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Sea Ice Extent Sinks To Record Lows At Both Poles (sciencedaily.com)

According to NASA, Arctic sea ice appears to have reached on March 7 a record low wintertime maximum extent. On the opposite side of the planet, Antartica ice hit its lowest extent ever recorded by satellites (since satellites began measuring sea ice in 1979) on March 3 at the end of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Science Daily reports: Total polar sea ice covered 6.26 million square miles (16.21 million square kilometers), which is 790,000 square miles (2 million square kilometers) less than the average global minimum extent for 1981-2010 -- the equivalent of having lost a chunk of sea ice larger than Mexico. The ice floating on top of the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas shrinks in a seasonal cycle from mid-March until mid-September. As the Arctic temperatures drop in the autumn and winter, the ice cover grows again until it reaches its yearly maximum extent, typically in March. The ring of sea ice around the Antarctic continent behaves in a similar manner, with the calendar flipped: it usually reaches its maximum in September and its minimum in February. This winter, a combination of warmer-than-average temperatures, winds unfavorable to ice expansion, and a series of storms halted sea ice growth in the Arctic. This year's maximum extent, reached on March 7 at 5.57 million square miles (14.42 million square kilometers), is 37,000 square miles (97,00 square kilometers) below the previous record low, which occurred in 2015, and 471,000 square miles (1.22 million square kilometers) smaller than the average maximum extent for 1981-2010.

211 comments

  1. Drill Baby Drill!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Keystone XL Approved.

    ~O~ TRUMP 2020 ~O~

    1. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The oil was going to be drilled whether or not Keystone was green-lighted. It was only a question of whether it would be shipped by tube or by ship.

    2. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      What? You can't transport oil via the Internet!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny

      What? You can't transport oil via the Internet!

      It is a fine transport mechanism for bullshit however.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's false. If the pipeline doesn't increase and cheapen the transportation the incentive is much, much less. Not to mention tar stands require a very high per/bbl oil price for it to be worth doing at all.

    5. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I thought the oil traffic was a series of optical fibers? That would make it possible to download oil.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by microbox · · Score: 1

      Price is a factor for how much oil is drilled. And then there's that pesky externality called pollution, and who pays to clean it up. (The oil industry socializes its losses.)

      --

      Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
    7. Re:Drill Baby Drill!!! by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Price is a factor for how much oil is drilled. And then there's that pesky externality called pollution, and who pays to clean it up. (The oil industry socializes its losses.)

      Industry socializes its losses

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  2. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The warmer it gets here, the better.

    1. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a two edged sword. Yes the weather will be nicer, but Progressives, like termites, flock to and thrive in areas of temperate climates especially where housing is cheap. Once the infestation begins, it's nearly impossible to get rid of them and their policies.

    2. Re:Good by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      The warmer it gets here, the better.

      You know, it's funny how all you guys can only think back to winter, and not even ahead to summer, let alone decades ahead.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  3. HUGE Opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If we can just raise the temperature enough to melt the ice in Antarctica, it will become habitable year-round. It could then be opened up for real estate development. Apartment complexes, strip malls, industrial parks...the possibilities are mind-boggling.

    It would also be a great place for all the world's refugees to go and start a new life. Global Warming could turn out to be that best thing to happen to humanity in a long time.

    1. Re:HUGE Opportunity by gnick · · Score: 5, Funny

      It would also be a great place for all the world's refugees to go and start a new life. Global Warming could turn out to be that best thing to happen to humanity in a long time.

      And what a prime opportunity with all the new refugees this will create!

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:HUGE Opportunity by Toad-san · · Score: 1

      New refugees? Like polar bears, Inuit, penguins?

    3. Re:HUGE Opportunity by microbox · · Score: 1

      Like the 90% of the world population that lives at sea level, and in tropical zone deserts. This includes most of the Levant.

      --

      Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
    4. Re:HUGE Opportunity by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

      If we can just raise the temperature enough to melt the ice in Antarctica, it will become habitable year-round. It could then be opened up for real estate development. Apartment complexes, strip malls, industrial parks...the possibilities are mind-boggling.

      I believe the parent post is a joke (and should be marked as funny). Some countries that have shore line could easily lose the land because the sea level will rise and that is not really a gain for them in most ways...

    5. Re: HUGE Opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, we fence them in and let them cook.

  4. It's a hoax! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Drill baby, Drill!

  5. Re:In before global warming whiners... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yes, and the journal Science was in on the conspiracy!

    They're all in on the conspiracy, you know. Because they hate capitalism. And freedom. And apple pie.

    ESPECIALLY apple pie.

  6. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kiribati is going underwater. Does anyone else care? *sigh*

    I don't know...do white people live there?

  7. Re:Similar by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

    My interest levels of sea ice have gotten to an all time record low as well.

    Science is nerdy, climate records are science news. And the climate changing does in fact matter. I would say that such an article ticks all boxes of "news for nerds, stuff that matters".

    If you don't like hearing about it, feel free to go to another website or simply not read and comment on the article.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  8. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    White Christian people.

    captcha: funded

  9. Re:Oh well by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 2

    No progeny then?

    --
    No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
  10. Re:In before global warming whiners... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think "fox news" and "science" belong in the same sentence, let alone the same URL.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  11. Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gee, I wonder how much sea ice there was in the Medieval Warm Period.

    You mean this has happened before? Oh noes!

    1. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by silentcoder · · Score: 4, Informative

      The medieval warm period did not affect sea ice at all. It also did not affect the global temperature at all. It was a localized effect in such a small area that the global average didn't even move.

      Nope, nothing like this has ever happened before.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    2. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 5, Informative

      The medieval warm period did not affect sea ice at all.
      Probably.

      It also did not affect the global temperature at all.
      On your weird definition of global?

      It was a localized effect in such a small area that the global average didn't even move.
      No it wasn't. We just have no data about the _global_ temperature at that time, but we have reports from many places of the world, notable China and Japan that it was warmer than normal there, too. So: very likely it was at least on the northern hemisphere a global phenomenon.

      So: the lack of written evidence, because we have none from Inka, Australians, Africans, does not mean it did not happen there.

      And: if you talk about a/the medieval warm period, it would be cool to add which one you mean. There where three AFAICT.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember all the accurately calibrated sensor logs and scientific data we were keeping through the medievals?

      haha

    4. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by jandersen · · Score: 1

      Nope, nothing like this has ever happened before.

      Well, strictly speaking, there was a sharp spike in temperatures some 10 million years after the dinosaurs wen't extinct, if I remember correctly, but what is unprecedented, is that it is changing so fast - about 10 times as fast as that spike, and that should be cause for deep concern. We simply don't know that the world's ecosystems will be able to adapt fast enough. Human lifespan is too short for us to really see how fast the changes are - but it does actually come to something when these changes are so rapid that it has changed appreciably within living memory. I remember that we used to have snow every winter that lay on the ground for at least a couple of weeks; now I see the first spring flowers around Christmas. If that was just me and my anecdotes, then it wouldn't matter, but when it is confirmed by everything science can throw at it, then it becomes significant. Especially when we know that these transitions follow something like an exponential curve for the first half of the transition; so when we are seeing temperatures somewhat now, it may be the changes in the future will be much, much faster, at least for a while. We don't really know without doing more science.

    5. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know if the parent poster is right, but you should look into the topic of ice cores, which provide a record of Greenland and Antarctica going back quite a long time.

    6. Re: Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean thing like days where ice forms or melts? That would require such modern tech as the written word, and maybe pottery!

    7. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      Yes. when I said "nothign like this" I was including the speed in that assessment.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    8. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And we should all ignore the records of people sailing across the north pole (no ice) from a few hundred years ago...

    9. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Megol · · Score: 1

      There is no need for written history to know the climate in the past. So that is irrelevant. Also something local to the northern hemisphere isn't global per definition.

      Why not do some basic research before writing things like this? Wikipedia is an okay start.

    10. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      but we have reports from many places of the world, notable China and Japan that it was warmer than normal there, too.

      If you dig a bit deeper into these reports you'll find that the warming effects around the world around the medieval warm period were not quite aligned, so it was more a case of heat shifting back and forth than extra global heat, like we have now.

    11. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      Actually, we have reliable written crop and weather records from Asia during that time. We also have tree ring data and cores from all over the world. We also know the sea level at that time. The conclusion is that there was no significant warming during that period.

    12. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      That is wrong.
      The conclusion is as I said before. It was at least on the northern hemisphere a global happening.
      And I really doubt that you can measure happenings of such short life span with tree rings. Trees usually don't survive long enough in quantity to be assigned to a period that is just 10 - 30 years long.
      Regarding China and Japan, we have written evidence in chronicles that it was unusually warm. (Albeit only discovered during the last ten years).

