an entire field for decades and decades. If you want a fact, people are fallible and whole fields of enquiry can fail spectacularly whilst lots of intelligent smart and skilled people in the field confidently cock it up. That is just a fact of life, that it sometimes happens. So rather than just blast other views as denialists, why not be a little less certain? For me, once a field starts calling others "denialists" then it has become closed minded and loses the self-correcting nature that is supposed to be the reason why we trust science in the first place. It *might* have got the answer right, but once you start blasting others as denialists, we can no longer know whether it can be trusted, because the self-correciton has been replaced with dogma. As I say, we KNOW, empirically, from experience, that whole fields can and do screw up. I will still go to the doctor when I get ill, but I won't blindly trust anything he or she says about nutrition.

  38. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You are incorrect. It is "politically correct" to fully support the global warming alarmism. But ACTUAL SCIENCE calculates only 1.2C of warming for every doubling of CO2. At our current level of 400ppm CO2, that means pumping it up to 1600ppm will only add an additional 2.4C. The "politically correct" version of global warming says that there are additional positive feedbacks that will cause much more than 2.4C of warming. But these positive feedbacks are NOT ACTUAL SCIENCE. They are theorized, disputed, and unproven. And logically, if our climate has positive feedbacks to increasing CO2, our planet should have been completely fried a long time ago.

  39. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    remnants of 2016 El Nino? Or maybe it's accumulated pollution from China: http://peninsulaclarion.com/st...

  40. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    All this variability, it's so unnatural!

  41. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 4, Informative

    I always find this funny that so many studies say "The Arctic is warming and there should be no more ice cap by 2050". I remember some US scientists said there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013, and look at this graph. The arctic ice cap is currently a little over 13 million square km.

    Yes, it may be shrinking a little, but the sampling period is extremely short, compared to our planet's age. This can or cannot be caused by humans. But hey, anyway humans won't survive Earth, which is scheduled to disappear anyway in the next 5 billion years... Unless we disseminate elsewhere in our universe, we're doomed.

    How can you link to a text that says "could be ice-free in summers" and claim it says "there would be no ice (full stop). The ice cap is not "shrinking a little", it's shrinking massively. "Currently" it's the middle of winter, when the sea ice is always expanding to nearly the same level (basically, it covers the arctic until it runs out of ocean). In the arctic ocean, the summer minimum is the most important measurement. That said, the arctic ice has been at or near record low for the entire winter, and for good measure in this year antarctic sea ice also is unusually low. The newly formed first-year ice is so thin that it melts very quickly in the summer, probably giving us another record low, and leading to more heating, as the sunlight is absorbed by the water, not reflected by the ice.

    You have a point about the 5 billion years, but most of us have a somewhat shorter perspective - and even those with the long perspective may want to give us enough time to escape this doomed planet before things get really ugly.

    --

    Stephan

  42. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It does not matter whether humans are the cause of climate change.

    Humans are the only ones who can do anything about climate change because nature will not.

  43. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by Gilgaron · · Score: 2

    Not necessarily... past mechanisms that locked in carbon (like lignin) are no longer effective because the biome figured out how to make enzymes that break down lignin. So, fewer peat bogs to sequester it away. The anaerobes were victims of their own success in their oxygen waste products that eventually lead to their demise. So, it is perfectly feasible that CO2 levels could ramp up again and wipe out complex life until some microbes start making something they can't break down yet with it. Maybe we'll get lucky and multicellularity will be a big hit again.

  44. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    remnants of 2016 El Nino? Or maybe it's accumulated pollution from China

    I mean the warming of the last 40 years, not just this year.

  45. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    It's open at one end.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  46. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Joce640k · · Score: 2

    I remember some US scientists said there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013,

    Sure, some scientists said that, the TV/media decided it was a good story, and that's the part that you heard.

    All climate scientists are therefore dumbasses, right?

    PS: The press was probably paid to make a big deal over that story. The climate change denial you're hearing is a well funded organization. Not a conspiracy either, one with actual names, published details of bank transfers, etc.

    https://encrypted.google.com/s...

    --
    No sig today...
  47. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    The same thing that caused it last time, a mix of planetary wobble and solar activity

    Solar activity has been down lately, and wobbles are too slow or too insignificant.

  48. Re: Paging William Shatner by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Historically, the artic, has, Been ice free.

    Pretty low on commas too - they're all in your post.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  49. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Gorobei · · Score: 1

    I always find this funny that so many studies say "The Arctic is warming and there should be no more ice cap by 2050". I remember some US scientists said there would be no ice in the Arctic by 2013

    Of course, the article says nothing of the kind:

    Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers

  50. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by tbannist · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not "this weather is climate", it's "this weather could not possibly have happened without climate change".

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  51. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

    "Wouldn't you prefer it not to?"

    I'm not sure. Seasteading seems like a massive opportunity just waiting to happen for the person who owns a styrofoam billet store.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  52. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

    fight CO2! Go NUCLEAR!

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  53. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

    So we move the capitol of our country to Topeka, and continue on as normal.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  54. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Nite_Hawk · · Score: 2

    It's not about the answers, it's about the process.

  55. Re:delusional scientists and movement by Topwiz · · Score: 1

    Talk about delusional, we have Neil Degrass Tyson supporting the human caused global warming alarm-ism and saying that the universe is likely just a simulation. If we are in a simulation, does it matter if the earth is screwed? The entity running the simulation could decide to reboot anytime they want.

  56. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When all of the scientists agree, either science has been destroyed or reality has asserted itself.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  57. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by heathenistics · · Score: 2

    Ars is a sickening bastion of groupthink, though.

    I agree. I can't read the comments there anymore. If people disagree with the article, they get lambasted by The Ars Borg. That's becoming the "increasingly non-natural" norm in society.

  58. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that the delay while we debate this issues is costly. The cost for new infrastructure is cheaper the sooner you start. The potential risk is to the tune of trillions of dollars, a major fraction of GDP, and extremely disruptive to business was and society. The threat of this problem, just fiscally, warrants attention at least equivalent to the other big US economic issues, eg military and social service spending.

      It's also deteriorate US leadership in the world and doubling down on dead industries (fossils are dying for increasingly non agw reasons, eg coal is not competitive, EVs will diminish oil demand) in a world that is moving on. Economies like China are going to control the Industries of tomorrow, control that the US obviously takes for granted today

    We are giving away if not out right destroying future prosperity and leadership. Add to this new policy of provoking allies, trade protectionism, ceding trade relationships, and threatening military invention, defying courts on immigration. What is the play here, to be come the isolated asshole no one likes?

  59. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And where do you think this snow is coming from?
    If there is more snow dropped than normal here, there must have been more water evaporated than normally somewhere else.
    What could have caused that? Could it be that other places are warming up more than usual?
    Naahhh.. Cannot be....

  60. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Narrow enough, You could probably place a lock at the straights of Gibraltar if there was a desire. Even as far back as world war 2, Germany had envisioned doing such a thing if they won the war- they also planed on lowering the water level of the Mediterranean substantially.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  61. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    Historically, the artic, has, Been ice free. If you look at the history of the Vikings, you will notice an odd naming of Greenland.

