Slashdot Mirror
A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months
Jugal K Patel, writing for the NYTimes: A rapidly advancing crack in Antarctica's fourth-largest ice shelf has scientists concerned that it is getting close to a full break. The rift has accelerated this year in an area already vulnerable to warming temperatures. Since December, the crack has grown by the length of about five football fields each day (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). The crack in Larsen C now reaches over 100 miles in length, and some parts of it are as wide as two miles. The tip of the rift is currently only about 20 miles from reaching the other end of the ice shelf. Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded, according to Project Midas, a research team that has been monitoring the rift since 2014. Because of the amount of stress the crack is placing on the remaining 20 miles of the shelf, the team expects the break soon.
It's a good thing that climate change is a load of bollocks according to the Trump administration. I'm sure a group of people as competent as the ones that are around Trump know what they're talking about. I mean, otherwise, we might have to be worried.
(THIS IS SARCASM)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Obligatory XKCD
Nobody gives a crap about some crack in the ice.
It's all just filming for a commercial guys, nothing to worry about.
So a chunk of ice falls into the ocean. It'll cool the ocean a bit. I though you wanted it to be colder. Make up your damned minds!
This is the best news I've read all day.
only 1442 days left before Trump leaves office
Tell your mother to pull her pants back up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
#DeleteFacebook
Scientists actually don't believe this particular instance to be caused by climate change. So, if people could read up a bit and post something thoughtful instead of having a knee jerk anti-Trump comment, that would be awesome.
We're gonna have to move our f***** research base.
I wonder how epic of a splash that's gonna make? I'll have to invest in a surfboard so that I can travel the world. Assuming, of course, that this doesn't cause a ginormous tsunami that wipes out all the coastal areas in the southern hemisphere.
Tell me, please, what is so concerning about it? Is there an imminent threat to life? Is a break going to kill a bunch of people? I mean, ice sheets form, and then they break. Snow falls, and then it melts. Rain falls, and then it runs down the watershed into a body of water. The sun rises, and then it sets.
We don't hear a lot of concern from scientists about these other things that are similarly natural events.
Get the facts right. This was a storey 3 weeks ago and 3 weeks ago the crack had 20Km to go, now this Slashdot storey is effectly tells us that the crack now has 20miles to go, so in theroy then the crack has healed.
Crack kills
Because of course the big money is in being a scientist. All those CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs and institutional shareholders, why they're basically peasants! Poor dears, won't someone think of the Billionaire Oil Barons?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Everyone is always so down on Global Warming. Why doesn't anyone ever look on the bright side of things? After all, once the icecaps and glaciers all melt, think of how much better the world will be:
1) Florida will be completely underwater. Not just Miami, but the "Florida Man" parts too.
2) So will large chunks of the Middle East (though admittedly they'll probably be a bit more worried about the heat than that).
3) Lots of currently undervalued inland property will become valuable beachfront areas. And without having to fire nuclear missiles at the San Andreas a la Superman!
4) Huge swathes of inhospitably cold Canadian land will be sunny, warm, and liveable, which will be good news for those of us fleeing the future American hellscape.
5) Make the Great Lakes Great Again - there will be a new Great Lake, right about where Montreal currently is. (French Canadians underwater? Bonus!)
Sure, there will be some downsides. The Netherlands will wind up completely underwater, though I'm sure they can build a wall to keep the North Sea out, since they've been doing it for decades already. Install some tidal power generation, and they can even make the North Sea pay for it, too!
OMG Gumbermints! Help us!
There's a reason they call it global warming, and not Georgia warming.
So why did the Chinese just sink a shit-ton of money into Solar energy? Furthermore, why not focus on trying to correct this shit and balance out the climate? We may have nothing to gain, but we sure as hell have a lot to lose.
Georgia (either one) covers what percentage of the globe? And what percentage of the year does that 18 degree temperature span? Your comment is so pointless that I guess you are just trolling.
Why the hell is this a problem or a concern and who gives a shit? Millions of years ago continents broke apart, volcanoes erupted, shit fell from the sky and killed everyone. It's a fucking planet that does it's planet shit. Shut the fuck up with your bullshit fear mongering already.
Scientists actually don't believe this particular instance to be caused by climate change. So, if people could read up a bit and post something thoughtful instead of having a knee jerk anti-Trump comment, that would be awesome.
Yes, the world is divided into 256m3 chunks and z-indexed into a quadtree... at the largest chunk size no interaction occurs with adjacent chunks, this is believed to be a bug introduced by an intersection test optimisation implemented by the creator. A nice side effect is that global warming doesn't affect other things around the world.
If we don't observe it, maybe it won't happen
Phil McCracken!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
And yes, the Right is taking a tabloid for face value .. maybe it'll be concrete once InfoWars tells you it is .. and maybe it's aliens planting a false flag and making the midwest so warm in Feb. Yeah. But it's snowing where you are so the climate isn't changing and we don't have anything to do with it. *yawn*
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
And, as expected, almost entirely bullshit: http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamI...
If the ice falls into the ocean and there's only Hellen Keller around, does it make a sound?
If the ice falls on Hellen Keller, does she make a sound?