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    13. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The northern hemisphere os half of the globe

      We don't know much about the south during those times because the christians destroyed to much of the written history, or areas like Australia/Newsealand had no written language at those times, which makes gathering of data a bit difficult.

      Wikipedia is unfortunately about ten years of research information outdated, so I suggest you take your own advice and read a bit about the topic?

      And, frankly, the idea that large scale phenomena like a warming of a whole continent could be a local phenomena, is pretty idiotic, don't you agree?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    14. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      We don't rely on historical accounts for climate data - we have plenty of proxies we can look at today to get some useful data about the past. And yes, something that does not affect the whole globe is by definition a local event.

    15. Re:Sea ice extent in Medieval Warm Period? by dave420 · · Score: 1

      You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about this. What you doubt is of little consequence, as your doubts don't change reality :)

  12. This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The thing we need to remember is that this has happened before, during the so-called "Medieval Warm Period". This global rise in temperatures happened between 950 AD and 1250 AD, which is kind of a problem because it means that the trendy explanation of post-Industrial Revolution human pollution being the cause of this rise in temperatures can't be used. So it tends to be downplayed today because, well, you can't really justify lucrative (for governments; awful for everybody else) carbon taxes when it's solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, or changes to wind circulation patterns that are responsible for the increased temperatures.

    What angers these experts more is that humanity actually did quite well during this period of time. These higher temperatures allowed Europe, for example, to flourish agriculturally, which allowed for accelerated social development. The Norse were able to navigate to places like Iceland, Greenland, and even to the east coast of North America during this time. It was thanks to these temperature changes that Europe exited the so-called "Dark Ages" after the fall of the Roman Empire, and was set on the path of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and today's modern society.

    Of course, it wasn't just Europeans who benefited. There was also significant social growth in places as diverse as South America, Central America, Japan, South-East Asia, and India.

    So we shouldn't fear temperature increases. Historically, they have been what has allowed societies around the globe to accelerate their development and to progress to new heights both technologically and socially.

    1. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Except there has never been a temperature increase as great, or as rapid as we ar experiencing (or will experience in the next few decades) in all of human history.

      So you cannot possibly extrapolate from any previous examples, as they are not the same.

      Also - that BS about the middle age warming was localized and not global. It's an old, tired denialist trope that serves no purpose than to muddy the waters.

    2. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by butchersong · · Score: 0

      People have I think tried to link that and the subsequent cooling around the 1600's to north american indian populations deforesting and then the reforestation due to smallpox decimating their civilization. It seems quite a stretch to me but the academics have done at least some amount of research prior to floating that as a cause I assume.

    3. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by pastafazou · · Score: 3, Informative
    4. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by PoopJuggler · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Keep telling yourself that so you don't have to make any adjustments to your cushy gluttonous lifestyle.

    5. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      It probably gets downplayed today because it had been already exaggerated by people like you to inordinate levels of relevance. For example, just because it's somewhat comparable to early 20th century situation doesn't mean we haven't overshot it already and aren't well on our way to greatly overshooting it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by MightyMartian · · Score: 2, Informative

      Global temperatures were overall cooler during this period.

      https://www.skepticalscience.c...

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This global rise in temperatures happened between 950 AD and 1250 AD

      Except, here's a quote from your source (emphasis added):

      The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region that may also have been related to other climate events around the world during that time, including China[1] and other areas. ... Proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, indicating that the Medieval Warm Period was not a time of globally uniform change

      Not a global rise in temperatures. A regional one.

      But let's pretend that there was a global rise in temperatures, the rise was spread over a longer time frame. The issue with global warming has never been how warm it is. It's not even how warm it's going to be. It actually doesn't even matter whether or not humans are the major source of the warming. It's entirely about how FAST it's getting warmer.

      We've seen quickly changing climates in the past, which were followed by major extinction events. Well, it's happening again right now and we have the ability to do something about it. So, let's do it.

    8. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You people are like my ex-wife. Always an excuse, Always a caveat, Always yet another circumstance. She cloud explain away a dead body full of her own steak knives.

      Your credibility would be enhanced if even just once in a while you'd admit that your position isn't 100% and then actually consider alternatives.

      Instead you are zealots who have 100% faith in your position, not unlike religious zealots. THAT, is what is telling.

    9. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by stjobe · · Score: 1

      The thing we need to remember is that this has happened before, during the so-called "Medieval Warm Period". This global rise in temperatures happened between 950 AD and 1250 AD

      From that wikipedia page (with some emphasis from me):

      the warmest period of the last 2,000 years prior to the 20th century in the Northern Hemisphere very likely occurred between 950 and 1100. Proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, indicating that the Medieval Warm Period was not a time of globally uniform change. Temperatures in some regions matched or exceeded recent temperatures in these regions, but globally the Medieval Warm Period was cooler than recent global temperatures.

      So, one, it wasn't warmer then than it is now, and two, it was not global.

      --
      "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    10. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pot, meet kettle

    11. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What alternatives are there? We know for 100% certain that:

      1) Rapid changes in global temperatures that have happened in earth's history were followed by extinction events.

      2) We are currently in a rapid global temperature change the same as or worse than previous rapid global temperature changes

      What isn't 100% certain is whether or not we can do anything about it. But this isn't because we lack any capability. It's because we, the general public, lack consensus on the topic.

    12. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      Only among the climate denying halfwits is citing factual statements viewed as trolling.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    13. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by pastafazou · · Score: 2
      You picked one of many reconstuctions, and it's one that shows current temperatures warmer than the medieval warm period. And it's also one that has been criticized:

      At the EGU General Assembly a few weeks ago there were no less than three papers from groups in Copenhagen and Bern assessing critically the merits of methods used to reconstruct historical climate variable from proxies; Bürger’s papers in 2005; Moberg’s paper in Nature in 2005; various papers on borehole temperature; The National Academy of Science Report from 2006 – all of which have helped to clarify that the hockey-stick methodologies lead indeed to questionable historical reconstructions.
      ~Hans von Storch, May 2007

      why wouldn't you cite Ljungqvist's 2010 30-proxy reconstruction, which was more widely supported? Ljungqvist's chart Is it because it shows both the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Roman warm period were just as warm or warmer than today?

    14. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great
      What next, are you going to explain us that Hitler went to Argentina and died there in 1980?

    15. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by haruchai · · Score: 1

      why wouldn't you cite Ljungqvist's 2010 30-proxy reconstruction, which was more widely supported? Ljungqvist's chart [lwhancock.com] Is it because it shows both the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Roman warm period were just as warm or warmer than today?

      Perhaps because he's already read the rebuttalls? And that Ljungqvist himself doesn't agree with how his results are being interpreted?
      But try not to let that upset you because the Medieval Warm Period poses a thorny conundrum for den....er "skeptics"
      If it did happen as they claim, that implies that climate sensitivity is on the high end of the scale

      https://www.skepticalscience.c...

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    16. Re: This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      why wouldn't you cite Ljungqvist's 2010 30-proxy reconstruction, which was more widely supported?

      By "widely supported" you mean wildly quoted" by "sceptics" who ignored a few things from that reconstruction (like having less proxies from ca. 1970 on than for an year before back until 1 AD) - and of course the actual temperature record.

      Check the actual paper, esp. Figs. 2A) and 3(

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    17. Re:This has happened before. Humanity excelled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You people are like my ex-wife.

      Your ex-wife will be pleased to know that she was right, and you're a scumbag.

  13. There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    global cooling.

    1. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Watch out. You are going to set off MarvinMartian.

    2. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

      Ah look, it's my infantile semi-retarded stalker.

      What's it like holding a position in complete defiance of reality? Does it make you proud, or do you have any neurons in your amygdala to actually demonstrate that kind of emotion?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Its ok, I won't tell Soros that you were late to work today. At least you aren't as cranky as you were the other day.

    4. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bot

    5. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I want to know what reality is, I check your posts. Then believe in the opposite.

      There are few people here more addled and ridiculous that you. Which is quite a feat considering /. still hosts people like amimojo.

    6. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every time Slashdot publishes a climate article, I go out and burn a few dozen acres of old tires. Whenever MightyMartian comments upon said climate article, I double the amount of tires burned.

      I'm not kidding.

    7. Re: There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't know there were any Slashdot gypsies. Well the carcinogenic smoke will take a few decades to work but eventually you'll get the point of environmental regulations.

    8. Re:There is a worse thing than global warming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't deny yourself the full pleasure of your efforts. Stand very close to the tires and inhale deeply, over & over.
      If you can, keep doing that for at least an hour.

  14. Wait, what? by Coisiche · · Score: 1

    According to NASA

    Didn't they already get told they weren't allowed to gather let alone publish this sort of data?