    Greenland wasn't named Greenland because it was green, it was named Greenland much for the same reason the US is full of small towns named "Greenville", "Mt Pleasant", "Pleasantville", "Spring Valley". It would have been hard getting a colony going if they called it "Frozen Piece of Shitland". By giving it a pleasant sounding name they hoped to attract people to come move there, as, for rather obvious reasons, most Danes were reluctant to move there.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  62. fucking liar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "Climate Change" or "Global Warming"?

    The Global Warming hoax was brought into the public arena by a sleazy politician named Al Gore. It was based on "science" at the University of Angola, which was later proven to be based upon falsified data.

    Now they call it "Climate Change".

    Regardless of what you call it, we (you and I) are not responsible for it.

    Climate change is a natural phenomenon, although it is likely be being accelerated by large corporations (the oil industry) in an effort to melt ice and thaw the ground in northern regions in an attempt to extract more oil - to fuel the so-called "war on terror" (aka Zionist terrorism and against Arabic peoples).

    Bullshit.

    Frank Luntz invented the bullshit euphemism to hide Global Warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz , https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

  63. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, Ironically, the worry is global warming will make Europe colder (it is at the same latitude as Canada but is saved the brutal cold because of warming ocean currents).

    If the ice melts, especially if it melts quickly, the relative lower salinity that results in the Northern Atlantic could screw up the ocean currents. That warm water that makes Europe warmer than say, Mongolia and Siberia no longer warms Europe. Europe freezes over like much of Canada.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  64. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

    Sure, there is somewhat of cultural difference. Sarcasm/Humour without-a-stupid-ass-picture doesn't go over very well on Ars. Both places are overflowing with Arm-chair experts. At least some of the /. experts are actual experts though. Granted it's much harder to get a visible comment on Slashdot. And if you sway from the popular opinion, you are much more likely to get voted down into oblivion on Ars.

    Whereas Slashdot is much more likely to suppress what you said entirely. If an article gets a post count near 100, not all comments will load. Logged-out AC's appear to be the most suppressed, but even regular posters can't be seen at all. You need to "Load More Comments" over and over again. Fucking Idiotic.

  65. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by fortfive · · Score: 1

    Coverage is only part of the equation. There's also thickness. And reflectivity.

  66. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Jodka · · Score: 4, Funny

    Historically, the artic, has, Been ice free.

    Nice try, Mr. Shatner.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature.
  67. Re:some crap models produce crap by budgenator · · Score: 1

    if the model simulation is saying 50C higher, I'd get a better model, some fruit loop must have messed with the parameters.

    Then again all the present simulation models are fucking shit, biased to run way too hot. and don't model reality correctly. stop adding dumb fucking parameter kludges.

    If they didn't use dumb fucking parameter kludges, the models wouldn't be able to even process fast enough to keep up with real time, forget about predicting the future.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  68. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by CrashNBrn · · Score: 2

    The Ars "Blocklist" is pretty pathetic compared to Slashdot's Frenemies, which is really well implemented.

  69. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    If you look at the history of the Vikings, you will notice an odd naming of Greenland

    The Greenland ice sheet is 100,000 years old, so it was there when the Vikings visited it. The Vikings did find some green parts along the edges, but these are green today as well. See this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  70. The Arrival - It's aliens by mrflash818 · · Score: 1
    --
    Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
  71. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by admin7087 · · Score: 1

    Out of curiosity, how easy would it be for a relatively developed nation like the US to build damns to protect coastal cities? How much would they cost if there is a 2.4 ft. rise? Does somebody know how to calculate this?

  72. Re:some crap models produce crap by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    if the model simulation is saying 50C higher, I'd get a better model, some fruit loop must have messed with the parameters.

    No, it's saying 50F higher. And since we've already seen 30-50F high anomalies this winter, the model output is perfectly plausible.

  73. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Bartles · · Score: 1

    So how much has actually melted?

  74. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    Yes, and what do they find?

  75. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's because /. has become a home for right wing shills. I think they monitor it 24/7.

  76. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Bartles · · Score: 1

    Ok, so some scientists and the TV media said that. Well, some scientists and the TV/media are saying it again. Why should we totally trust them this time?

  77. Re:if they "marvel" by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    They can't be very good scientists if they "marvel" at long predicted and long observed gradual changes in climate

    The particular changes this arctic winter have not been long predicted, and aren't gradual.

  78. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by admin7087 · · Score: 1

    That's because most interesting personalities and intelligent readers/posters have left ./ quite a while ago already. I have been on slashdot basically since it was founded under a large number of different user names and used to contribute a lot. But it has become so bad, full of trolls and idiots that I post much rarer and don't even read most submissions any longer, and I'm using this throwaway user name most of the time. Reddit and hackernews are much better, because they have better karma systems that are more resilient against trolls, voting rings and blatant idiocy. Slashdot is dead.

  79. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

    > This can or cannot be caused by humans.

    And cancer can and can not be caused by smoking. So go ahead and smoke. Please. Lots, and rapidly. Thanks.

  80. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Greenland has been losing about 270 gigatons of ice per year lately, but the pace is likely to accelerate as the warming continues.

  81. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    This time they're making a prediction for next week, not 5 years in the future.

  82. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Bartles · · Score: 1

    Can you state that as a percentage please?

  83. Re:I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Narrow enough, You could probably place a lock at the straights of Gibraltar if there was a desire. Even as far back as world war 2, Germany had envisioned doing such a thing if they won the war- they also planed on lowering the water level of the Mediterranean substantially.

    Look, some 10,000 thousand years ago there was something called Lake Agassiz, in today's Alberta. It was held in place by an ice dam. The dam collapsed in a matter of days. There was a *huge* amount of water. Where did the water go? It was enough to separate Britain from the continent and, going through Gibraltar, to create the Black Sea. Look it up!

  84. Just a point which I think has been lost . . . by mmell · · Score: 1

    Never mind the cause (which seems obvious to me) - what can we do to stabilize our planet's ecology? It may cost a fortune, but it strikes me as money well spent, and think of all the jobs it could create!

  85. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by epine · · Score: 1

    And logically, if our climate has positive feedbacks to increasing CO2, our planet should have been completely fried a long time ago.

    This is your standard of careful thinking?

    The system under discussion has hundreds or thousands of important degrees of freedom in excess of the three-body problem. Between any pair of state space regions of transient stability (small=10,000 years, large=100 million years) there could be an entire Game of Thrones worth of non-linear cast members.

    It's not like the first non-linearity results in Space: 1999, where first the moon leaves the earth's orbit, and a day later, the moon departs the entire solar system.

    Several episodes of the first series hinted that the Moon's journey was influenced (and perhaps initiated) by a "mysterious unknown force", which was guiding the Alphans toward an ultimate destiny.

    There's a big difference between non-linearity and the mysterious unknown force guiding the Alphans toward an ultimate destiny.

    For real x, e^x is non-linear and so is e^ix. What a puzzler! The first form is the one you (and the Alphans) invoked, the second is the one more likely to govern the earth's climate, in the large.

  86. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    Do it yourself.

  87. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by magarity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not about the answers, it's about the process.

    And the most important part of the process is not assuming the answer ahead of time.

  88. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because you can follow the money. Our nutritional science was cocked up by those with money. There's not a "fat" industry, but there is a sugar industry. Sugar is literally the product. In the field of climate change, who is the one with nearly all of the money: the folks who deny climate change exists or the scientists who claim it does exist?