I've figured out the real deal behind climate change, what they don't know you to know about it. Older civilizations knew about it. They worshiped Mother Earth. They knew she was alive. Global warming is just Mother Earth getting a little embarrassed as shes pulls down her pants to moon a comet that will soon be coming around again. Earth and the comet are good old buddies from long ago.
So why did the Chinese just sink a shit-ton of money into Solar energy?
Maybe the Chinese aren't concerned about global warming, but something else. I'm thinking solar is probably a good alternative to burning coal if most of your cities look like this
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
... north to flood the desert. It's something that has been talked about for decades. Now there's a opportunity!
National Review is not a good source for science information, sorry-- it's an opinion magazine-- and National Review quoting a story from the Daily Mail is really not a reliable source-- Daily Mail is the kind of tabloid that gives the word "tabloid jounalism" its name.
"Earth changes, sometimes these charges are not great for the seething mass of 7 billion hairless apes that think they're all that. News at 11."
-Styopa
It's funny how the hurricanes and typhoons are mostly comprised of Blue States! Wonk Wonk.
There was no smoke and mirrors. The data used has been verified by other researchers. Moron.
Time to invest in that soon to be beach front property...
That's right, it's all just a big conspiracy in order to keep otherwise worthless scientists employed. When climate changes never happens you can be smugly satisfied.
On the other hand if when we're relocating major cities because of the encroaching wasteland, we'll be sure to send assholes like you to the bottom of the ocean.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So you mean pollution from burning fossil fuels....
You may have an ocean view, but it will still be Nevada.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
So you mean pollution from burning fossil fuels....
Yes, but the pragmatic goal is air quality, not stopping AGW. That is probably more of a side-effect as opposed to the primary motivator.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Hey red states, check out the last sentence of Revelation 11:18.
The nations were angry,
and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your people who revere your name,
both great and small—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.
NIV
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Seems that have to do quite a lot of research & fieldwork for years & years to get to that point when they could do just as well or perhaps much better on the opposite side. Jason Box, Eric Rignot, Julienne Stroeve, et al spend a lot of time roughing it or freezing their asses off.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
That's a normal yearly event. In fact it often grows larger than that.
Even if you are a rank and file professor most of your time is spent writing requests for funding... and the more money you bring in the more you get paid etc.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Do you have any evidence at all that this is in fact a career path of any researcher? This looks more like one of those "Researchers are lazy, evil and greedy" lines of thought.
For the record, want to make lots of money, in general, don't go into the sciences. Yes, there are a few science careers that can make oodles, but for the most part, science is not a path to fame and fortune.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Looks like a lot of volcanoes are there
Actually it's just the National Review passing along an "expose" by The Daily Mail. This is the same "newspaper" that claimed a 63 year-old woman became pregnant with baby squid after eating calimari.
If you look into the objections, they're rubbish. The paper in question (Karl et al) is part of an ongoing back-and-forth by scientists over the degree of warming post-1998, so if it is part of a conspiracy by the scientific establishment to cover up contrary data it's a pretty lame conspiracy because it let both sides of the data out.
As for Karl et al, it's a highly technical paper, but to cut to the chase the reason it has the denialists in an uproar is that it proposes a method that erases their precious, cherry-picked post '98 "hiatus". That hiatus didn't exist if you smoothed the data or chose any other starting point but the record setting '98, and it was was blown away by 2014-2016 anyhow. So this is beating a dead horse that was barely alive to begin with. The method in the Karl paper also suggests that the rate of warming since the early 20th C is actually lower than previously believed. Alarmist!
The thing about this kind of bullshit response is that the attraction of a conspiracy theory is that it's quick and easy to understand, as long as you don't try to square it with actual events. People find CTs credible because it says the people bearing bad news are out to get them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> Tornadoes are at a historic low.
The numbers are at a low.
But the intensities are at a high.
So, less tornadoes, but when they do show up there are (a) a whole bunch more all at once and (b) they are much stronger
That's probably not an improvement.
Michael Mann has personally made over $6 million for himself promoting AGW. He is usually one of the first you all trot out as a "respected scientist".
Too bad he is always pimping out for even MORE government funding for himself.
What was that you were saying about scientists not getting rich on AGW, or not pushing for even more public funding for themselves? I think $6 million is quite a lot for a single scientist.
There would still be climatologists whether AGW was real or not. The value of tracking regional and global climate is pretty high. The actual fact is that it has been know for over a century that increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere would inevitably lead to more energy being trapped in the lower atmosphere. You can make all the claims you want that climatology is some of grant boon, but the fact of the matter is that is how most research works, particularly basic research.
Do you have an actual critique of the science, or is this just yet another "scientists are warped and twisted". You do understand that grants aren't just handed out based on the topic heading. Grant applications actually require researchers to make a strong argument for why the grant should be made. You act as if it is some sort of popularity contest, but I get it, you despise the research in question, hate the results it provides, but can't really debunk it, so it's time to attack the scientists. I fail to understand how defunding climate research will make human-caused climate change go away. When you're racing towards a brick wall, I know of no evidence that closing your eyes means you won't hit it.
Grow up. The universe is what it is, and CO2 has the properties it has, and not studying those properties and there large scale effects won't make those effects go away. Reality cannot be argued away.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Everyone knows real scientists use metric, not that fake Miles stuff that fake news uses.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I spend a lot of time in the ocean and this summer it has been following the trend started in 2010 of being really cold when outside temps are 42C.