    Someone is getting sacked. I'm assuming there is going to be some kind of equivalent of the gulag soon for the people who persist in producing unapproved data.

    1. Re:Wait, what? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      According to NASA

      Didn't they already get told they weren't allowed to gather let alone publish this sort of data?

      Someone is getting sacked. I'm assuming there is going to be some kind of equivalent of the gulag soon for the people who persist in producing unapproved data.

      Seems to be a bit of a revolt going on. It's gonna get more interesting. Coming to my party? Popcorn and Tequila, I'll see if the little lady can whip up some of her tater salad.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  15. Re:In before global warming whiners... by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/how-culture-clash-noaa-led-flap-over-high-profile-warming-pause-study

    Rose's story ricocheted around right-wing media outlets, and was publicized by the Republican-led House of Representatives science committee, which has spent months investigating earlier complaints about the Karl study that is says were raised by an NOAA whistleblower. But Science Insider found no evidence of misconduct or violation of agency research policies after extensive interviews with Bates, Karl, and other former NOAA and independent scientists, as well as consideration of documents that Bates also provided to Rose and the Mail.

    Instead, the dispute appears to reflect long-standing tensions within NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), based in Asheville, North Carolina, over how new data sets are used for scientific research. The center is one the nation’s major repositories for vetted earth observing data collected by satellites, ships, buoys, aircraft, and land-based instruments.

    In the blog post, Bates says that his complaints provide evidence that Karl had his “thumb on the scale” in an effort to discredit claims of a warming pause, and his team rushed to publish the paper so it could influence national and international climate talks. But Bates does not directly challenge the conclusions of Karl's study, and he never formally raised his concerns through internal NOAA mechanisms.

    Tuesday, in an interview with E&E News, Bates himself downplayed any suggestion of misconduct. “The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was,” he told reporter Scott Waldman. And Bates told ScienceInsider that he is wary of his critique becoming a talking point for those skeptical of human-caused climate change. But it was important for this conversation about data integrity to happen, he says. “That’s where I came down after a lot of soul searching. I knew people would misuse this. But you can't control other people,” he says.

    At a House science committee hearing yesterday, Rush Holt, CEO of AAAS (publisher of Science and ScienceInsider) stood by the 2015 paper. "This is not the making of a big scandal—this is an internal dispute between two factions within an agency," Holt said in response to a question from Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX), the panel’s chairman, and a longtime critic of NOAA’s role in the Karl paper. This past weekend, Smith issued a statement hailing Bates for talking about “NOAA’s senior officials playing fast and loose with the data in order to meet a politically predetermined conclusion.”

    Some climate scientists are concerned that the hubbub is obscuring the more important message: that the NOAA research has generally proved accurate. “I’m a little confused as to why this is a big deal,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with Berkeley Earth, a California nonprofit climate research group that has examined surface temperatures. He’s the lead author of a paper published in January in Science Advances that found Karl’s estimates of sea surface temperature—a key part of the work—matched well with estimates drawn from other methods.

    Researchers say the Karl paper’s findings are also in line with findings from the Met Office, the U.K. government’s climate agency, which preceded Karl’s work, and findings in a recent paper by scientists at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, an alliance of 34 states based in Reading, U.K. And although other researchers have reported evidence that the rise in global temperature has slowed recently, they have not challenged the ethics of Karl’s team, or the q

    --
    Aeris Died For Your Sins.
  16. Need Ad Traffic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Post global warming article.

  17. A Layman's Guide to the Science of Global Warming by Nova+Express · · Score: 0
    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

  18. GTFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is up with all the anti science trolls today? The crowd in here needs to go to voat.co where you all can continue your circle jerk.

  19. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, because when dealing with a complex topic, rather than listening to professionals and peer-reviewed research, I like to play amateur scientist and get all my info from blogs.

    FYI, you can make your own comparison graphs here. On the about page it has links to all of the datasets, which you can download: Sea Ice Index, Near-Real-time DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS Daily Polar Gridded Sea Ice Concentrations, and the NASA-produced Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I Passive Microwave Data.

    As for MASIE:

    2. When should I use MASIE and when should I use the Sea Ice Index?

    Use the Sea Ice Index when comparing trends in sea ice over time or when consistency is important. Even then, the monthly, not the daily, Sea Ice Index views should be used to look at trends in sea ice. The Sea Ice Index documentation explains how linear regression is used to say something about trends in ice extent, and what the limitations of that method are. Use MASIE when you want the most accurate view possible of Arctic-wide ice on a given day or through the week.

  20. Re:Similar by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kiribati is going underwater. Does anyone else care? *sigh*

    Many places will. As well, while a lot of folk are enjoying the warmer winters, and give not one tiny fuck about what is happening in other places, there are little issues that can crop up that might affect them.

    Sea level rise is just one issue.

    Local climate change is another. If the gulf stream is disrupted by Greenland glacier melt, the British Isles will actually get colder.

    Some places will become more lush, and some places will become desert. The Sahara was once a nice place. If a natural climate shift can do that, it will be interesting to see what happens when we release all that sequestered carbon.

    But especially in America, people don't give a shit about anything that isn't happening to them personally.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  21. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol. that's all there really is to say to this inane reply. stick to other fields of interest.

  22. FACT: Global Warming is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Ivar Giaever (nobel prize winner in physics):

    Nobel Laureate Ivar Giaever Quits Physics Group over Stand on Global Warming

    The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period.

    I resigned from the society in 2011. First: nothing in science is incontrovertible. Second: the âoemeasuredâ average temperature increase in 100 years or so, is 0.8 Kelvin. Third: since the Physical Society claim it has become warmer, why is everything better than before? Forth: the maximum average temperature ever measured was in 1998, 17 years ago. When will we stop wasting money on alternative energy?

    1. Re:FACT: Global Warming is bullshit by Barsteward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "We have heard many similar warnings about the acid rain 30 years ago and the ozone hole 10 years ago or deforestation but the humanity is still around. The ozone hole width has peaked in 1993, he continued." - if this is his excuse of ignoring it then he does need to resign from science completely because those problems he lists were tackled and changes made to mitigate the problems, just because they are not so prominent now, doesn't mean they didn;t exist

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    2. Re: FACT: Global Warming is bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you look at the average temperature of the 15 years before and after 1998 it is higher after. The trend is towards a warmer planet.

  23. Re: Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait a minute, that sounds like common sense in a climate change thread. No cussing? No denialist/alarmist finger pointing? I commend you sir.

  24. Re: Oh well by Kiuas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing we can do now.

    This is quite possibly the stupidest response to climate related issues I've ever seen. It's very very true that the change cannot be reversed or prevented altogether, but that still doesn't mean there aren't plenty of things we can - and should - do to mitigate the effects. We can't fix everything, but if we opt to do nothing and continue business as usual with the fossil fuels for example, we can make things a lot worse,

    It's psychologically appealing to lift one's hands into the air and declare that it's all fucked already and we can do nothing but sit and wait for extinction, but it's also simultaneously the intellectual equivalent of 'well, my liver's already damaged from all this drinking, so might just as well keep drinking because who cares at this point?'

    Call me an idealist if you wish but even though I may never end up having kids, I still care about the continued survival of the species past the point of my own death.

    --
    "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
  25. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by marcgvky · · Score: 1

    Mark Serreze is a well-known person in the climate debate community. But the link above is to HIS OWN data which directly contradicts his statements in the NYT article. I'm not attacking him personally, but I have substantive conflict with the way he conveyed the veracity and conclusions about his own data.

  26. Re:20,000 years ago by gtall · · Score: 2

    Unless Greenland melts in which case the sea level rise is about 23 feet. Do ya feel lucky?

  27. Re: Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With a requisite daily climate change article, it ceases to be news and it just makes the site boring. Yay, more sea ice on slashdot.... A site that used to have cool technology articles that you couldn't find on other sites.

  28. Re: Oh well by gnick · · Score: 2

    if we opt to do nothing and continue business as usual with the fossil fuels for example, we can make things a lot worse

    And things will get worse - We'll help. It remains to be seen how much we'll contribute and how warm we'll eventually get, but global warming will continue. I'm not an expert, but that's something I believe based on what I've read. Along with minimizing the problem as much as possible, we'd best plan for the consequences.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  29. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by marcgvky · · Score: 1

    Thanks for throwing out ad hom attacks and red herrings. Now, back to the fact that Mark's data directly contradicts his own statements and conclusions. I'm sure that data is published in a peer-reviewed journal, too.... so let's talk about the issue I've raised.

  30. Experts know more than laymen by dbIII · · Score: 1

    Nice try at reality denial, but experts know more than laymen.
    Are you really so shit at what you do that you think everyone else is just as good at what you do? No? Then have you thought that other professionals may be better at what they do than others who have never attempted to do their jobs?