    There's another thing going on with climate change that you don't see in nutrition. Sugar is making us fat. Take a 400 lb person. That's like the sugar industry coming in and saying "How do we know that scale works? Scales work with gravity and aren't an accurate representation of total real mass. How do we know this person's bone density and size isn't higher than normal?" Those who deny climate change is a legitimate phenomenon that is happening constantly assail obvious fact such as measurements. Climate scientists are becoming worried that the Trump Administration will shut off the stream of temperature data et al coming from the EPA and NOAA for these scientists to use. Why? If science is to be self-correcting and it turns out this whole climate change thing is overblown, it will be shown with data. It will never be shown without data.

    People who have been hammering this point home for nearly 30 years are sick of it. Because to deny these data and to deny these trends, it takes willful ignorance, most likely due to financial incentive. And there is plenty of evidence for that. There is 99% certainty that a person who denies climate change is financially incentivized to do so.

  89. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by deadwill69 · · Score: 1

    I don't know where you live but it's not winter in Antarctica:

    "On Antarctica's coast, where our stations are located, there are usually a couple of weeks in mid-winter (around 21 June) when the sun does not rise, and a couple of weeks in summer around Christmas when there is 24-hour sunlight"

    http://www.antarctica.gov.au/a...

    But I might have not kept my calendar up to date.

  90. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by tim620 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Global warming is one of many results of man-made climate change. Both terms have been used interchangeably by the media since the mid 1970's and they are not the same thing. Man-made climate change is very real and is a proven fact. Not just because Al Gore created a documentary about 10 years ago. But, because thousands of climate scientists worldwide have come to the same conclusion. The only "hoax" is that so many conservative politicians, oil companies and conservative talk show hosts have tried to counter real science and unfortunately many people believe them and politicize it (which gets in the way of real scientific research).

  91. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    So please, let's gamble with the future. What do we have to lose, eh?

    Well of course anyone with money and power to protect are going to do that, they only care about what happens while they're alive, not what happens hundreds of years from now, they figure that's someone else's problem, why should they care? Then there's the religious types who are absolutely certain that the World Is Coming To An End Real Soon Now anyway, so again, why should they care? It's all part of 'gods plan' or somesuch nonsense, this Earth and this Existence is all supposed to be temporary so far as they're concerned. What's left are the rank-and-file citizens of countries all over the world, who have neither the time nor the education to understand what's going on; they're all too busy just trying to live their lives and have no time to worry about things that will happen hundreds of years from now, not with bills to pay, kids to raise, etc. So it's a hard sell to them.

  92. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by D00MSlayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you a an expert climatologist? or a geophysicist? or a oceanographer? Are you an expert in ANY field that covers climate change?

    No?

    Well... there are about 30,000+ scientists out there who wholeheartedly agree that global warming/man-made climate change is real.

    I'll take their side instead of some random know-it-all on the internet who thinks he knows better than the scientific community.

  93. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    Sure, because scientists can only answer a question once, are not allowed to revise it, otherwise they have no credibility, right? They have to be omniscient, like a god, and always know the Truth the first time, otherwise they know nothing, right?

    Wrong. You talk like you don't undestand how the scientific method works. If their theories never changed over time, that's when I'd start worrying that they were wrong. So far the trend has been the same, even if the magnitude of the projected effects has changed, and it's not like there's just one or two climatologists saying what they've been saying, there are many, and while they don't agree on all the details, the trend in what they're saying is in the same direction.

  94. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 2

    I don't know where you live but it's not winter in Antarctica:

    Well, good that you mention that. We were, however, talking about the arctic, where it is the middle of winter right now. In the antarctic, the situation is differently - every southern summer essentially all of the sea ice melts, and the winter maximum is the important indicator to track. This is because we have the arctic ocean, mostly surrounded by land (which limits sea ice growth in winter, as the ice mostly runs out of sea to grow on), and the antarctic continent (which stops sea ice melting in summer, as the sea runs out of ice to melt).

    --

    Stephan

  95. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Troed · · Score: 1

    No.

    Case in point: Viking farms built ~1000 years ago are now being uncovered by the melting ice. Thus, the ice wasn't there when they were built.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05...

  96. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    It's weird to see the cultural difference between comments here and on Ars Technica. Ars seems to have a better educated and less politicised readership.

    I hadn't heard of that place, I think I'll start spending time over there; sounds like fewer trolls and idiots and more actual information and intelligent discussion. Thanks!

  97. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 1

    Be that as it may, ice sheets move, it's well known from contemporary histories that Greenland had large ice coverings when Erik the Red was exiled there and named it Greenland to try and get people to join him there from the warmer island of Iceland.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  98. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by shaitand · · Score: 1

    Cool

  99. Turn it up to 10 again by EndlessNameless · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I love how Slashdot champions every feat of engineering and scientific discovery, until it relates to climate.

    The cognitive dissonance is deafening.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  100. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

    Slashdot mostly doesn't accept climate change

    I don't think that's true at all, I think that in general the Slashdot readership is a little bit more well-informed than the general public, but that the people who strongly deny that humans cause climate change are more vocal about it. Apparently just under half of US adults think that climate change is caused by humans, but I would expect Slashdot to be a little bit higher than that. I don't see many people here (with accounts, anyway) who really represent the bottom third or so of Americans in terms of intelligence.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  101. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Troed · · Score: 1

    "ice sheets move"

    Are you disputing the well known warmer arctic temperatures during the Viking era? And if so, why do you deny known historic climate?

    Ice core and mollusk shell data suggests that from A.D. 800 to 1300, southern Greenland was much warmer than it is today.

    (Erik did name it Greenland since it sounded attractive, but it still was green. Greener than today)

    http://news.nationalgeographic...

  102. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by lactose99 · · Score: 1

    Apparently just under half of US adults think that climate change is caused by humans

    “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
    George Carlin

    --
    Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
  103. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by Mab_Mass · · Score: 1

    But ACTUAL SCIENCE calculates only 1.2C of warming for every doubling of CO2.

    I'm not sure where you're getting your science. Your claim presents a logarithmic response of temperature on CO2, which appears to be pulled out of your ass.

    Take a look at Figure SPM.5 (b) in the IPCC report. Looks like the effect is a linear increase in temperature as a function of total CO2 emissions.

  104. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Rakarra · · Score: 1

    I'd hate to see the ceasing of the Monsoon simultaneously combined with the stopping of the Golf-stream.

    I don't play golf, so I don't particularly care about that. My in-laws would be crushed, though.

  105. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Rakarra · · Score: 1

    I believe the traditional response is, "You first!"

    Sorry, the enlightened are too important to kill off, they are the caretakers. It's the polluters and non-believers that they want dead.

  106. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by TemporalBeing · · Score: 1

    If you look at the history of the Vikings, you will notice an odd naming of Greenland

    The Greenland ice sheet is 100,000 years old, so it was there when the Vikings visited it. The Vikings did find some green parts along the edges, but these are green today as well. See this documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Funny since we also have evidence (f.e https://news.slashdot.org/comm...) that directly contradicts that. Guess it's really only 100,000 years old if you accept evolutionary theory over reality, and the purposeful redesign of geological information the late 1800's and early 1900's to better position evolution as reality, versus the known historic records that directly contradict purported science.

    --
    Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
  107. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Rob+Y. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the greenhouse effect is a lot more straightforward - and well understood - than the effects of various foods on health. Even the 'massive scientific cockup' in the area of nutritional science validates the scientific method - in that if new evidence proves it wrong, that new evidence is accepted and added to the body of knowledge.