I know people are about to say that it's because I'm getting older and more sensitive however I spend an average 2 hours body surfing which means, apart from my head, I am fully immersed, treading water the whole time. I've surfed the same break for years usually about 3-5 metres deep and that has always been the same for the last 20 years. I've been in the water during winter too when it is so cold it feels like your skin is burning, so I can tolerate really cold water. My entire body tells me it is wrong for the ocean to feel the way it does now.
Second thing is bushfires. I few years ago we had bushfires go through *rainforest* and burn the roots of the trees down to about a metre below the soil line. These rainforests have been unburnt for thousands of years and are not adapted to fire as opposed to normal bush, which is adapted to fire. This has nothing to do with my personal experience because soil strata core extracts tell us that is how the rainforest has behaved for a lot longer than we have been around for.
Some people out there like to use their personal experiences as a way to falsify and invalidate the work being done to warn us that our civilization has to mend it's way.
My personal experiences tell me something quite different. They tell me the world is changing in a profound way, the work of the climate scientists explain the experiences I've had and news like this makes me wonder what is coming next.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Have we officially moved on from Bush to blaming Trump for this stuff now? I can't keep up.
I have no idea what you're asking. Are you seriously disputing the fact that climatology or feminist studies used to be less competitive, less well paid fields? If you were asleep in college and didn't seriously think about your own career path, there is plenty of data on that that you can check.
You implied that they didn't have a strong financial or personal incentive to push climate change because the amounts of money involved for them are so small. I simply pointed out that to an academic in a boring, dead-end field like climatology, the fame, funding, and fortune resulting from the massive political attention to climate change is a huge incentive.
Nowhere did I allege "researchers are lazy, evil and greedy". Climate scientists are doubtlessly hard working and probably genuinely believe that they are saving the world. That doesn't change the fact that they have strong personal incentives to exaggerate climate change. In fact, deceptions generally work best when the people committing them deceive themselves first.
Actually, it's better to build a market and get in on the ground floor than it is to try to muscle your way in with the big dogs. But you're too fucking stupid to understand this.
Tell me, dickface, when alternative energy is making as much money as the oil industry is "follow teh m0neys!!!!111!!!!!" suddenly going to become extinct?
Shitbags like you alway talk out of your asshole.
Yes, and starting with Hansen's 1988 address to Congress, funding for climate science research increased from about $200 million per year to about $2 billion per year today. Most of that funding went towards funding new climate science researchers. If Congress lost interest in climate change and funding went back to 1988 levels, it would be a disaster for these researchers; they wouldn't be able to get any research grants and many of them would be out of a job with no significant marketable skills. These people have no choice but to firmly believe that climate change is real; any other belief would call their entire life into question and threaten their livelihood.
AGW resulted in a more than ten-fold increase of public funding for climatology, most of that going to salaries. If funding returned to 1988 levels, 90% of climatologists would have no funding; a large portion of them would lose their jobs and face a job market with few marketable skills.
That's an entirely different argument. You started off by implying that AGW researchers had little financial motivations for reaching the conclusion that AGW is a serious threat, when in fact for many of them, their livelihood and entire career depends on it.
lol...Thank you for bringing this to attention here, some "folks" push the Bible and everything in it as infallible, but that doesn't mean they have read it or read it on a regular basis.
Exactly. Pollution and CO2 are different things. Coal sucks for both, but especially for pollution. Plus, China really wants energy autonomy (and I agree that's a great goal for any nation). I'd like to see the US do more mixed-solar (solar when the Sun is out, natural gas otherwise) plants for just this reason.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
let the shit sorm begin
There are a few groups who take AGW into consideration such as insurance companies and the military.
Let the Mad Max world begin! I have the chains and collars ready
If you have actual evidence of profiteering and dishonest dealing by climatologists, then by all means provide it. You're clearly making an accusation, so you must have actual evidence of this vast cabal of grant fraud.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've been wondering if certain groups really are skeptical on whether or not AGW is occurring wouldn't it make sense to increase the climate budget in order be sure? Yet these people want to decrease funding which leads to never knowing for sure. Its as if you doctor tells you he is not sure whether you have cancer but he does not want to perform any tests since it will cost money to find out.
"traditional" $100-$200 million? Traditional since when? Traditional since the 19th Century when CO2 was first recognized as a potential problem, or traditional since 1959 when it became clear that there was a global issue with rising CO2 levels? Or would that have been any time in the past two centuries when the fundamentals of atmospheric physics were being worked out?