  31. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by randallman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "several thousand people whom rely on the climate change scam, for their paycheck, are ramping up the BS so they can remain on the gravy train...."

    It really blows my mind that people believe engineers and scientists from the best scientific organizations in the world, including NASA and NOAA are ALL in on a worldwide scam, while the companies that actually have skin in the game (oil, nat gas, coal, etc) are innocent victims. If you know any engineers (I'm an M.E.), you know they're often quite anal about technicalities and correctness. To even consider that a group, much less several groups across the globe would sacrifice their integrity for grants, or whatever, is absolutely ludicrous.

    But then again, we elected Trump as president so it seems the majority of people aren't capable of rational thought.

  32. Re:20,000 years ago by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're not wrong about the past glacial extent. And no, the glaciers didn't disappear because of humanity, they receded well in advance of the first permanent human settlements (roughly the dawn of civilization, though humans were around well before that). And interestingly enough, global temperatures were in a (slow) cooling trend from about 7000BCE onward.

    But that stopped around 1900, and the global temperature average has begun to swing sharply, at a rate that ought to be alarming, because as the graph shows, it is quite literally without precedent, in terms of the speed of the change, and shows no signs of stopping unless we take action to affect it:
    https://xkcd.com/1732/

  33. Top four comments by nightfire-unique · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The top four comments as I write this are replies to those looking at the bright side, claiming disinterest, or arguing against the observation or its significance.

    This is on slashdot. This isn't some dopey AM radio comment forum.

    That's .. concerning. :(

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
    1. Re:Top four comments by randallman · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Though Slashdot's comment quality has been on a steady decline, so I'm not surprised.

    2. Re:Top four comments by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      What do you expect? For more than 20 years, we've been saturated with messages of impeding climate doom. Outrage is psychologically exhausting. And there's only so much people can take before they become numb to more bad news.

    3. Re:Top four comments by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Well the two main root drivers of emissions is population growth and increased standard of living. Really poor places don't have much emissions because they don't have cars and AC and 50" TVs. It's mostly sociology and not so much science. Against this near impossible to stop tide we try to act like "green" technology will save the day. Yes, not putting CFCs in refrigerators is probably a good idea. But it's doesn't really change that most of the world's 7.5 billion people will want one and even an A+++ rated one has to be manufactured, shipped and powered.

      If they were really serious about solving it, we'd have an session in the UN to introduce China's one-child policy globally until the world population is sustainable is down to a billion. Until then we have to deal with people that think recycling, driving a Tesla and eco-tourism will save the world. It's cute but horribly naive as long as most of the remaining population and the world says thanks for taking one for the team, now we don't have to sacrifice anything or make any effort. Again, making a meaningful collective change is more sociology than science.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Top four comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if they say we should cut back, they're crazy hippies wanting us to run back to live in caves and the stone age. And if they don't say we should cut back, they're liars making this shit up.

      Because you are crazy.

    5. Re:Top four comments by nightfire-unique · · Score: 1

      Man, you're completely wrong.

      The Earth doesn't have a population limit. 8 billion is no closer than 1 billion.

      We can all live comfortable, luxurious lives.

      The problems we're facing have nothing to do with resource exhaustion (aside from petroleum), but inefficiency and pollution.

      We can absolutely produce goods without air pollution. We have sources of essentially limitless energy. We can absolutely use nuclear reactors to ship goods - no need for bunker oil.

      It's a question of economics and political engagement. Increasing efficiency means some people are going to lose their jobs, and some companies are going to go out of business. That is the main hurdle we all face, not population growth.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
    6. Re:Top four comments by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I can understand numb, but plenty of folks seem to have a lot of energy for denial.

    7. Re:Top four comments by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Man, you're completely wrong. The Earth doesn't have a population limit. 8 billion is no closer than 1 billion. We can all live comfortable, luxurious lives. The problems we're facing have nothing to do with resource exhaustion (aside from petroleum), but inefficiency and pollution. We can absolutely produce goods without air pollution. We have sources of essentially limitless energy. We can absolutely use nuclear reactors to ship goods - no need for bunker oil. It's a question of economics and political engagement.

      Cool. Get back to me when you've convinced the world to put a potential nuclear meltdown in every town and every cargo ship and drive EVs so they can use it for charging. Back in the real world, CO2 levels keep going up, up and away as countries like China go modern. After that comes India, Brazil and the rest of the developing world. Even if the population boom has subsided we'll still hit 10 billion people, that's another 33% growth.

      The people who talk about reducing emissions are smoking crack, we're likely to double the world's CO2 emissions in the next 40 years if the technology doesn't evolve. Make that quadruple if everybody decides to pollute as much as Americans, because if they can why can't we? Whatever improvements we make will only make the explosive growth slightly less explosive unless we invent a working fusion reactor or something. Say what you want about nuclear but in the public opinion it's beating a dead horse. We're shutting existing reactors down, not building new ones.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  34. Re:20,000 years ago by randallman · · Score: 2

    Not sure where your 8 C came from. It took about 11,000 years for the temp to rise 4 C. By contrast, we're up 1 C in just 100 years, and that's the issue. Nobody's saying the climate doesn't change naturally, just that this extremely rapid change is caused by humans.

    https://xkcd.com/1732/

    "It's just a flimsy excuse by the lib-left for bigger government."

    No, it's just reality. How about, instead of denying reality you come up with a solution that doesn't require government to grow. I'll be all for it.

  35. The freeze right back . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We get these scare stories every year, yet it froze back to 1990s levels recently. Yawn.

  36. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by marcgvky · · Score: 0

    Climatologists are not mechanical engineers, they are PhD's. I agree, engineers are very careful about the details. However, PhD's don't have life-risk to consider. I fact, there is overt manipulation of the data upon which most (if not all) of the climate "conclusions" are based.

    Further, engineers don't have the luxury of being influenced by confirmation biases or other cognitive issues.... because engineering data is wholly-objective and extremely repeatable. "climate science" is neither; the inductive processes they apply seem to lead down paths that would follow confirmation bias, repeatedly. I'm involved in science and a great mentor of mine once said that, "if you torture the data enough, it will tell you anything you want to hear...."

  37. Re:20,000 years ago by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    You are mixing up feet with meters.

    The latest estimates were if the whole ice cap on greenland melts or slides in to the ocean a 15m - 17m, 45feet to 51feet sea level increase.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  38. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by haruchai · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ice extent is the easiest variable to measure but can be misleading as there's no difference in a patch that 15% covered or 100% covered.
    Ice area and volume are also very important but more difficult to determine but Arctic sea ice volume has declined dramatically in the satellite record and is 30%-50% lower than 2006-2007

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

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  39. We don't need to "stop" it by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, a thought just occurred to me.

    If people can at least agree that climate change is happening (man-caused or otherwise), can we not also agree that some form of mitigation is necessary? It's not as if climate change is an unheard of thing on our planet. That's not even the issue.

    Humans are unique in that we can modify an environment to suit us, but that doesn't make us any less dependant on the other species on this planet, and so it is *still* in our best interests to keep things on as much an even keel as possible.

    Species evolve slowly over time. As conditions change, animals *will* evolve. But if conditions change too quickly, then there isn't enough time to adapt and species die. So we don't necessarily need to stop it... only slow it down as much as we can so that everything else can keep up and we don't risk getting ourselves taken out in the process.

    This of course presumes one a) understands evolution, b) understands that climate *will* change and c) gives a shit about things beside short-term financial gain.

    1. Re:We don't need to "stop" it by WrongMonkey · · Score: 1

      Do you understand evolution? Massive species die off *is* evolution. These are not mutually exclusive paths.

    2. Re:We don't need to "stop" it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he's just prefer that Homo Sapiens not be on of those species, which means we need to avoid letting it happen to other species that are key to the food chain.

    3. Re:We don't need to "stop" it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The species we are dependent on can be counted on two hands. Like a statistical blip dor the number of species out there

    4. Re:We don't need to "stop" it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mass-culling based on HUMAN-destroyed habitat != evolution as nature defined it over millions of years, that's false.

    5. Re:We don't need to "stop" it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. Survival of the fittest. Period. Under all conditions. Which includes radical and rapid environmental change for any reason.

      Or do you think it somehow "doesn't count" that the dinosaurs got unfairly whacked by a giant asteroid/meteor in one fell swoop and didn't get a fair chance to "evolve" over a few million years to sloooowly changing conditions.

      No. They are dead. Why? Because they were unfit for their environment. They got evolved out.

  40. Re:20,000 years ago by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    (slow) cooling trend from about 7000BCE onward.
    Where do you have this myth from? Hu? The last "ice age" barely ended around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. And you want to tell us just ~3,000 later it already started to cool again? Rofl ...

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  41. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    So you're saying that if I don't like your opinion I should go somewhere else.