    Nothing about the dynamics of climate change has been disproven. Yes, we don't know how fast it's happening and what the exact results will be, but to deny that it's happening is nonsense. There is such a thing as denialism. The most clear-cut cases are the ones where deep-pocketed interests have a stake in the denial - like the tobacco/lung cancer example. Certainly, corporate money pouring into unsuccessful attempts to counter scientific research would be a red flag, no?

    --
    Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  108. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by tim620 · · Score: 2

    Ars is a sickening bastion of groupthink, though.

    I agree. I can't read the comments there anymore. If people disagree with the article, they get lambasted by The Ars Borg. That's becoming the "increasingly non-natural" norm in society.

    I'm actually tired of the "group think" which deny's the fact of man-made climate change. It is real. It is a scientifically proven fact. That is the real reason you get lambasted for disagreeing. Your disagreement is a denial of facts.

  109. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 2

    No, that's HUNDREDS of thousands

  110. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

    Oh cry me a river
    When the facts contradict a popular sentiment, the sentiment must go
    You are committing "argumentum ad populum" or "Because people believe therefore:"
    STOP

  111. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A lot more than going carbon-free(which is estimated to be cheaper on the long run BTW).

  112. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For me, once a field starts calling others "denialists" then it has become closed minded and loses the self-correcting nature that is supposed to be the reason why we trust science in the first place.

    This sounds good in theory, but how does it work in practice. For the sake of illustration, consider the following.

    If calling somebody a denialist and disregarding them is bad, then what do you do with people who swear the Earth is flat? They demand speaking positions within (if not outright protest in front of) cartography and geography conferences, and want "fair representation" in the "bias media?"

    How do you handle people who swear they have discovered perpetual motion machines. There is free energy out there, and the only reason the Patent and Trade Office is suppressing their invention is the conspiracy perpetuated by the Big Energy committees.

    What is the proper way of handling those and similar groups?

    (Note, I'm not addressing the point of climate change... so don't respond with that topic or suggesting that I'm drawing an analogy between it and the above 2 topics.)

  113. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by vell0cet · · Score: 2

    Interesting you should talk about people moving. Migration from farming areas to cities seems to be the largest factor in the Syrian Civil War. The farm communities moved to the cities because of drought. There are many that link the severity of the droughts to climate change. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/

    I assume that when you say "we don't exactly have a shortage of land..." you assume that people who have to move will move to empty areas.

  114. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    The logarithmic response is correct, but the current best estimates put the warming at 3C per doubling of CO2. https://www.skepticalscience.c...

  115. Re:I'm confused by aicrules · · Score: 1

    Why did this AC get modded down? This is a legitimate question. They make a leap from "well we don't know why" straight to "must be human activity". Do you really have to wonder why there are "deniers" to something you claim is so irrefutable? Because you are disingenuous with how you present it. You say "climate change" is a thing, which it is. Climates change. Not as often as the weather, but they change. And that's how you ACT like you're stating it when you stare slack jawed at the "idiocy" of the deniers. Yet in reality you're not saying anything about climate change by itself. You are ALWAYS inferring that the major driver is human activity and therefore to accept that you must accept changes to human activity. Not small changes, HUGE changes. Because if human activity is the primary or even a notable driver of climate change, then the change to make it better has to be global in scale. That means putting your Styrofoam or plastic cups in the recycle bin isn't even close to enough. It means fundamentally altering society. Which means chaos. Which will have a much more dramatic and dire effect on our individual ability to survive. And that's ASSUMING there is a way for humans to avert the type of climate change that makes our lives problematic at some unknown time in the future. But can you assume that without having actual hard data showing the causation (not correlation, not gut feel of your gaia meter) and therefore force change on the global population? You can try, but you'll get no where. Maybe that's what the rabid climate change enthusiast want. An unwinnable whinefest. Well Congratulations, you have it.

  116. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

    I'm betting the Slashdot readership is older... and that it has more engineers than Ars. I'm not completely sure, but engineers are supposed to be more conservative than scientists and artists, and I figure a forum full of grey haired engineers would be pretty conservative. I mean, you have some really low ID numbered folks with decades of experience and six figure incomes denying it here.

    They're not stupid people... it's just a reality that science has to be politically acceptable in order to be accepted at all. So long as conservatism exists, it'll be debated. So long as it's debated on political merits, there will always be some doubts from 1/2 of the total population. And so long as that is true, we'll be too divided to take any meaningful action on it when we still can.

  117. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    I mean the main inland ice sheet is 100,000 years old. Obviously, the edges of Greenland are much more sensitive to small temperature fluctuations and local climate changes.

  118. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by shaitand · · Score: 1

    "I assume that when you say "we don't exactly have a shortage of land..." you assume that people who have to move will move to empty areas."

    Who knows what Syrian infrastructure is like in rural areas. In the US those places are just less expensive to live in ;) Whatever gains you get from infrastructure you lose in privacy, limitations of activity you can engage in, ridiculously higher costs for inferior living conditions, pollution, etc. If the rural populations here all moved to the cities the urban majority would be at a loss for how to marginalize the other 49% of the country in arguments about redistricting but I doubt it will trigger a civil war.

  119. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You should read articles before linking them.

    "At Nipaatsoq, blowing glacial sands covered the farm in the early 1400's, sealing it until 1990, when two hunters reported seeing ancient wood protruding from an eroded stream bank.".

    It wasn't uncovered by melting ice. It was buried under sand that the wind blew on top of it. Also

    "Today the edge of Greenland's ice cap is only six miles from the old farm site. But in the mid-14th century, it probably was far closer."

    There was more ice back then than today, not less.

  120. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Since all the "scientists" refuse to offer some basic math, here it is.
    Since the density of solid ice is irrelevant in seawater level calulations based on the assumption that it has melted, I interpret the "270 gigatons" as 270,000,000,000 cubic meters of water.
    The wet surface area of the earth is roughly 3.61 x 10^14 square meters.
    The claim of 24 feet of sea level rise is roughly 8 meters of depth.
    If the water level were to rise vertically and gain no more potential volume (meaning, this is a wild underestimate), 8 meters of ocean depth would require roughly 2.89 x 10^15 cubic meters more water than the oceans currently hold.

    2.7 x 10^11 is roughly 0.009% of 2.89 x 10^15.

    Since my estimate for water volume due to increased depth is wildly low, the actual relative volume of "270 gigatons" is significantly lower than 0.009% of the stated Greenland ice sheet's mass.

  121. Even if climate change is not happening... by AnthonywC · · Score: 1

    Doesn't mean we don't need to do something about reversing the destruction of the environment. Arguing whether climate change is almost a moot point from that perspective (although definitely not so for the coastal/island countries). I guess the general human as a species are too selfish and stupid to do anything until there is catastrophic failure all over the globe.

  122. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by dschiptsov · · Score: 1

    Climate became more volatile (using a hipster's term) there is not a single doubt about that. Some changes occur as a direct results of human activities - smogs in China and India, there is no doubt about this too. Increasing average temperatures in the last decade is an obvious fact, but there is no proof of the causes, only correlations. The question did it happen before, are there similar abnormally warm and snowless Novembers and Decembers on record. If so, it will be difficult to prove any causal relationships at all. BTW, statistics is no way to establish and prove causality - correlation is not a causation.