You're arguing against AGW, by using a political argument. If you want to argue that AGW is not a serious concern then you need to do it in the language of science, not allege some sort of cabal. Roy Spencer is still getting up and delivering contrarian screeds to Congress and being lead author on the sections of the IPCC report related to his specialty -- it's not like the opposing voices aren't being heard. It's that they're not persuasive in the face of the evidence. If you don't like what the science says, do better science. This is, really and truly, a meritocracy, where reproducible results are all that matter. We can prove it, because the consensus was *against* CO2-induced warming until the 1950s, and then everyone changed their mind and no one was fired. Because we didn't have jackasses like you trying to inject politics into a scientific topic by insisting that the entire field is comprised of avaricious liars. Honestly, this is just you being intellectually lazy. Go and look up the evidence for AGW. Go read about radiative transfer equations, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the atmospheric window, carbon 14 ratios, and all the rest. When you do, come back and tell us what you think is wrong with *that*, not some irrelevant horseshit about some conspiracy of white-haired professors. The basics of AGW were worked out in 1896, and they have been supported since then by thousands and thousands of people working in cooperation around the globe since that time. We respect your right to disagree with the science; the whole point of science is to argue about models of reality. The rules of this game are mandatory and not up for debate: if you arguing against science with something other than empirical evidence, you are fighting reality itself, and you will lose. Now, do you have some novel observations on the nature of CO2 that you would like to share with us?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
This is the best post I have read in the new year. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I'm afraid it will fall on the deaf ears and closed minds of the willfully ignorant. I've always wanted for those who screed against the science of climate change to have to post their financial stake in the status quo. The poster you responded to made a claim that scientists are financially vested in global warming science, but what are _his_ financial interests?
Problem solved!
AGW is supported by evidence, your statements are supported by political conjecture. We don't have to ask scientists if AGW is correct. We can look at the science, which as it happens is over 100 years old and quite mature as a field. It's wonderful of you to call an entire academic discipline liars with just some rhetorical argument though. So did these climate researchers also go back in time and jog Tyndall's hand as he measured the thermoptic characteristics of atmospheric gases? Are we missing a carbon-dioxide-eating term in our atmospheric physics equations? Or is it that this whole "greenhouse effect" thing is a liberal myth (like the moon!)? And if we are this badly wrong about how the atmosphere works, why do the atmospheric physics laws work just fine to explain the temperatures on Jupiter and in the Solar atmosphere? And if you can't answer any of these questions, why should we listen to the opinion of someone who knows nothing about the subject?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Nowhere did I dispute that AGW is occurring. Nowhere did I call an "entire academic discipline liars".
You, however, are a liar and a blind partisan.
If they can't study anthropomorphic climate change, maybe we can enroll all those scientists to figure out why the polar caps are melting. It's such a mystery!
I have not accused climatologists of "dishonesty", which would imply deliberate deception. I have pointed out that, contrary to what you said, they have a strong personal and financial interest in reaching the conclusions they are reaching; if climatologists reached a consensus that climate change was not happening, or that it wasn't dangerous, a large number of them would lose their funding. That is, climatologists are not unbiased, disinterested bystanders in their research.
Maybe he wouldn't need money to raise awareness if vested interests didn't fight with gobs of lobbyist cash and reams of misinformation.
Here is my modest proposition- all Americans take a public recorded stance on climate change. If you bet on "non -happening" but it does indeed happen, then you and all your descendents must live at sea level.
Yes, and why do they do that? Because they are concerned that AGW is a threat. If climate change researchers concluded that AGW was not a threat, they would therefore have no more motivation to pay for climate research.
All I'm saying is that when looking at climate change research, you need to keep in mind that the livelihood of the people conducting it depends on reaching certain conclusions and not others. That doesn't automatically invalidate the conclusion of climate science researchers, but the idea that scientists are disinterested third parties while oil executives are venal and greedy and therefore can't be trusted is simply not tenable. Both sides in the climate change debate have strong personal and financial motivations for their positions.
If anything, the financial motivations for climate science researchers are stronger, because the personal loss of going from a respected academic researcher to a barista is arguably greater than going from a double digit billionaire to a single digit billionaire.
These numbers don't add up. The entire NSF budget (NSF is the primary federal source of funding for science research... individual state funding combined contribute around a third what the NSF does) for 2016 was just over 7 billion, with 6 billion of that for research. The allegation seems to be that about a third of that went to AWG research. I find the prospect that a third of their funds go to any single category difficult to believe without any evidence. (Reasonable minds may differ. Unreasonable minds believe whichever trending social media story best agrees with that they already think.)
By the way, I'm pretty sure the second largest source of federal funding for science comes from the NIH. They offer greater detail regarding their budget on their website. They spend about 7 million on climate change research each year.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
NIH is a rounding error. Funding is through about a dozen agencies. Use Google and stop asking stupid questions. It takes about a minute to find the official budgets.
If I'm a liar, prove it. It should be as obvious as 1+1, and I will not only admit my faults with good grace, but thank you honestly from my heart. I would shed every drop of blood I have for any small comfort about the fate of my homeland. Go ahead, comfort me. Tell me how despite seventy five billion tons of ice loss per year for the last thirty years, is a good thing. Tell me how happy I should be about the tundra melting. I want to believe. In all seriousness, I would be ecstatic if there was even the slightest bit of evidence that AGW might even be on the low end of the temperature projections. But go ahead and insult me. That's not evidence, but it's some kind of argument, right? I'll take your insults. You're welcome. Go ahead and destroy the place I grew up in too, and tell me exactly how bad it is. Fine. Okay. Neither of us really has control over that, and you may have sufficient hybris to have an opinion on how bad things are in the Arctic. But if you are going to venture into empiricism enough to suggest that the science of AGW is in any way inadequate, inaccurate, or exaggerated, prove it. Show any empirical evidence you think is remotely related. Your opinion that the world secretly works another way is not particularly interesting without observational evidence. For me, either I'm right, or I learn something and my homeland is saved. If you think there's some partisan leanings here, let me be the first to assure you that we almost certainly hold environmental activists in equal contempt. You are, however, alleging a distortion of science, and it's not like you're suggesting that there's a problem with using one error distribution model over another, you're suggesting that whatever part of this theory that you don't like is simply wrong. It may well be wrong, but the burden of proof is on you. So far you have supplied insults. I think that you should definitely continue to argue in such a way; I doubt anyone reading will be misinformed as to the relative merits of our positions.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
and if they publish science that is biased by their lack of disinterest, it will be found in peer review. Not ALL science is pathological (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_science).