    Good stuff. Works both ways.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  42. Re:Similar by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

    My interest levels of sea ice have gotten to an all time record low as well.

    Translation: I'm the most important thing on the planet.

  43. Re:Similar by interkin3tic · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Your knowledge of how science works comes from sci-fi movies and conservative propaganda.

    Science especially doesn't involve data that have been "adjusted" to benefit certain political movements or to increase the likelihood of getting grant money.

    You've never read any primary scientific literature or grant applications...

    And science really doesn't involve extrapolating a couple hundred years' worth of "adjusted" data across thousands, millions, or even billions of years.

    You've never read any books on evolution or geology....

    There are too much politics involved.

    You've never read anything about medical research...

    We want to discuss real science, backed by hard facts, non-adjusted data, and untainted observation.

    You've evidently never talked to any scientists of any kind either and may have never talked to any real human before. There is no such thing as "untainted observation." If you're observing it, you have your own spin on it. "Non-adjusted data" similarly is a myth. Look out your window at the world. What does the world look like? WRONG. Unless you're on a boat in the ocean, that's not what most of the world looks like. In order to get a real understanding of what the world looks like, you can't just pick the first thing that you see, you need to... adjust it.

    You come off like a kid who is telling people how adult relationships should go based on his extensive watching of porno movies. You're arrogant to be dictating on things you don't know about, you look silly, and you're in for real disappointment unless you persist forever in your ignorance.

  44. Comment quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It used to be a free software forum, and anti-Microsoft site. It has become a fake news outlet peddling the latest, fashionable left wing propaganda.

    1. Re:Comment quality by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      It used to be a free software forum, and anti-Microsoft site. It has become a fake news outlet peddling the latest, fashionable left wing propaganda.

      Let's say this is true - how has anything changed? Being free software and anti-Microsoft is hardly alt-right. Or science hating for that matter.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  45. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    I contend that your ability to translate English is rather limited.

    Of course as you were only trying to help I should thank you, Mr PoopJuggler for that insight.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  46. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mechanical engineers have to learn thing like thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, chemistry and differential equations. They are obviously not qualified to have an opinion. You need to study crap like tree rings and ice cores to be able to weigh in on this subject.

  47. Re:In before global warming whiners... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because they hate capitalism. And freedom. And apple pie.

    And they want to force everyone into gay marriages. Don't forget about THAT.

  48. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Sperbels · · Score: 3, Funny

    But don't you see! It's a vast conspiracy with thousands of participants who all collectively are keeping the global warming hoax a secret!

  49. Re: Oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yep. Who cares at this point? Nothing we can do now.

    That's because there is no 'we', there is only 'me'. Collective action takes away our freedoms.

  50. tut tut by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The poles are warming cause that's where sailboating yeomanry sink so many drooling progressive Trotsy-ite warmist sluts. Adds up, those descriptives ... like specific heats. glubglubglub and aloha bitch. Another 100 million years and the bodies turn to coal ... but sour-faced coal that smokes white.

  51. Dalton Minimum by p51d007 · · Score: 1

    We just ended a period of a global maximum, which, started in the early 1900's, ending in the 1990's. We have been sliding into another solar minimum. The last one, called the Dalton Minimum, started in the 1700's to early 1800's. The Maunder Minimum, caused the Hudson river to freeze, the Thames River to freeze...the period was known as the little ice age, couple volcanoes burst at the same period of low sun output, which didn't help either. Some called it "no summer" weather. Ice might be dissipating, but it will come back big time

    1. Re:Dalton Minimum by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      Solar variation between normal sunspot cycle and a "minimum" is only 1 Watt/square meter, on a total of more than 1300 Watts/square meter. It's not significant, and easily overwhelmed by the increase in CO2.

    2. Re:Dalton Minimum by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      1 watt in 164 = meaningless
      200 parts co2 per million = end of the world

      Got it.

      (164 watts per square meter is the average across the earth's surface, which is far more meaningful here than the absolute peak magnitude. Also, the solar cycle theory has a lot more to do with cloud formation than with watts.)

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    3. Re:Dalton Minimum by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      200 parts co2 per million = end of the world

      We currently have 35% more CO2 than a century or so ago, and there's no sign yet of it slowing down. That's quite a bit.

      164 watts per square meter is the average across the earth's surface, which is far more meaningful here than the absolute peak magnitude.

      The 1 Watt difference is also the peak. So, where still talking about a delta of less than 0.1% in solar output.

    4. Re:Dalton Minimum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We just ended a period of a global maximum, which, started in the early 1900's, ending in the 1990's. We have been sliding into another solar minimum.

      And yet every temperature metric, land or sea, from ice loss to sea level, is still increasing (and at a faster rate than the 20th century average), and has been for the last 20 years.

      Clearly the impact of solar variation is being swamped by the CO2 forcing.

  52. Re: Oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you own an SUV, FUCK YOU AND DIAF you are the problem

  53. Re:In before global warming whiners... by lactose99 · · Score: 0

    There is more truth in this than in 90% of /. commenters these days

    --
    Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
  54. Re: Oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Huh. Well, fuck you, got mine anyway."

    -All Trump supporters

  55. Re:Similar by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    So you're saying that if I don't like your opinion I should go somewhere else.

    Bro, do you even read?

    I said, if you don't like this website (tag line: news for nerds, stuff that matters) when it has an article which (a) is of interest nerds and (b) matters, then perhaps you should consider visiting a different website, one more aligned with your interests perhaps.

    I don't really care if you like my opinion. All things considered, I think I'd feel better if you disliked it.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  56. Where Is It? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, if this ice at both of the poles is shrinking, just where is it going to? Are there massive rises in the oceans with the corresponding flooding of all coastal cities? Somehow I seemed to have missed this in the article and in the recent news cycles.

    1. Re:Where Is It? by minogully · · Score: 2

      It's just sea-ice that's melted. When sea ice melts it doesn't change the water level. That's because it's floating in the water and the water level has already been displaced by it. For example, when the ice in a glass of water melts, does the water level in the cup go up?

  57. Re: Oh well by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's the new response. I like to call it the "Eat, Drink And Be Merry For Tomorrow We Shall Die" response, wherein the pseudo-skeptics finally concede that we're fucking up global climate, but just shrug their shoulders and go "Oh well", or pretend that they care about poor people because "OMG, if we move from oil, just imagine all those poor brown-skinned people that will be harmed!" as if they ever actually cared about vulnerable populations.

    What it all really lays bare is the pure greed and nihilism of the fossil fuel lobby, oh, and the complete idiocy of morons on the Internet who follow them.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  58. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google Shukla....

  59. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's nice to see the Putinbot influence is pretty much gone from Slashdot now, this kind of trash would be sitting at +5 for ages for a while there. I wonder how many sleeper accounts had karma, how many were just trolls, etc.

  60. Re:In before global warming whiners... by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

    And sex changes! They want everyone to be transexual Communist homosexuals.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  61. Re:Similar by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    This is a misrepresentation of the solution, the kind of thing that demonstrates the nihilism at the core of your argument. We need to start reducing CO2 emissions, with an eye on the next twenty or thirty years. Yes, we're going to cross some red lines, but we can still mitigate the worst of it, and no, it's not going to kill billions of people.

    But if the lives of large numbers of people are of such great concern to you, why are you so willing to abandon all the people that are and will be affected by unconstrained climate change?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  62. Re: Similar by MightyMartian · · Score: 1, Informative

    Translation: I'm a delicate snowflake, only report things that make me feel good.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  63. Comrad Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Comrad Trump will shut down the satellites that tell libertard lies.

    1. Re:Comrad Trump by dbreeze · · Score: 1

      He is awesome, ain't he.....

      --
      When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
  64. Re:20,000 years ago by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 2

    A quick Google search disagrees.
    If the Greenland ice sheet melted, sea level would rise 6-7meters. https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html

    Much as I hate "citation needed" tags, I would like to know where you got 15m-17m from.

  65. Re:Similar by Bongo · · Score: 1, Troll

    Um, the point is, dare I say this, that there's very hard science and there's soft science. There's findings which are highly testable, repeatedly, and there's findings which are verging on the non-reproduceable. And whilst science tends to self-correct, sometimes, just sometimes, it can take decades for that self-correction to take place, simply because as you say, it is impossible to remove any bias and error all the time, yet science as a practice must go on.

    We are just now, for example, a big example, witnessing a 100% reversal in the thinking behind dietary advice which was the basis for public health advice for the last 50 years. It seems it was soo wrong, that it actually created the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and maybe even dementia. But this correction is ongoing, and we'll probably need another 50 years to know whether this correction is actually correct.

    And it was all science. Albeit, given the limitations of what you can do to people in a lab, it was all soft science, but despite it being soft, the authorities and people in charge still pushed it as pretty definitive and correct. See, that's risk.