  123. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Kergan · · Score: 1

    There's contention on the actual effect of the currents themselves though:

    http://www.americanscientist.o...

  124. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Troed · · Score: 1

    Why are you under the impression that mid-14th century had anything to do when Greenland was warm, and the farm was built?

    Why is it important for you to deny known climatic history?

    Ice core and mollusk shell data suggests that from A.D. 800 to 1300, southern Greenland was much warmer than it is today. This means that when the Vikings first arrived, the Greenland name would make sense. But by the 14th century, maximum summer temperatures in Greenland had dropped.

    http://news.nationalgeographic...

  125. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    How much do you think it costs the Koch brothers and friends to keep forums like /. filled with pro fossil-fuel posts?

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  126. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    Nutritional Science almost doesn't exist. Almost all the "science" that we hear about is really opinion.

    Furthermore what "science" there was has been pushed by big companies with vested interests. In the AGW debate, the big money is on the other side.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  127. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by deadwill69 · · Score: 1

    My bad. I should have paid more attention.

  128. Re: I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by whoever57 · · Score: 1

    Mainly because Venice is sinking:

    Yeah, it's nice that you post a link and whatnot, but perhaps you should actually read it:

    "Venice subsided about 120 mm in the 20th century due to natural processes and groundwater extraction, in addition to a sea level rise of about 110 mm at the same time"

    So Venice's issues with flooding are almost equally caused by sinking and sea level rise. Not "Mainly .. sinking".

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  129. OT: The end is near? by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

    A perv, a con man and a fascist walk into a bar. The barman says: "What'll that be Mr President?"

    Sorry, but that'd be Mrs instead. And Hillary didn't win so it's not that funny.

    Not 100% sure about the fascist though, but I'd be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    1. Re:OT: The end is near? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Ah yes. Trump settled a fraud case for his university for $25 million, but Hillary's the fraud. #rightwinglogic

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  130. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by vell0cet · · Score: 2

    I wasn't necessarily saying that there will be a civil war. I was indicating that mass migration (for whatever reasons) could have unforeseen circumstances and then using the example of the (probable) climate related droughts causing migration of rural syrians into the cities.

    Also, if I'm following the thread correctly, the argument is being made that coastal, urban areas that may be threaten by sea-level would be moving to more rural, in land areas. I don't have no idea what that would cause.

  131. Re:if they "marvel" by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    QED Climate modeling has been and is a waste of money

  132. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    Don't be an evil asshole! If you start talking about long term trends, that pseudo-skeptics can't cherry pick their data!

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  133. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    BEcause no climatologist before you came along considered these factors.

    Be sure to pick up your Nobel Prize at the door, you super genius.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  134. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Kevoco · · Score: 1

    I'm trying to image how they type with fingers in both ears

  135. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Bartles · · Score: 1

    That's what I was getting at.

  136. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

    For Trump, it would be easy... he would just tell the ocean to pay for it.

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
  137. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Bartles · · Score: 1

    Sea levels have only risen about 20cm in the last 100 years. If Greenland had lost 10% of its ice, sea levels should have risen much more than that. The (unsourced) numbers don't add up.

  138. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

    24 foot of rise! EXCELLENT!!! My house will be beachfront property and all those rich bastards hogging all the current beach front property can suck it.

  139. The 'A' in AGW by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    No, we think it's a man-made issue because we're dumping gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere. In the 1850s (and for that matter the 1950s as well) it was generally assumed that the climate was, if not static, then cyclical, to where cold years were balanced out by warmer ones. Evidence that the climate had been vastly different was beginning to arise, and it's about that time that Ice Ages were considered to be pretty well proven. Also, in 1859 Tyndall measured the absorption of heat by various atmospheric gases, which was the foundation for Arrhenius' 1896 paper describing the carbon dioxide theory of climate change. There were other theories of climate change, and at that time no one considered that warming could result from human activity, Arrhenius included calculations of the effects of both a halving and doubling of CO2 just for good measure. His theory was considered to have been refuted for the next 50 years. At that point, various better measures of the atmosphere were made that overturned our previous assumptions about what was going on up there. Now we have planes, rockets, satellites, computer modeling, and various devices and stations gathering information all over the globe, which have done nothing but confirm these findings for the last 60 years or so. There are specific observations which would falsify the theory. We have yet to observe them. At this point, it's about as likely that we're wrong about CO2 as it is that we're wrong about gravity.

    You are clearly completely ignorant of anything related to this topic. You also didn't bother to read the papers presented. Your post is about as useful to a real discussion of this subject as a dog's barking. It takes years of study to be able to usefully critique a research paper, and I am not going to pretend to be able to do so myself. You should probably think carefully on what is meant by hybris before denigrating climate science.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  140. Momma Nature can't be bullied by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    You can blame this on liberals or other politicians all you want, but it's not true, and you're not going to fight science with bullets.

    If you insist on political stances at odds with empirical reality, you're going to be disappointed at the results.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  141. Not A Religion by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Models have nothing to do with the evidence for global warming. The theory was developed in the 19th Century prior to the invention of the computer. Models are useful to try to predict specific outcomes, but AGW is a pretty straightforward result of the properties of atmospheric gases.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  142. Re:if they "marvel" by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    They are useful, but not for predicting short term effects on local scale. And even less so in the Arctic which has extra modelling complications due to the ice. If you keep in mind the errors bars, they are still useful for predicting trends on longer scales and bigger areas. It's better to squint with one eye than to be completely blind.

  143. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 1
    And the most important part of the process is not assuming the answer ahead of time.

    And the most assumptuous part of the answer is not holding of import the process beforehand.

  144. Re:if they "marvel" by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    but this is "short term effect" nor on "local scale" and believed to be significant enough to affect climate in a major way.

  145. Climate Change vs Global Warming by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    So in the early 19th Century the prevailing wisdom was that the climate did not change. The idea of climate as being the long-term average of weather didn't die until the mid-1950s at the earliest. Theories of climate change were necessary to explain Ice Ages.

    These days the terms "climate change" and "global warming" are both used interchangably, and both can be used to refer to the dominant theory of anthropogenic-CO2-mediated warming. There was once a distinction, and if there was any reason to believe that the climate might cool soon, we might start making a distinction between the two terms again. So not only are you completely wrong about why we have these two terms, apparently you're unaware the 'global warming' is the newer term/theory by at least 100 years.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  146. Consensus by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Consensus is how all competing models of reality are evaluated. However, global warming is not a model (per se). It is a very straightforward result of the properties of CO2. We'll skip semantic and philosophical arguments about what facts are, since it doesn't seem that you have much knowledge of the philosophy of science or epistemology generally, but suffice to say that you can test the principles of AGW the same way that Tyndall did, if you happen to think he needs revision. You should be able to make far more precise measurements.

    Go ahead and pick apart the consensus, if you can. Do it with science -- it's the only way. It has changed before, so you have that going for you. Yes, you read that right. We thought we had disproved AGW conclusively until the mid-1950s. Then we got better data and the consensus changed. It wasn't some big deal, either, because people weren't trying to politicize the issue. No one was fired, and scientists just accepted that they were wrong before and kept on sciencing. Our ability to measure the world has expanded unimaginably since the foundations of AGW were laid over 100 years ago, so we're about as sure that increased CO2 will result in warming as we are of the germ theory of disease, but you're welcome to have a go at disproving it. It can only help all of us if you try, so please do. You should probably start by learning what the science currently says though.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  147. Perpetual Motion by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Absolutist statements are dangerous.