are you trying to be provocative? or are you just obtuse? you sound more and more like a shill who hides behind apparent reasonableness and willingness to engage in discussion but is actually just tossing rocks while claiming there are no rocks or you aren't throwing them.
AGW may hit you faster than cancer or aging when agriculture fails due to changed rain patterns and food prices spike like you've never ever seen.
I think they would get more funding if they provided mixed and inconclusive results, and arguing that more research was required.
Miles... Football fields...
The USA uses football fields to measure stuff, the rest of the world uses meter / kilometer. Who are you trying to reach by using miles, a few old people in the UK and Australia who still haven't gotten used to SI units?
This is not AGW related. There are many sources beside this one.
http://www.npr.org/sections/th...
Just another day in Paradise
Well, if you believe that there is a deep, dark, deliberate conspiracy among scientists to maximize money from government coffers, there are probably many things they could do. But that is obviously absurd.
What actually exists is a significant conflict of interest under which many scientists operate independently. How that affects the scientific conclusions is anybody's guess.
We have glacier overlooks that were built in the latter half of the 20th Century, where the glaciers are no longer visible, having retreated over the horizon. The glacier nearest my house lost 20 cubic miles of ice in ten years. I have a difficult time imagining 20 cubic miles of ice, but it seems that both of us are left without an alternative. Across the state we've lost 75 billion tons of ice per year for the last thirty years. Winter temperature anomalies regularly exceed 10 degrees C, pretty much every year now. An average 10 degree C temperature change during the winter is a very different climatic zone, especially in Southcentral Alaska (Prince William Sound) where the temperatures would typically stay close to freezing for most of the winter. Some exceptional weather patterns in recent years (including this one) have seen temperature anomalies reaching 20 degrees C. Glaciers that survived the last Ice Age and the Holocene Optimum are gone. Fairbanks has doubled its frost-free days per year since 1900. The ice loss is primarily in the tidewater and lower alpine glaciers, in other words, the most visible and accessible glaciers. And do I really need to mention the ice caps? Alaska is, very obviously, melting like gangbusters. The temperature anomaly is mind-blowing. Also, generally speaking I believe the effects on the various forests in the state has not been good, with aggravated issues of spruce beetles and wildfires. And since it seems to be only a matter of time, we are also going to see widespread melting of permafrost, which is going to be Very Bad in many, many ways. Will that do to start?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Not this bullshit again
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Not this stupid, naive belief that scientists are unbiased again.
Again, Despite all claims to the contrary, you clearly have no idea how research funding actually works. Researchers are paid for the act of research, not based oin the results. You have no legitimate arguments, claims, logic, or substantive evidence. Ie, your posts are bullshit.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
they wouldn't be able to get any research grants and many of them would be out of a job with no significant marketable skills
They are scientific researchers. That is their skill. They would perform research jn some other area. We arent talking about training coal miners to work IT. The underlying science is a combination of ohysics mathmatics chemistry etc. already having a fundamental foundation in those discoplines, to say they have marketable skills only further reveals you own level of ignorance.
Ie, another post that is total bullahit
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Really need edit button
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Then why do insist in making shit up
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Bullshit
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Bullshit and projection
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Correct. However, public funding levels for areas of research are determined by how important that area of research is deemed to the public. Climate research is only funded at current levels because scientists say that it is a threat.
Scientific research is highly competitive. Nobody is going to hire a mid-career climatologist for a non-climatology position if they can get a fresh graduate student in their field.
I didn't make things up. Go look up the numbers yourself.
Bingo. That right there. All that needs be said to prove there is zero reason to listen to your bullshit, to prove you are jn fact questikning the science, that you do in dact dispute it. Be gone shill the game is up.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Yeah, the 'blue' states like GA, AL, MS, NC, LA, TX....FL takes it on the chin no matter how they vote
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
What actually exists is a significant conflict of interest under which many scientists operate independently.
And your evidence for this is?
Right, political anti-science rants.
Look, if you've got evidence, post it. But after being asked repeatedly, you just BS your way around in a circle. You really use all credibility when you do that. We're not asking for something difficult here. If you think there is some global conspiracy or conflict of interest, provide some evidence of it.
Well, if you believe that there is a deep, dark, deliberate conspiracy among scientists to maximize money from government coffers, there are probably many things they could do. But that is obviously absurd.