    Put aside all the politics and questions of morality and ethics and whether humans are too stupid to do the right thing, there is always risk that the big theory is wrong, dead wrong, and that it will have consequences. And when you look at what things like, "97% of scientists are in consensus" are actually based on, you can see it is being oversold, for the sake of "saving the planet".

    We cannot, well some people do, rule out the bias of "expert bias". It happens. We know it happens, from time to time. Especially when there is apparent consensus. I used to believe global warming 100% and assume it was all correct, because I normally trust science, but then started to wonder why people were touting consensus and virtual certainty.

    Science, the one thing is needs to be in practice, is self-correcting, but once people declare consensus and virtual certainty, we can no longer know whether it can be trusted because that one thing, self-correction, it being open to question by anybody, "on the word of no-one", as the motto used to go, goes out the window.

    It cannot self-correct if any dissenting scientists gets lambasted as deniers.
    It may be right it may be wrong. Wait another 100 years to find out.

    Act in the meantime as you see fit. May the consequences be on your head.

  66. Ice loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And how much has sea level increased with this loss? Are we still measuring it in tens of feet?

  67. Then let us do nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No more burning fossil fuels. Stop doing it. Do nothing to burn them. End the activity of burning fossil fuels. Nothing is what we ARE NOT doing. We're still making the fucking thing worse. "Do nothing" *IS AN IMPROVEMENT WE ARE NOT TAKING*.

    1. Re:Then let us do nothing. by endoflife · · Score: 1

      I'd love to burn as little fossil fuel as possible. It would help if I could drive as little as possible by working from home however lately many large corporations (in the USA) have ended their work from home programs so... obviously they don't give a damn about the environment.

  68. Re: Oh well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not a skeptic or a denier.

    I figured that there might be some small chance--then the Cheeto was elected.

    But after he spends 4 years escalating the issues, with the backing of congress--kiss your ass good bye.

  69. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by jbengt · · Score: 1

    Further, engineers don't have the luxury of being influenced by confirmation biases or other cognitive issues....

    As an engineer, I would love to believe that.
    But as a person with eyes and ears, I know that is incorrect.

  70. Re:20,000 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really, it doesn't even matter whether it's caused by humans or not. What matters is:

    1) Other times in past when global temperature changed rapidly there were extinction events.

    2) Global temperature is currently changing rapidly.

    3) We are able to do something about it.

    Sticking to these arguments nullifies most/all of the deniers' arguments

  71. Re: Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Advancements in tech are going to do that anyway. High efficiency electronics are already saving quite a bit of power such that many planned nuclear reactors for additional baseload production rather than replacement were canned. With smart grid tech to balance wind and solar spikes, those methods will be more effective to remove the need for coal plants. Battery enhancements will likely usher in a wider adoption of electric cars. A long way to my point, but we are doing something already and it's just people naturally migrating towards new tech because it suits their lifestyle. What more do we need that is within reason?

  72. Re:Similar by microbox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Climate science is "systems science". It is very much a hard science; however, there'll always be uncertainties for political ideologues to talk up. We've got about a 10% of creating a disaster, and no second planet earth yo move to, and that alone means we should be talking about appropriate actions, and not *if* there's a problem. It's very easy for the oil industry to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt over the science, which is just a tried and true political game. The scientists themselves will not (by and large) explain what to do -- that's not their expertise -- but they are convinced that there is a problem, and their reasons are clearly explained. Skepticalscience.com has a summary of "skeptic arguments" and what scientists say. You can always read the peer reviewed literature yourself. But somehow I think you'll just retreat back to your blog and news sites, which give you the information you want to believe.

    --

    Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
  73. Re:Similar by microbox · · Score: 1

    Everywhere from California to Indiana will desertify. California may well lose its agricultural sector over the next 50 years.

    --

    Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
  74. Re:Similar by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

    Um, the point is, dare I say this, that there's very hard science and there's soft science. There's findings which are highly testable, repeatedly, and there's findings which are verging on the non-reproduceable.

    No. "Soft sciences" refers to fields which arrogant scientists feel are less deserving due to subject matter, not reproducibility. Social sciences are described as soft science.

    Your opinion on social science as a "real" science is up to you, but reproducibility is an issue no matter how "hard" the science is.

    I used to believe global warming 100% and assume it was all correct, because I normally trust science, but then started to wonder why people were touting consensus and virtual certainty.

    Because obviously scientific findings don't change society by themselves. At a bare minimum, you must publish your results or the scientific findings may as well have never been made. With even non-controversial findings, scientists need to do more, results simply don't speak for themselves, you need to write review articles placing the findings in context, issue press statements in journals, present it at a conference. And that's just to get it known within the scientific community in the absence of opposed nefarious interests.

    With climate change specifically, you have powerful industries and motivated ideologues trying to cast FUD on the findings. There's an effort to convince the public that it's far from certain. This approach is having it's intended effects. Scientists and people who realize climate change is happening would be idiots to merely keep presenting dry papers when the public is convinced by scumbags in suits saying "Well, they don't REALLY know do they?"

  75. Re: Oh well by kenaaker · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In Jared Diamond's book "Collapse", he has a list of stages that all the societies that collapsed went through.

    They go something like this

    There's nothing going on that would negatively affect our society

    There might be something going on that would negatively affect our society, but nobody knows for certain. So, we shouldn't do anything different.

    There's probably something going on that would negatively affect our society, but it would cost too much to do anything about it.

    Our society is definitely in trouble, but it's too late for us to do anything about it. Everybody pray..

    Of course, there are also societies described that didn't collapse, but they had a different response at some stage before the last on.

  76. Re:Similar by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Everywhere from California to Indiana will desertify. California may well lose its agricultural sector over the next 50 years.

    Do you have any projections for that? I've always been loathe to make predictions for a specific area, although if Nebraska gets a little drier, it will become desert .

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  77. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SHARK!

  78. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    To even consider that a group.....would sacrifice their integrity for grants, or whatever, is absolutely ludicrous.

    OK, that's just naive.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  79. Re:20,000 years ago by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    The last couple of glaciation cycles ended rather abruptly, yes.
    http://www.geocraft.com/WVFoss...
    https://grist.files.wordpress....

    If you have better data to support your view, let's have it.

  80. Re: Oh well by soc_cost_priv_gains · · Score: 2

    I like how they pretend to care about birds whenever the subject of wind power is discussed when it is obvious they don't care about the environment.

  81. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 0


    The story is just another alarmist anecdote about climate change. You suggest this is "science" then contend that being science this is content that "nerds" are after...

    The core of your argument is; "You should go somewhere else if you don't like what you read because ." and then you say "Bro, do you even read?"

    Please take this time to contemplate your own actions and if you don't like what you read apply reverse logic. This will help you smell what you're shoveling.

    Let me use one of your lines as chances are that will register with you. "I don't really care if you like my opnion."

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  82. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny how their "findings" are lockstep with the other motivated ideologues called Environmental Extremists.

    You should view skeptically findings tailor made to support an extreme environmental agendas and eagerly embraced by politicians that tend to believe they should make decisions for you and not yourself.

    Climate Science has had a political agenda with it since the very beginning.

  83. Always Look on the Bright Side of Global Warming by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 1

    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. I know a guy, he's very big on building Walls (big, classy ones), maybe I can send him over there. Install some tidal power generation, and they can even make the North Sea pay for it, too!

  84. Re: Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are many other sites in which you can flog your political agenda.

    Slate, Huffington Post, New Republic, etc.

    Go there.

  85. Trump yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Another early win for the Trump presidency. Make Oceans Great Again!

  86. Re:Similar by sycodon · · Score: 1

    I think they've done a good job at that by diverting water from the croplands to some fish somewhere.

    BTW, most of CA already is a desert.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  87. Re: In before global warming whiners... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh you with your facts and quotes and reason! You know that kind of thing doesn't go down well here.

  88. Re: Oh well by stjobe · · Score: 1

    What it all really lays bare is the pure greed and nihilism of the capitalist system, oh, and the complete idiocy of morons on the Internet who follow them.

    Fixed that for you.

    And no, this is not a call for communism, it's just an observation that (unchecked, free-market) capitalism seems almost inherently designed to cause this type of greed and nihilism (not to mention an ever-increasing wealth gap).

    --
    "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
  89. HOW TO GET EX LOVE @ TEMPLEOFANSWER@HOTMAIL.CO.UK by lovespell0 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Just one word – UNBELIEVABLE!!! The reaction I got just days after you cast the Sex Spell Dr Obodo was incredible.E-mail Doc at templeofanswer@hotmail.co.uk or call +2348155425481" Nina from Picton, NSW, Canada

  90. Re: Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Environmental Extremists with capital letters? Wow they must be a serious organized group, probably funded by George Soros. Or maybe they were extremists 50 years ago but now reality's caught up with them.