    Calibrate your irony meter.

    There is no line of physical observation that will not lead you to conclude that perpetual motion or "free" energy is impossible. Thermodynamics, Relativity, Quantum physics, whatever. And anyone wanting to argue about conservation laws is going to need to take that up with Noether's theorem. Conservation laws are more like a result of the laws of physics not being dependent on the conserved element. If energy is conserved, that means that (e.g.) light does not travel faster or slower through a vaccum depending on some sort of energy condition. All of this says that [1] we've tested CoE explicitly or implicitly with nearly every observation of anything, ever, and [2] if you violate that assumption everything in physics breaks in wildly weird and inconsistent ways even within the same theory, and might actually end our being able to understand physics at all.

    Nothing is certain. Science is empirical, and measurement error will always be with us. That doesn't mean that nothing is knowable or predictable. The Sun will rise upon a weary Earth tomorrow, and there will never be any such thing as an ansible, a faster-than-light drive, or a perpetual motion machine. Yes, it's a bit depressing, but that's reality for you.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Perpetual Motion by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      You contradict yourself don't you? Doesn't string theory state that there is a possibility and a probability for anything to happen?

      No, and also no. You may be thinking of quantum physics, but it's generally not true either way. I'm not going to suggest that you go learn the philosophy of science or epistemology required to discus this subject sensibly. However, there are some basic things that you should know.

      Science is technically never "settled" in the specific sense that one can never prove any given statement. We can however disprove theories, by finding statements that lead to contradictions. We do not have absolute truth, but we do have negation. So, we can exclude realties in which PM is a thing, and we have. But CoE is actually in its own special category, because it's an implicit part of every physics equation which has an energy term, which would be pretty much all of them. It's also covered by Noether, so mathematically either energy is conserved, or the laws of physics vary with energy. So again, we can test this and rule out alternative theories. We can do this for all physics equations, and we have. So this is the part where I repeat myself: we have multiple independent lines of evidence which rule out PM. From a strict philosophical standpoint, there will be error bars on any individual measurement, so theoretically every measurement we've ever made of anything could all just be biased in precisely the wrong way so as to fool every scientist ever.

      The chances of CoE being wrong are not zero, but so close to zero that it is impossible to express without hyperoperators. Scientific notation doesn't begin to cover it. There is quite literally nothing less likely than CoE being wrong. It is the single most well-supported fact in the history of science. And again, it's not clear that the laws of physics would be knowable if it were not true. And ultimately this means about you that you either have no idea what it is that you're actually suggesting, or you are crazy beyond the ability of language to describe. Either way the patent office is the least of your troubles. I was trying hard to be nice in this post, and I hope you forgive my failings, but really, it would probably take less time to complete an undergrad and postgrad degree than to explain everything that's wrong with PM. I don't have time for that kind of education. Please bother a physics professor if you have further questions, and accept my sincere apologies for having to say that. I do wish you good health, happiness, and good fortune in all your endeavors.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  148. You omitted a factual argument by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    I appreciate the characterization of my faults and your detailed refutation of my position. As it happens, I don't have any opinions on this matter, but I would be happy to provide citations for any part which you thought insufficient. The nice thing about being on the side with facts is that they all match up with each other neatly, and you can always find a source for something. And, if that is still not sufficient, there are actually a variety of simple experiments you could perform to verify them.

    I admit I'm pretty stupid. The IPCC report is a bit thick, you know? So I went back and read Tyndall. Then I read Arrhenius, and Callendar. I read Keeling and at least looked through Hansen. Most of the old stuff is available online, but there's also university libraries all over the place. I read a couple of atmospheric physics textbooks too. The one from 1950 was the funniest, explicitly disclaiming the role of CO2 in climate. It was correct with what was known at the time though. But I didn't find any opinions in all of that, so I guess I didn't do it right. Perhaps you can do better?

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:You omitted a factual argument by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      I don't have any opinions on this matter

      Hilarious. My sides are splitting.

      It was correct with what was known at the time though

      The irony of this sentence escapes you.

    2. Re:You omitted a factual argument by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      You're not interested in the truth of this matter, it seems. I will repeat my offer of citations for any fact that I have happened to mention. I don't have any opinions about science: what use would they be? I would very much like to reassure you that my only angle is whether the science is accurately described. I think we can both agree life is way too short to deal with environmental activists. No, if you have any opinions that you want to inflict on other people, you're welcome to them, and please make any political climate-related decisions for me in my name and with my blessing. And if your solution is inaction then the only thing I would want is an informed inaction.

      The irony of this sentence escapes you.

      Is it ironic to suggest that we have ways of observing the atmosphere today that did not exist in 1950? It's not a mystery what pieces they were missing and why. The only irony here is that you seem to think there's some big piece missing about our understanding of things like heat, light, and the properties of atmospheric gases. In order for AGW to be wrong, Tyndall would have to be wrong. We've ruled out everything else. I would be happy to explain to you this subject in any amount of detail. But if you don't want to listen, that's fine too, anyone else reading this exchange will be able to draw the appropriate conclusions about your level of scholarship.

      On some level, it makes sense for you not to engage in any factual discussion. Reality does have a well-known liberal bias, and you don't know enough about this theory to be able to point to a potentially-valid issue with the causal chain. And it's funny, because the thing that would be most helpful to you in your argument appears to be the thing that you will go to any lengths to avoid knowing.

      For me there's no real downside to being forced to back up the things I say. Either I'm right or I learn something. I'm not a scientist, engineer, or academic, but I do consider myself an empiricist. I think that science is the only objective way to discover truths about the real world. Being an argumentative empiricist is a great way to learn the distinction between opinion and fact, and arguing with many fine people here such as yourself has driven me to read hundreds of research papers on this subject, as well as, oh, at least half a dozen undergraduate textbooks, and countless other publications of lesser note. That of course includes the contrarian research too: one can hardly ignore Spencer or Curry. And in thousands of hours of research and argument, I don't think I've had any one of you people even do so much as look at the papers being cited. I don't see these things as futile. We're the loud ones; other people are silent because they are reading and listening. And I don't despair of you, though you certainly strain my faith in humanity. And if nothing else, knowledge is good for its own sake. So if you do have any actual curiosity about this subject, or if you do have any concerns about the causal chain, please do share them, and I'll be happy to help. Sadly, I don't think that's what you're here for.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    3. Re:You omitted a factual argument by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      but I do consider myself an empiricist

      I did you the courtesy of reading your whole reply. I am also an empiricist. That's why I don't believe the hype about global warming, most of which is promoted by environmentalists and activist scientists ("we need to bring more attention to the field") through the use of models that are demonstrably wrong. There are too many eyebrow raising graphs knocking around for me to believe the current climate is outside of the range of natural variation. I mean let's face it, if a climate scientist told me 1908 - 1940 was natural variation but that 1979 - 2000 was Human-CO2 induced, I would stifle a chuckle or three.

      What amuses me so much is why you and others like you can't see this.

    4. Re:You omitted a factual argument by driblio · · Score: 1

      Temperature is not off the scale for natural variation - yet. It's within the ranges we've seen before (when there were ice sheets miles thick or tropical regions covering Europe and the US, of course). But the rate of chance is unprecedented. Utterly. Why might that be?