No, that's not obviously absurd. Saying, "We can't really tell, but if we get more funding, we might be able to" is how you maximize money from the government. Do you have any idea what people in climate research are studying right now? (Obviously not.) Here's a sampling:
*Enhanced weathering and CO2 drawdown caused by latest Eocene strengthening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
*Depletion and response of deep groundwater to climate-induced pumping variability
*Centennial glacier retreat as categorical evidence of regional climate change
*Competitive fitness of a predominant pelagic calcifier impaired by ocean acidification
*Substantial global carbon uptake by cement carbonation
*Pacific carbon cycling constrained by organic matter size, age and composition relationships
*Climate, pCO2 and terrestrial carbon cycle linkages during late Palaeozoic glacial–interglacial cycles
What can you notice about all of these things? They are all climate related, and none of them are talking about uncertainty of climate change. But this is what climate scientists do. Maybe you don't see value in researching things like this, and that's ok. But calling it a some giant conspiracy is absurd. You seem to think that what you want scientists to study should be the Word of God, ignoring their own interests and that of the organizations that fund them.
Sorry that you're not able to control the world. Most of us have grown up and realized that by now. Good luck.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Oh deary, the next eight years will be hard on you,
So, you are accusing scientists of unconsciously letting financial concerns affect their results in a major way? Do you realize that there are climate scientists all over the world, who agree? Do you realize that there are climate scientists who will continue to get funding, who agree?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You have zero proof of your claims.
But regardless of whether 'AGW' is real, the climate is most definitely warming.
So we still need to better understand the effects and predict when, where and scope of the coming changes.
That will continue to require significant research.
Unless your saying the climate isn't warming...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
You can look up the funding data yourself. There is an entire .gov website devoted to it.
Congress will make the determination of the funding levels. I think some cutbacks are reasonable: the models we have are pretty good. Besides, other nations can and should ramp up their funding, since the US currently disproportionately pays for this.
I didn't "accuse" anybody. I pointed out a conflict of interest.
Agree with what? Climate scientists write thousands of papers on thousands of topics. It's scientific illiterates who try to turn climate change discussions into a binary issue.
I explained my reasoning.
Indeed. Which is literally what I said. Are you unable to read?
I happen to be a scientist (also an atheist, an immigrant, a gay man, an Obama voter).
I don't know what you are, but demagogue and blind political partisan would be at the top of my list.
(Wow, you're so mad and irrational you can't even type anymore.)
Well, I'm sorry you are unaware of bias in science; actual scientists are quite aware of it, which is why we try to control it through mechanisms such as peer review, double blind studies, disclosure of conflicts of interest, and replication. Nevertheless, scientific bias is clearly still widespread. Nor is this a new insight. Max Planck, for example, said that science advances one funeral at a time.
Well, it's funny how you said that Congress needs to not spend as much money on climate science, and again, whatever reasoning you have for this continues to be elusive. I think I'm becoming less interested in it though.
Alaska has the fifth-smallest GSP in the United States (gross), and sixth-smallest per capita GSP. Sweden has 10x the GDP and much better GDP per capita. Wages are high, but expenses are even higher. In Anchorage, the cost of living is about a third higher than the median US, and rural Alaska is much more expensive. Like $10 for a gallon of milk expensive. I'm from rural Alaska, about 300 miles from Anchorage. I can't think of any reason to be more specific than that, but maybe you can think of something. Most people in Anchorage are pretty well off, but the smaller communities tend to be pretty dire. So that comparison is hard to sustain, and using it to draw inferences about me sounds dubious, and I don't see what a discussion of my qualities has to do with anything. But, of course, I am usually pretty happy to talk about myself.
Okay so let's wrap this up and score things. I think I scored higher on style and virtue signaling and won some popularity points, but most of my posts probably represent a near-total failure to engage any opposing viewpoint. Your precise viewpoint is still unclear, but the vague ad hominem drew some harsh responses. Also, if you do have a nuanced view of the world, you might want to be a bit more explicit about what that is, or stupid people may draw incorrect conclusions from the context of your argument. Trying to make any sort of argument about my character was, well, this seems to be a bit of a trap for you, and the insults aren't going to be kindly read by anyone. Overall, I think we both have some things to work on. I won't be offended if you don't share that opinion, however :) I do appreciate your responses, and I am sure that I will be interested to read more of your opinions in the future.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
That's over half a centimetre per second. That's pretty insane, and very scary.
What you didn't provide is evidence. What you have actually written is an evidence-free polemic. And that's the problem, you're lazy. You've assumed a conclusion, and that go about trying to find rationalizations why you have the opinion you have.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, just that the idea that scientists are 'pure' and lack conflict of interests is baloney.
love is just extroverted narcissism
You can look up the budgets for climate change research; FY2015 was more than $2b, explicitly justified with concerns over climate change, and FY1988 was somewhere below $200m (in constant dollars). Therefore, 90% of climate science funding is justified through the threat of climate change and would disappear if that threat disappeared. What other evidence do you need?
That's just evidence of funding, based upon what is generally agreed as a major threat. If you have some specific evidence of collaboration by scientists to essentially take taxpayer and foundations' money in a scheme of fraud, then provide it. If you cannot, then admit it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, and if those scientists said "it isn't a major threat anymore", then most of that funding would disappear, and many of them would lose their jobs. Logically, therefore, they have a strong incentive to reach the conclusion that AGW is a major threat. QED
I never claimed that there was a "collaboration by scientists to essentially take taxpayer and foundations' money in a scheme of fraud"; that is merely your confabulation.