  91. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1

    Which is why I am so tired of this alarmist crap.

    People with a hardon for stats are more bothered about someone refuting the data than the actual effects.

    They'd rather argue with me about the relevence of my post then actually doing something about it...

    But especially in America, people don't give a shit about anything that isn't happening to them personally.

    So so true.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  92. Re: Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yep, when I got my PhD, I thought that's it, I've arrived, all that hard work has paid off and I can finally get rid of my integrity and start faking data. Where's the big bucks at?

  93. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    Funded by governments who use the results of these paid studies to do ... nothing.

  94. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > If you don't like hearing about it

    If you don't like hearing about how someone doesn't like hearing about things then I recommend you ... "feel free to go to another website or simply not read and comment on the article"

  95. Re:Similar by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

    I guess everything is extremist relative to something. What's with all these hypocritical Anti-Murder-Extremists running around saying I can't kill people! SOME OF THOSE HYPOCRITES GIVE LETHAL WEAPONS TO SO CALLED COPS TO STOP PRIVATE CITIZENS FROM KILLING PEOPLE!

    Extremism in my view is violence, not demanding a reduction in pollution.

  96. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kiribati is going underwater. Does anyone else care? *sigh*

    Kiribati is an atoll, and like all atolls, they erode over time regardless of sea level.

  97. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Bro, do you even read?

    Annnnnnd repeat.

    > I don't really care if you like my opinion

    The repeated defense and comments suggests otherwise!

    And don't call me, "bro".

  98. Re: 20,000 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He's telling you that because according to the best evidence we have, that's exactly what happened.

  99. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree with all you said, but this: "the majority of people"

    It was not a majority.

  100. Re:Oh well by nobuddy · · Score: 1

    An accurate summary of the GOP's position.

  101. Re: Oh well by hey! · · Score: 2

    I don't think it's greed. I think it's wishful thinking.

    And it absolutely would be great if there were no downsides to burning all the fossil fuels we can lay our hands on. Most people on this site are too young to remember the smog we had in the 1960s and 1970s; they're imprinted on a time when gas was cheap, air was clean, and anthropogenic climate change was (as far as the general public was concerned) undreamt of. Who wouldn't want that to be true?

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  102. Re:20,000 years ago by Cyberax · · Score: 1

    One pixel on this graph is around 500 years. So even the most rapid changes took _thousands_ of years on your graph.

  103. Re:Similar by hey! · · Score: 1

    Kiribati is going underwater. Does anyone else care? *sigh*

    I could rob you and beat you to pulp. Would anyone else care? The answer is that wise people would care, because they'll know if I get away with that I'll be getting away with a lot more.

    Same with climate change. Yes, Kiribati may disappear. But the Kiribatians aren't the only people who will pay; in fact most people in the world will end up paying. The way this works is that we all get some up front economic benefit from unregulated carbon emissions and we all pay for the consequences later, but the trick is that the benefits and costs aren't spread uniformly. Some people make a killing on cheap fossil fuel and then can move the bulk of the resulting assets out of the way of climate change. The worst hit are those whose wealth is in land -- the Kiribatians obviously, but also farmers in places which become unsupportably arid.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  104. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by lorinc · · Score: 1

    Climatologists are not mechanical engineers, they are PhD's. I agree, engineers are very careful about the details. However, PhD's don't have life-risk to consider. I fact, there is overt manipulation of the data upon which most (if not all) of the climate "conclusions" are based.
     

    Oh yeah, like the engineers at Volkswagen that cared about the details of their vehicles emission.

    Engineers are in the first row when it's about cooking the data to fit the specifications. Dishonesty is everywhere the same, as long as it involves a gain. Most people don't care about being right or wrong, they just care more about themselves than about the facts. It's putting feelings over reality. Which might explain why you elected Trump.

  105. Re:FACT: Global Warming is proved repeatedly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'll see your Nobel laureate, and raise you 36 Nobel laureates who all say Giaver is completely wrong about the climate, since it's not his field.

    In fact he said so himself - he skimmed a few blogs then decided he knew better than climatologists who have studied it for decades:

    "I am not really terribly interested in global warming. Like most physicists I don't think much about it. But in 2008 I was in a panel here about global warming and I had to learn something about it. And I spent a day or so - half a day maybe on Google, and I was horrified by what I learned."

  106. Re:20,000 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They just claim we're not able to do something about it, that we couldn't possibly affect an entire planet.

    But the overwhelming evidence shows it was caused by humans - thus we are equally able to stop causing it. Further, it's important we recognise specifically what those causes are, so that we know what to stop.

  107. Re:20,000 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Marcott et al 2013 - see for yourself. Temperatures rose until about 10,000 years ago, stayed fairly stable for a few thousand years, and have been cooling at increasing rates for the last 7,000 years - up until humans took matters into their own hands.

  108. Good News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The good news, for those who want to bury their heads in the sand, is that there is a good chance that the satellite record will be interrupted. Due to the premature failure of the most recently launched sensor in the SSMIS/DMSP (Special Sensor Microwave Imager and Sounder/Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) we are down to two sensors both of which are well past their nominal lifetimes.

    Meanwhile the next satellite in the series has been canceled.

    The scientists will try to use other kinds sensors to maintain the continuity of the data if they have to; but that will just give the deniers another excuse for ignoring reality.

    This link http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2017/03/another-warm-month-in-the-arctic/ will take you to the right page; unfortunately they don't have the needed anchor links on the page to direct you to the right paragraph. -- Search for: "Continuity of the sea ice record" without the quotes.

    It's wonderful. First the head of the EPA says there isn't enough evidence of AGW to support doing anything, then his boss (proposes) killing the efforts to get more evidence.

  109. Re:Similar by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    The story is just another alarmist anecdote about climate change.

    Your true colours show through at last.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  110. Re: Oh well by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    There are always winners and losers. What amuses me is how you pretend you like birds, when what you really like is not having to do fuck all, and passing the buck to the next generation. And how many species do you imagine will get driven to extinction by spiraling climate change over the next century.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  111. Re:Similar by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    I think they've done a good job at that by diverting water from the croplands to some fish somewhere.

    This actually worries me more than AGW. And AGW worries me a lot. The situation needs addressed. But we aren't a country that can address much any more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    BTW, most of CA already is a desert.

    Exactly. Its a situation where the weather is pretty good, lots of sunshine, OK soil, but not much water. They've wrecked their local sources and when you get soil subsidance like this, http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~... https://ca.water.usgs.gov/land... you've probably made the water table recharge either impossible or a tens of thousands of years effort.

    Then we have the river diversion issues. Already the Colorado no longer reaches the sea. Most impressive to stop that river.

    If I had a say in how water use in California is handled, I'd say you start with the Sunshine. That's not likely to go away any time soon. So that's good. But the next issue is that water. It has to be used better, and more efficiently. I'm seeing a lot of farming under glass, so to speak. If you are going to use water, you have to meter it out and limit evaporation. If you are going to ship water from another state, you need to keep the damn stuff covered. Gotta watch how we deliver it to the plants though, because drip irrigation is great for saving water but you eventually salinate the soil. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Inte... https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

    We are perhaps a dog that likes to shit in it's dinner bowl.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  112. Sea level rise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sea level rise is the ONLY fucking issue for now.
    Because to stop it, the only possible intervention is to uild the biggest fucking dams in the hardest fucking places to stop the glaciers melting.
    And they need time to plan and build, and they will cost a SHITLOAD. And of course, no one's going to pay.
    Not you driving your SUV to the shops. Not the coal companies, not the oil companies, not the executives, and the world's governments have no way to assign the astronomical costs.

    http://www.victoria.ac.nz/antarctic/about/events/s-t-lee-lecture/s.t.-lee-lecture-2016

    It's a shitty recording, and Microsoft Windows features as a major culprit in fucking up the guy's lecture.

    But this recent research by Professor Eric J.M. Rignot (the Donald Bren Professor of Earth System Science, School of Physical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and a senior research scientist/joint faculty appointee at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is the calmest alarmist I've seen.

    If you really want to know where we are now, and where we're going, you simply MUST hear this guy through.

    In brief, we can NOT prevent an extra metre of water. It's a done deal. We're not quite sure at what speed this will arrive, but it's not disputable. Probably about 40/50 years, best guess.
    And that's NOT counting the Antarctic glaciers.
    And they ARE fucked, one of them already moving 7 to 8 times faster since the "cork stopper" broke away.

    Get yourself a little education, folks. Then think about the real estate you intend to leave to your children and grandchildren - it could be entirely worthless, despite your best intentions.