      And if you update the Vostok Ice Core data with modern CO2 levels... it is off the chart. Literally:
      https://ibb.co/gscNQa

    5. Re:You omitted a factual argument by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      But the rate of chance is unprecedented.

      There's absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever.

    6. Re:You omitted a factual argument by driblio · · Score: 1

      NASA has a page dedicated to it:
      http://earthobservatory.nasa.g...
      > But the paleoclimate record also reveals that the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events. ... In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

      It took me seconds to find. If you really cared, or hadn't already made your mind up, you would know that too.

    7. Re:You omitted a factual argument by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      NASA has lots of pages dedicated to acquiring funding from government. Papers like this prove otherwise, though it's not political correct to publish such things these days.

  149. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 1

    Why isn't it? CO2 isn't pollution. It's the central ingredient in biosphere productivity.

    And you can't drown in water - it's a central ingredient for life. Salt can't be bad for you, since without it you die. And so on. As Paracelsus said, sola dosis facit venenum.

    --

    Stephan

  150. Denialism by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    People who challenge the consensus are called contrarians, unless they don't have a factual argument. Then we call them deniers. For example, Dr. Roy Spencer is a prominent contrarian climatologist, who has been lead author on sections of the IPCC reports. You also seem to be unaware that there was a consensus *against* AGW up until the mid-1950s. It was overturned by better observations of the atmosphere and oceans. In short, the idea that there is some political cabal in charge of the consensus view is false, bordering on the ridiculous. We KNOW, empirically, from experience, that not only has the consensus changed, the authors of the authoritative summary of climate change research selected perhaps the most notable contrarian as lead author (for the bits relevant to his research). Because it doesn't make a difference whether he or anyone else thinks about whether the Earth is warming, the only thing that matters is what the observations say. And unfortunately we've ruled out the alternatives to warming, at least without some bizarre new physics.

    This isn't nutrition, this is basic atmospheric physics. If we're wrong about this atmosphere then we're wrong about all the extraterrestrial atmospheres too. Also, you're going to be able to demonstrate this fact unambiguously either way -- we're measuring heat, not health. The way to unmask this supposed conspiracy is to do the experiments yourself -- no trust in any community is required. Failing that you are able to read the papers and use a better analysis to figure out where everyone else went wrong. We figured this stuff out in the 19th Century so it's not like it requires a big lab setup. The IPCC report is big and complicated, but the actual science at hand is surprisingly simple. If you don't want to trust the scientists, but refuse to provide an alternate explanation, to experiment, or even read the theory, well, I'm not sure there's anything more descriptive than "denialist".

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  151. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by imidan · · Score: 2

    I am a scientist who has done some work on climate change issues. I usually completely ignore Slashdot stories about climate because I know that the whole comment thread will be people repeating the same arguments to each other about whether or not climate change exists, or is anthropogenic, or is a bad thing, or whatever. What value is there in repeating these stale talking points to each other over and over again? How many of the deniers are just trolls who don't care one way or another, but enjoy baiting others with long-debunked claims and other alternative facts?

    At any rate, that may be one reason you see so many deniers here. Many of us who are persuaded by the evidence are already so far past the Slashdot-level conversation, there's practically no point in participating.

  152. Volatility by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

    Classic ignorant denialism. The evidence for AGW has nothing to do with models or the temperature record. It is a straightforward result of the properties of CO2. Straightforward as in, "Some guy in 1896 figured it out using research from 1859". You know this theory is more than 100 years old, right?

    It's really irritating to read this. It's one thing to be completely ignorant of a subject -- we all start out that way. It's quite another thing for you to declare your ignorance of the causal chain but insist that other people got it wrong. Yes, you're right, it's hard to draw causal links from statistics, but that's not remotely what has happened, and the idea that you know this and some scientific community might not is breathtakingly stupid. But okay, I'll try to believe that you at least mean well and maybe don't have a lot of time to read about this. I would recommend starting here, and maybe continuing on the section about basic radiation maths. Keep in mind that what we know about Earth's atmosphere we have also been able to apply to extraterrestrial atmospheres, including the Sun. Generally what you're going to find is that warming is a direct result of CO2 trapping heat, and that we've been trying pretty hard to find reasons why raising the partial pressure won't also raise the temperature. There's only so many things that can happen in terms of radiation between the surface of the Earth and outer space, and we've pretty much ruled out anything that could prevent drastic warming. Which, yes, sucks balls. The other interesting thing that you'll find is that there was a scientific consensus *against* the CO2 theory, and you'll have to see why it was overturned.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    1. Re:Volatility by dschiptsov · · Score: 1

      Have you never seen before so called hipster's science - chimeras made from poorly understood data processed by flawed statistical methods? Never seen any bullshit nutrition "science", disconnected from reality models in finance, sectarian, theology-like "physics"? Why should we not question validity of hipster's science? Should I explain how one keeps a position of an "expert" and high social status of a "scientists and researcher" by bullshitting naive idiots by dogmatic nonsense which fits the current social set of beliefs and popular memes? How peer-reviews has been done on the basis "he did really good job". Oh, there is some conclusions drawn from statistics, but all the current memes are in place. Flawed models should be chopped into pieces by rigorously checking its logic. One single contradiction is *enough* to throw all the thing away. There is already many bullshit hipster's pseudo-science based on fancy modelings and simulations.

  153. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    Oh god, no. Really? All this sola dosis facit venenum that increasing CO2 is causing. It's absolutely terrible. What is wrong with me. I'm not hysterical.

  154. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Troed · · Score: 1

    No, it did not contradict anything I wrote. You seem to be quite confused as to the temperatures during its colonization and when the Norse left due to the switch into a much colder climate. Please read the links I posted.

  155. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by driblio · · Score: 1

    In pictures you might understand:
    https://xkcd.com/1732/

  156. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by driblio · · Score: 1

    Longer timescales:
    https://xkcd.com/1732/

  157. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by driblio · · Score: 1

    See how natural the end of this graph is:
    https://xkcd.com/1732/

  158. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by driblio · · Score: 1

    You really haven't been listening very much then, have you?

  159. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by driblio · · Score: 1

    That's just not true. Fossil fuel subsidies are measured obviously the /trillions/ (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW070215A.htm). Shift that to green energy and engineering and jobs, and you have a boom on your hands.

    It's the political will and lobbying that's the problem - their personal economies are the ones which will suffer, and that's why nothing is being done.

  160. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    Oh, a cartoon. Strange how this looks nothing like the Vostok or Greenland core data. One could almost imagine it's cherry picked data that's first been massaged by the hairy hands of a fraudster. I'd be careful with that if I were you.

  161. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by driblio · · Score: 1

    What?

  162. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by driblio · · Score: 2

    Oh sorry - you're right. Because these graphs have totally different scales and orientations they look nothing like each other.

    But wait a minute... if we look at just the data that both graphs cover (temperature, the last 20000 years, highlighted with a black box):
    https://ibb.co/co1ABF

    And then line up the scales so they are the same on both graphs (X=-5C to +5C, Y=0 to -20000 years) we can see that the data does actually match up pretty well, considering I did this with paint:
    https://ibb.co/hX9K5a

    Consistent science FTW! Thanks for playing.

    Of course, it's the last 100 years that are the most interesting - the heating is happening at an _unprecedented_ rate. The ~2 degree increase of the last century would have taken millennia to occur naturally - as shown by the very graphs you supplied as evidence!

    Don't misuse actual data. It doesn't work, because the data shows AWG is happening.

  163. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    Don't misuse actual data.

    That's literally what you've just done. You've presented a ridiculous, condescending cartoon that shows Michael Mann's largely (completely actually) discredited "hockey stick". Shameless.

  164. Re: Prepare for deluge of stupid by megabulk · · Score: 1

    I'm gonna go with Dan O'Neill's "The Collective Unconscience of Odd Bodkins", and didn't he come up with the term "magic cookie" too?

  165. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by driblio · · Score: 2

    The hockey stick has not been discredited. It has been replicated numerous times, by numerous people and organisations.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/te...
    > Climate deniers threw all their might at disproving the famous climate change graph. Here's why they failed.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    > Arguments over the reconstructions have been taken up by fossil fuel industry funded lobbying groups attempting to cast doubt on climate science.

    https://www.newscientist.com/a...
    > In fact, later studies support the key conclusion: the world is warmer now than it has been for at least 1000 years

    The graphs we /were/ talking about go back much further - XKCD's 20,000 years, and your favourite the Vostok core, 400,000. And they all show the same data.

    Good luck with your research.

    *PLONK*

  166. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Fragnet · · Score: 1

    the world is warmer now than it has been for at least 1000 years

    Are you having a laugh? Proxy reconstruction (ref: Michael Mann) that depended on, it turned out, one single tree?

  167. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Given a scientific conjecture with some evidence behind it, there are going to be people who accept the conjecture (however tentatively), and people who don't think the evidence is strong enough considering other things, and we can legitimately call these people skeptics. In some cases, there's people who just reject the conjecture altogether and we call those people denialists.

    Climate scientists who are skeptical about global warming are generally convinced when they look carefully at the evidence for and against. We have few actual skeptics who've actually examined the evidence carefully. We have a lot of people who are convinced global warming isn't happening regardless of the evidence, and it's reasonable to call them denialists.

    We have denialists in lots of fields. Some people are young-earth creationists, and refuse to pay attention to any evidence that the Earth is billions of years old, or that life evolved. Some deny that the Earth is round. Nobody seems to have problems with labeling these people as those who simply won't pay attention to the evidence. Thing is, it really doesn't matter that much if lots of people don't believe in evolution, except for the effects on K-12 science education, whereas there are things we really should be doing about global warming. Specifically, we should be reducing fossil fuel use as much as is practical ("practical" here being a very legitimate topic of debate).

    If someone keeps using the same discredited arguments over and over, nitpicks the heck out of something and tries to generalize from the nitpick, or is more willing to believe conspiracy theories than the generally accepted science, that person is a denialist. Evidence, no matter how strong, won't change that person's mind. That is not skepticism.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  168. Re: I AM OFFICIALLY PUTTING YOU ON NOTICE! by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

    The hurricanes and tornadoes in the USA midcountry and flooding will just be acts of the unpredictability of nature. There is nothing that man does that resulted in the increase in frequency and severity. Or are we all wrong?

    --
    Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  169. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    One problem is that larger coastal cities tend to be ports, and smaller ones may have some seaside access. So, figure out how much to build the dams, build the locks, and operate the locks. Also, your proposal needs refinement. Are you talking about dams all across the coast, like Dutch dykes, or do you want to turn the cities into artificial islands?

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  170. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    First off, that's a horrible chart to be referencing, as it's a prediction output from a simple climate model. But let's look at it anyway. At 2000Gt of CO2, we have about 1.2C. double the output to 4000Gt (although I don't know if that will double the concentration in the atmosphere) and we get around 2.4C. Double that agian to 8000Gt, and that puts us up around the 4C mark. So even though this chart is talking about human CO2 output and not the concentration in the atmosphere, it is still giving us roughly 1.2C per doubling.

    There are numerous sources for this value, including the IPCC. They give a value of 3.7W/m^2 for a doubling of CO2. You can derive the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and calculate the temperature increase.
    References to 1.2C per doubling found using a quick google search:
    http://www.nuceng.ca/refer/cli...
    http://www.climate-skeptic.com...
    https://judithcurry.com/2010/1...
    https://climateaudit.org/2008/...
    https://www.theguardian.com/en...
    http://www.thegwpf.com/matt-ri...

  171. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Yup. That doesn't mean Greenland wasn't mostly ice. There were (IIRC) a couple of small Viking settlements that were eventually wiped out by the natives.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  172. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    You're confusing (or skeptical science is confusing) "Climate Sensitivity" with the actual mathematical calculation of radiative forcing directly caused by CO2. Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Calculus. 1.2C.
    The Climate Sensitivity argument is the part of the Climate "science" that is still in debate. The IPCC says increased warmth from CO2 will cause more evaporation, which will cause increased warming from atmospheric water vapor. But this is a very tenuous claim, as more evaporation will also increase cloud cover as well as increasing convective cooling.

  173. Re:It's not that we deny climate change by pastafazou · · Score: 1

    That's all very interesting, but it's not relevant to the discussion of positive feedbacks.

  174. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by Troed · · Score: 1

    No one has ever claimed Greenland wasn't "mostly ice". There was a thriving Viking community during the Medieval Warm Period which was abandoned (peacefully, no wiping out by any "natives") when the climate became (much) colder at the start of the Little Ice Age.

  175. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by EmptyHead · · Score: 1

    So Greenland's ice sheet can displace 24 feet of the sea-level? Horse shit. I imagine parking the moon in the middle of the Atlantic could accomplish that though. Please show us a citation from hystericalbullshithipsterscience.com that sheds some light on the math. If it passes a laugh test I'll go howl at the moon naked.

  176. Re:Paging Dr. Faustus by Rakarra · · Score: 1

    I think I am being out-punned here, so I will bow to your expertise.

  177. Re:The end is near? Lava and Ice... by srone · · Score: 1

    What is the current status of the Gakkel Ridge? Lava + Big Ice Caps= small ice caps...

    I try to keep up with it, as there was a M4.7 earthquake on October of 2016. It is a slow moving crack that may be speeding up. If the Magnetic Poles flip, who knows what the effect will be.

    --
    "Endeavour to persevere"
  178. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    They don't accept it because there is no science behind it. Just models. Models that have failed to predict both the future and even the past and we all know it. It's all a scam pushed by Al Gore from a science class he took in the 1950s by a real scientist that thought man could be the cause and later realized we aren't and told him so. Al being a D science student didn't understand and pushed fake science on us ever since. He's made over a half billion on this scam. Continues to fool people around the world. Apparently, including you.

  179. Re: Paging Dr. Faustus by TemporalBeing · · Score: 1

    I mean the main inland ice sheet is 100,000 years old. Obviously, the edges of Greenland are much more sensitive to small temperature fluctuations and local climate changes.

    Would love to see the proof - and not just suppositions, theories, etc - that it's 100,000 years old.

    Problem is, you can't prove it. You can only extrapolate based on theories, hypotheses, and suppositions with math based on assumptions designed to support that conclusion.

    --
    Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
  180. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    Exaggerate much? No, we will not be reduced to hunter gatherer societies. The impact of climate change is nowhere near that bad, and pretending it is makes you look like you are the one that is anti science.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  181. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid by Coren22 · · Score: 1

    If you aren't skeptical, you are not a scientist. This is the basis of science, not everyone agreeing on everything.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?