I have no idea what the consequence of these incentives has been, but the incentives are there, that's just a fact.
if you can't post links....
please answer the other question that refutes your claims. Is the climate warming or not?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I have stated again and again: yes, it is. Really, repeatedly asking this question must get tired even for an acolyte of left wing propaganda strategies.
OK, I get it, you lack even elementary web search skills. http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/...
(I wouldn't expect funding to stay at those levels. Enjoy.)
Well, no. I suggest you go back through the thread, identify what my (single) claim actually was, and then you'll see that it is not inconsistent with actually accepting that AGW is happening.
In any case, thanks for this finger exercise in responding to your little Alinsky party games with the truth; I'm not very good at it yet, but every opportunity helps.
Your claim is that if they disprove AGW they'll be out of jobs. That's flatly untrue. Since you agree the climate is warming, whether it's AGW or not we need to better understand the effects it's going to have on the future. I.E. The military, corporations, coastal states. So why would we simply start ignoring a significant threat to our society of it wasn't AGW related?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Pulling facts and conclusions out of your ass again, I see.
And those organizations can pay for that out of their own budget. Most of that isn't climatology research anyway, it isn't even science. The science is pretty much settled as far as the climatology is concerned.
I know this is hard for statists and authoritarians to grasp, but cutting the federal budget for a bunch of scientists isn't the same as "ignoring" something. You'd be amazed at how many things "we" pay tons of attention to that the federal government doesn't spend a dime on.
If AGW researchers turn around and say "oh, not a problem after all", most of that funding simply evaporates. The consequences would be personally devastating for anybody working in the area: tenured professors would lose their funding, their research groups and their students
YOUR. OWN. WORDS.
I'm done here since you are clearly willing to contradict yourself to pretend you're winning an argument.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Who agree on the general facts that we're warming up the earth by burning fossil fuels, and the results are generally going to be bad. That is a near-universal belief among climate scientists, regardless of which country they're in or how secure they are in their jobs. As for details, these are scientists, and scientists argue incessantly among themselves. It's part of research.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yes, my own words. Let me go through it again, step by step:
FACT: Annual research funding for climate science was increased tenfold after 1988 based on the belief that AGW is a threat.
FACT: The belief of our elected representatives that AGW is a threat is based on testimony to Congress and public statements by climate science researchers.
CONCLUSION: If climate science researchers testify and communicate that AGW is not a threat anymore, annual research funding for climate science will return to pre-1988 levels, i.e., it will decrease by 90%.
FACT: The number of people working in a scientific field is roughly proportional to funding.
CONCLUSION: If funding for climate science decreases by 90%, roughly 90% of the researchers in climate science will lose their funding, and hence their jobs in climate science.
OVERALL CONCLUSION: If climate science researchers testify that AGW is not a threat, then 90% of climate science researchers will lose their jobs in climate science.
OVERALL CONCLUSION: Climate science researchers have a strong motivation in reaching the conclusion that AGW is a threat.
I'm not "winning an argument" since we aren't having an argument, and you can't be "done" because you never started. An "argument" would involve for you to actually engage in a rational and logical discussion about facts and conclusions. All you have done is tried to paint me as a shill, as a AGW denier, or as someone unreasonable. And you obviously avoid engaging in a rational and logical discussion because you know you couldn't win it if you tried.
Now, once you recognize the obvious conclusion that climate change researchers have a strong incentive structure in reaching the conclusions they are reaching, then we can turn to the question of how that has influenced their behavior. There you pose the false dichotomy ("AGW true/false") and you play a shell game with what "AGW" actually is. One can talk about the errors in that view as well, but if you are incapable of having a rational argument about even the simple syllogisms above, obviously, you're just not up to engaging in more complex arguments about science.
Yes, so what? Dying of cholera is bad. Having your country taken over by fascists or socialists is bad. Having a decade of zero real economic growth is bad. Wearing socks with sandals and wearing white after Labor Day are bad. There are lots of things that are "bad". The question is "bad" compared to what? "Bad" is about tradeoffs.
Past IPCC reports tried to quantify this, and they generally came to the conclusion that the quantifiable costs of mitigation vs intervention are about the same, and then they try to justify intervention based on intangibles (the current IPCC report conveniently avoids talking about it). If that's the economic tradeoffs, then the unequivocally rational thing is to do nothing now and mitigate later.
But even that isn't the whole story. That IPCC analysis assumes that government intervention is actually effective, but nobody has yet proposed a politically and economically feasible plan for carbon emissions reductions. (Another problem is that it falsely assumes that the "do nothing" scenario will not result is carbon emission reductions.)
So, whether the science of AGW is settled, or what climate scientists believe, is irrelevant at this point. Even stipulating that the climate science is correct, there still is no clear, rational justification for action based on political and economic considerations.
I haven't painted you as anything other than what you've shown which is quite clearly a troll/denier/etc.
AGW is human caused, but for devils advocate if its not human caused...they'd still need to be researching what the heck IS causing it. So no if AGW was disproved, that isn't disproving that it's warming, so they'd still be quite gainfully employed.