    And that wall that Trump wants to build (and, by the way, already part of the Obama admin agenda, but no one remembers that now), that wall should be built around New York harbour, cause otherwise it's fucked.
    And all of Florida is going underwater - you can't build dykes that big, and you can't stop the water flowing underneath because the whole penisnsula is a porous as a fucking sieve.

    Now, please ignore me, put your fingers back in your ears, and go back to chatting about Batman vs. Superman movies, cause that shit is IMPORTANT !!!

  113. Re:20,000 years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    True, they could just claim that. But at least there won't be the following bullshit arguments from the deniers:
    - The climate has changed in the past before humans were around, so humans couldn't be causing it this time
    - The climate has been warmer than it is now in the past, so therefore being warmer is not bad for the planet
    - This is just a conspiracy from the climate scientists to get extra grant money, they're lying to us by manipulating or falsifying the data
    - This is just a push from the government to get extra taxes from the population
    - Scientists' predictions about the climate have been wrong in the past, so they definitely are wrong this time too

    There are probably more that I can't think of at the moment.

  114. Re:Similar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, the difference between 'soft' and 'hard' has nothing to do with wikipedia quotes.

    It has everything to do with 1) the ability to apply quantitative descriptions; 2) the ability to use empirical & theoretical data to make accurate predictions; and 3) falsifiability.

    If you can't describe it, make useful predictions, or prove it to be false, it's not science.

  115. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    In a shocking turn of events that no one could have foreseen you concluded what you wanted to conclude.

    You seem rather colour blind. All you managed to process was black or white.

    Hopefully now that you have "uncoverd the truth" you can find peace.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  116. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by volmtech · · Score: 1

    I grow weary of more and more proof of global warming without one hint as to how we can maintain modern civilization without fossil fuels. Of course there is no money in telling people we have to revert to an eighteenth century four legged horse-powered agrarian lifestyle.

  117. Re:20,000 years ago by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    The parent talked about _cooling_ not heating.
    Yes, the heating up went relatively quick, but right now we are heating up the atmosphere 100-1000 times quicker.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  118. Re: Oh well by catprog · · Score: 2

    From yes prime minister

    Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?

    Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.

    Bernard Woolley: What's that?

    Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

    Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

    Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

    Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.

    Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

    --
    My Transformation Website
    Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
    Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
  119. Re: Oh well by haruchai · · Score: 1

    It's not all that new. Career Exxon oil slick & new Sec of State Rex Tillerson adopted this attitude years ago, that global warming is happening but we can only geoegineer or adapt

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  120. Re:Fake news, see the MASIE data for yourself by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

    Mark Serreze is a well-known person in the climate debate community. But the link above is to HIS OWN data which directly contradicts his statements in the NYT article. I'm not attacking him personally, but I have substantive conflict with the way he conveyed the veracity and conclusions about his own data.

    His own data, which he points out should not be used "when comparing trends in sea ice over time or when consistency is important". https://nsidc.org/data/masie/masie_faq

    Because a tool do a certain thing is usually a terrible tool do do something else. Unless you try to prove a point that is only in your head. And MASIE is a tool to tell were the edges of sea ice are more precisely than other such surveys, and the area calculated is just a side product. https://nsidc.org/data/masie/about_masie

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
  121. Re:Similar by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1


    In a shocking turn of events that no one could have foreseen you concluded what you wanted to conclude.

    Climate change is happening, whether or not you believe that extremes are anecdotes. Physics doesn't care about your trivial politics.

    You seem rather colour blind. All you managed to process was black or white.

    Colour blind people can see shades of grey just fine. I think your analogy insult needs work.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  122. Re:Similar by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1

    Climate change is happening, whether or not you believe that extremes are anecdotes. Physics doesn't care about your trivial politics.

    Bro, do you even read?

    I never refuted climate change or questioned physics.

    Yes, climate change is a thing. Yes it's gonna get worse before it gets better. I'm already braced for record breaking climate based phenomena thanks.

    Kiribati is going underwater. Does anyone else care? *sigh*

    It's been well publicised and a long time coming and no one gives a shit -> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

    Criticising a story is not criticising the existence of climate change. That's just you being trigger happy.

    The story is just another alarmist anecdote about climate change.

    Your true colours show through at last.

    Yeah, about that beige..just stop for a moment and imagine a plane crashing to the ground; this plane is one of many and their fate is in question but this specific one is crashing and that cannot be altered. Yelling out how the plane is reaching the ground and is closer than ever is anecdotal and alarmist drivel.

    This does not refute that the plane is crashing. It does not refute physics. It does not actually refute anything. Kiribati will be underwater and there is nothing that will change that.

    Colour blind people can see shades of grey just fine. I think your analogy insult needs work.

    If you failed to "get it" that's not because I take issue with climate change or due to my political persuasions nor my understanding of physics. That's just you.

    You are factually incorrect as per the above and the analogy of colour blindness rings true. Shades of grey is demonstrably no substitute to the ability to observe the visible colour spectrum. You missed several.

    Maybe you're right and my analogy still needs "work"...you know because there's a way to restore original colour from old black and white (read shades of grey) film.
    TL;DR - If the sentences in bold do not appear in red, green or blue colour just assume you are without error and I'm still hard at work...

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  123. Re:Similar by Bongo · · Score: 1

    Climate science is "systems science". It is very much a hard science; however, there'll always be uncertainties for political ideologues to talk up. We've got about a 10% of creating a disaster, and no second planet earth yo move to, and that alone means we should be talking about appropriate actions, and not *if* there's a problem. It's very easy for the oil industry to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt over the science, which is just a tried and true political game. The scientists themselves will not (by and large) explain what to do -- that's not their expertise -- but they are convinced that there is a problem, and their reasons are clearly explained. Skepticalscience.com has a summary of "skeptic arguments" and what scientists say. You can always read the peer reviewed literature yourself. But somehow I think you'll just retreat back to your blog and news sites, which give you the information you want to believe.

    Look, I am sure you won't like this or agree, but as a human being, I can only say it as best as I have come to see it, and from trying to follow this issue over the last 15 years or so, there's a couple of things I see quite clearly, albeit, had I not read the stuff I read, I would not see it this way, but for what it is worth, as reasoned debate here's a couple of key points:

    All of us are part of one sub culture or another and we all make value judgements. The environmental movement is a values driven culture, and is broadly about human's place in the ecosystem, which is a values judgement which says that humanity is one species on the planet. That particular values judgement downplays the role of human, seeing human as just another species. That's kinda the deep ecology view. Now there's variations on that, as not everyone goes that far, but that is an example of values judgements. That humans are less valuable than forests.

    Now your values judgements may or may not line up with that. That's not my point. My point is that you are making values judgements, one sort or another, as for example, all the people who say we must act, and then pick solutions which are base do the belief that humans are essentially selfish and consume too much and don't know how to live in balance.

    People who say that would not, for example, say that a human is a part of nature, created by nature, and that a human is merely living out their natural competition and drive in evolutionary natural selection to become the dominant species and transform as much raw material as possible into survival advantage, and that therefore the answer to running out of resources is to go to space and mine asteroids, because that's what nature does, expand and propagate life as fas as possible.

    Can you see the implied values judgements in saying that humans should cut back on consumption? Now I'm not saying that's a wrong judgment, but it is a judgment, ie. ethics and not facts, it is a human ethical judgement, and only then do people decide what we "must" do to combat climate change. Instead, people who don't have this judgment about selfishness will more normally go for the "adapt" with "new technology" ideas, rather than the "reduce" and "consume less" ideas.

    Climate change as an issue about solutions is all about values judgements. And that's why oil companies as symbols of big bad polluting uncaring capitalism are seen as the only ones driving the politics, whereas the good guys like wind are seen as just doing the right thing based on the facts.

    Yet, we use lots of energy so any solution will be a big solution, and wind farms are not little friendly wind mills, they are billion dollar installations, and before long they'll be trillion dollars' worth of installations, and that by definition is big energy, and I find it hard to believe that those big companies don't have vested interests in promoting the idea of man made climate change and decarbonisation.

    And nuclear has a vested interest too. Now we may say they are

  124. Re:Similar by dave420 · · Score: 1

    It's about understanding people need things to survive, and these things are being threatened. If you don't want to be confused with a denier, don't sound like one. Rightly or wrongly, your logical appraisal of this topic has lead you down a very similar path to deniers. If you really are interested in understanding this, you have some work ahead of you.

  125. Fake news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I very much doubt there is less sea ice in the southern ocean. Last winter was the coldest in 40 years in southern Western Australia, and the summer was the coolest ever recorded. With the southern ocean directly south of all this cold weather I don't see how the sea ice cold be melting faster without it affecting the weather. Why would the coldest year coincide with more melting? Somethings wrong and I know it's not my memory of the temperatures in Perth for the last 10 months.