Fortunately, AGW is quite real and quite settled science so no there isn't any need for science to keep saying it is. It actually is.
Bye now.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.c...
It is. We all agree on that.
Indeed it is: we know with a high degree of certainty there is going to be gradual warming and sea level rise over the next century, somewhere between the low and high emission scenarios. Hence we also don't need a lot of federal funding for climate scientists anymore: people know what's coming and can prepare for it.
There is still some science to be done in biology, ecology, economics, and social sciences, but the climate science is, as you say, settled and has little more to contribute.
Be seeing you. Enjoy the unveiling of the Trump administration's budget.
Yup, and you appear to have completely given up your earlier claim that the scientists were prejudiced and are now arguing that the scientific evidence is not sufficient to warrant large-scale intervention. I'm happy with that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I never made a claim that they are "prejudiced", I claimed that they have a strong incentive to reach conclusions that ensured their continued funding, which they obviously have (that's only one of many problems, but the one we happend to talk about).
Well, guess what, those climate scientists are not. Even the ones that are fairly honest in their scientific work have no trouble going before Congress and talking the the press, talking about existential threats, and demanding massive funding and massive government spending. That's because those demands are political, not scientific, and even people who are scientifically sound can give their biases free rein when it comes to politics and other issues outside their domain of expertise.
"If anything, the financial motivations for climate science researchers are stronger"
The strongest motivation for a climate scientist would be to prove everyone else wrong; the one who did that would become extremely wealthy.
"personal loss of going from a respected academic researcher to a barista is arguably greater than going from a double digit billionaire to a single digit billionaire"
I imagine there aren't (m)any earth scientists among your circle of friends if you think their career choices are limited to either (potentially) lying about global warming or spraying foam on top of hot liquid.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
That's how science ought to work, but it doesn't. As Max Planck put it:
And that view is supported by research, e.g.:
Of course, there are tons of historical examples where entire fields have stubbornly stuck to erroneous ideas for decades, and there is a large literature now on widespread errors in the scientific literature.
Well, and they would be sort-of correct: right now, there is some opportunity small numbers of climatologists to move into other, related fields, and it involves a loss of status and a lot of work on their part. But the market doesn't have room for $2 billion worth of climatologists who need to switch research areas/fields. And switching is not an attractive option for people who have achieved success and fame in their field; if your most highly cited papers provide results that the community considers irrelevant or disproven, you're worse off than a fresh graduate.
Of course, a lot of graduate students and scientists overestimate their market value and their abilities, so your failure to understand the impact of funding cuts is not surprising.
Clearly, though, the conclusions of global warming are not affected by a desire to maintain funding.
I don't think every scientist goes before Congress and the press, personally, so you're saying that the ones who are trying to drum up publicity for something they see as a major threat are trying to drum up publicity. Existential threats are not political, although they may be misjudged. Science should play a part in politics, and there's no reason why a scientist has any less standing than you or me to discuss what should be done about what a scientist has studied.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And your basis for saying that is what exactly? Can you even list what "the conclusions of global warming" are? How does climate change research conform to the scientific method? Do you know what assumptions went into those conclusions? How often were climate models replicated independently? How could any of those conclusions have been falsified? Do you know the answers to these question?
Well, and then people like me can point out that their political recommendations are probably strongly influenced by their self interest, even if we don't get into all the scientific problems with "the conclusions of global warming".
You have got to be kidding. It's a branch of science. It gets examined by people in other branches. If they were performing voodoo, there wouldn't be such a high level of agreement of other scientists. As far as the rest, the IPCC report is a good place to start, since evidently you want to look over the literature.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So, your answer is "it conforms to the scientific method because it's done by scientists". Well, science doesn't work that way.
Science requires falsifiability, predictions, experimental testing, reproducibility, and independent verification. Try establishing those criteria for climate change research.
Most branches of science conform to the scientific method (duh). If other branches of science had problems with the methodology of climate science, they'd have said something. That is a scientific way to quickly gauge how scientific climate science is.
Falsifiability: if global temperatures were demonstrably falling, we wouldn't have global warming. Predictions: yes, and they're compared to actual results. Independent verification: scientists not cooperating with each other get similar results.
Experimental testing and reproducibility are not necessary for science. Astronomy is normally considered a science, but it's hard to do experiments on galaxies. Astronomers have to do observations on rare phenomena when they happen. We can't trigger off a supernova whenever we want to observe one, and lots of astronomers will be going through the information gathered on one when it happens.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well, thanks anyway for confirming that you have no idea what the scientific method is or how it relates to climate change.
So you don't think astronomy is a science?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I leave it to you to try to work out the essential differences between astronomy and climate change modeling.
Aside from subject matter, few people have any emotional or economic investment in not believing astronomers (although there's some irrationality about dark matter).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
True. But that's not the difference that makes astronomy conform to the scientific method, while climate change research does not. Keep trying.
Let's see. Astronomy conforms to the scientific method. Climate science conforms to the scientific method. I'm not seeing the distinction.
If you're going to claim that the entire field is unscientific, please provide some evidence.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Do you suffer from senile dementia so that you can't remember a few posts back? This is what I said: