A user submitted a story that the playbook would be upgraded with the new BB10 OS. A slashdot editor (timothy) tacked on speculation about whether the playbook has a 'crappy' camera. There is no need to speculate about this. The playbook has been out for almost 2 years. If it even has a camera, the quality thereof is likely well known.
He also added "from the seriously-how-is-blackberry-compelling-nowadays? dept". This is a good question and one that deserved to be answered in the summary. There are a number of compelling new features in the OS that make my iphone look clunky by comparison. This is the definition of FUD. No direct allegations are made - only leading questions and speculation are added.
This is not the slashdot community - this is slashdot. I don't think that I'm wrong to question whether timothy receives remuneration for adding FUD to Blackberry stories. I'm not saying he does - just speculating;P
... And therefore... ? Just stating obvious facts doesn't a compelling argument make. Where are you going with this? As near as I'm able to tell your argument is still akin to "It is cold in the winter so clearly summer ice will recover to historic levels." I have to presume you are going for something more sensible but I can't figure out what that might be. Throw me a bone here!
That's not talking about consensus though, that's talking about the results of some climate results. Consensus would imply that something like a survey was done, or a vote was taken, to see what most scientists think.
Oh my god no! We're not going to vote for the truth. We need to review the literature to determine the consensus. You get to cast a vote by submitting research. It's not "this is what I think" but "this is what I've found".
Then you may be glad to hear that it is getting a revamped OS. One that is causing quite a buzz. As to why the editor added speculation about the Playbook camera - I'm really not sure. I imagine that (if the playbook even has a camera) it is well known how it performs. If it does have a camera you may find the time shifting on photos to be a cool feature. This allows you to pull any spot on the photo back in time to capture the perfect smile on each of the subjects. How cool is that?
Why does slashdot/timothy have such a hate on for Blackberry? They have just released a great new product with a revolutionary interface, hardware (including camera) that most reviewers are putting heads and shoulders above the competition. Slashdot just keeps slinging the FUD.
You really need to read section 10.5, but here is a quote from the summary for policy makers (cleverly hidden under the section called Climate sensitivity and feedbacks): Progress since the TAR enables an assessment that climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5C with a best estimate of about 3C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5C. Values substantially higher than 4.5C cannot be excluded, but agreement of models with observations is not as good for those values. {WGI 8.6, 9.6, Box 10.2, SPM}
But you could have found that with a simple search. I'm not sure why you are asking me to spoon feed you, or why you have taken a strong position on this without understanding the basic science. The IPCC AR4 has been out for 5 years. At least read the summary.
It is not my definition. This is from the literature. Both the IPCC and more recent studies potentially have this tipping at 2C. The writing is already on the wall for arctic sea ice minimum. Clearly we are already hitting tipping points and there are more worrisome tipping points just over the horizon.
So? We are talking about summer minimum extent. If you are suggesting that because ice returns in the winter then it will be able to recover to historic levels in the summer then I think you are missing a few bricks. Forgive me if I've misunderstood your position.
Arctic summer temperatures will not return to historic levels just because it is cold in the winter. The carbon that has caused summer temperature records survives winter. On top of that you have the albedo loss. Even if we found a way to bury the carbon we would still have to find a way to compensate for the albedo loss. We would have to bury more carbon to reverse the effect than it took to cause the effect. This is not complicated.
IPCC AR4 - which is itself just a survey of the literature prior to 2006. Not much has changed on this in the literature since 2006 so these numbers are still valid.
I couldn't say what activists are using the term for. This is from the scientific literature braniac. Also, I'm not sure that loss of arctic summer ice is anything to scoff at. It already appears to be responsible for blocking patterns that have caused severe weather around the globe -and once gone it ain't coming back.
So now that we understand that we are heading towards tipping points (and have likely already toppled one), are there worrisome tipping points that we might hit at 2C? The IPCC predicted that a warming of 1.9-4.6C would cause radical shrinking or complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Newer research by Füssel, H. (2009) estimated this to be closer to 1.5-2.5C. This would radically accelerate sea level rise (which is already accelerating). Again, the resulting loss of albedo would mean that we would have to bury more carbon to reverse it than it took to cause it. On top of that there is no economical way to bury carbon.
And true scientists, the ones who do science, will look at the data and understand that sometimes you only know a range, choosing an exact number is not possible.
Right! So we know that the range is between 2C and 4.5C with a most likely value of 3C. It could be as low as 1.5 or as high as 6 - but these are considered very unlikely. If we ignore the fringe values we clearly need to plan for as high as 4.5C warming. If we are interested in accepting fringe values then we need to plan for as high as 6C for a doubling of CO2. Since we will likely double CO2 by 2050 we should plan for much more warming by the end of the century. Anything over 2C is considered dangerous. At the low end of the range - best case scenario - we will hit 2C by 2050. Now do you see why we are worried?
The point is that you are wrong when you say: A "tipping point" is when the global climate changes irreversibly and strongly from one stable state to another.
That is not true. That is only a subset of the common usage of tipping point. As the paper states: In discussions of global change, the term tipping point has been used to describe a variety of phenomena, including the appearance of a positive feedback, reversible phase transitions, phase transitions with hysteresis effects, and bifurcations where the transition is smooth but the future path of the system depends on the noise at a critical point.
All of these are tipping points. Some of these are already occurring. It is only possible to say that we are not hitting tipping points if you narrow the definition - as was done in this paper.
It is certainly valid for a paper to narrow the definition. We want to understand what exact conditions they are looking at. It is not valid on a blog to say "we are not hitting tipping points" unless you add something like: "and by tipping point I mean everything that we are not already hitting."
if receding ice changed the temperature enough to keep the ice from coming back, then the ice would be gone already.
I'm not sure that follows - especially since the ice didn't recover from the drop in 2007 which was quite a bit below the (then moderate) trend. We have now had another drop (below the 2007) level of equal magnitude in 2012.
worrying about the changes in the low arctic extent is a bit curious considering the change from winter to summer is an order of magnitude larger
There is no sun in the Arctic in the winter so winter extent doesn't impact albedo. Summer extent is important because the summer sun never sets in the Arctic.
You know what the scientific consensus is built upon? The science of course. There will always be special interest groups who filter facts that don't confirm to their preconceivednotions. Some will only trust papers that find > 6C warming for a doubling of CO2. Some will only believe papers that show 1.5C to 2C warming for doubling of CO2. The consensus opinion is about 3C for doubling of CO2.
The only question is how much warming. Alarmist scientists say the warming will be significant, to the point of perhaps destroying civilization. Skeptical scientists say the change will be negligible, and is not worth worrying about. That is where the entire debate lies.
In the middle lies the consensus view, which predicts a worrisome and expensive amount of warming.
2) For this comparison you would need to look at albedo change due to decrease in Arctic summer ice extent vs radiative forcing of CO2 added in a single year. This will give you a good approximation of how many years worth of CO2 you would need to put back in the ground to address the forcing added by the albedo loss.
We are already hitting tipping points. See Arctic summer ice extent. We are already seeing impacts. See U.S drought of 2012 which is clearly exacerbated by record temperatures.
Tipping points are a certainty. We can observe them in the paleoclimate record, and we observe them occurring today. For an example see the effect of shrinking summer Arctic ice extent on albedo. This is already occurring. You can read more on tipping points here: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.short
Which of course is making the assumption that there even is a tipping point, which isn't clear.
There are many tipping points. We are teetering on the fulcrum of one in the Arctic. As Arctic summer ice extent decreases the earth's albedo decreases and less solar energy is reflected. Once this occurs (and it is already occurring) even if we found a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-2012 levels we would still not manage to lower the Earth's temperature. The added solar energy would offset any gains made by reducing CO2. This is well established and basic science.
This study finds warming at the low end of the IPCC projections. Other studies find warming at the high end of IPCC projections. There is uncertainty, and that why the IPCC publishes a range - but this study is not outside the published range. If this study is right then we will be committed to 2C of warming by 2050. We are trying to stay below 2C to avoid hitting some of the more worrisome tipping points and impacts.
Hopefully this study is right. If so then there is a chance that we can get off of carbon based fuels before we hit the tipping points. I wouldn't bet my kid's future on this one study though.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot does not sling FUD, users do.
A user submitted a story that the playbook would be upgraded with the new BB10 OS. A slashdot editor (timothy) tacked on speculation about whether the playbook has a 'crappy' camera. There is no need to speculate about this. The playbook has been out for almost 2 years. If it even has a camera, the quality thereof is likely well known.
He also added "from the seriously-how-is-blackberry-compelling-nowadays? dept". This is a good question and one that deserved to be answered in the summary. There are a number of compelling new features in the OS that make my iphone look clunky by comparison. This is the definition of FUD. No direct allegations are made - only leading questions and speculation are added.
This is not the slashdot community - this is slashdot. I don't think that I'm wrong to question whether timothy receives remuneration for adding FUD to Blackberry stories. I'm not saying he does - just speculating ;P
... And therefore... ? Just stating obvious facts doesn't a compelling argument make. Where are you going with this? As near as I'm able to tell your argument is still akin to "It is cold in the winter so clearly summer ice will recover to historic levels." I have to presume you are going for something more sensible but I can't figure out what that might be. Throw me a bone here!
That's not talking about consensus though, that's talking about the results of some climate results. Consensus would imply that something like a survey was done, or a vote was taken, to see what most scientists think.
Oh my god no! We're not going to vote for the truth. We need to review the literature to determine the consensus. You get to cast a vote by submitting research. It's not "this is what I think" but "this is what I've found".
Then you may be glad to hear that it is getting a revamped OS. One that is causing quite a buzz. As to why the editor added speculation about the Playbook camera - I'm really not sure. I imagine that (if the playbook even has a camera) it is well known how it performs. If it does have a camera you may find the time shifting on photos to be a cool feature. This allows you to pull any spot on the photo back in time to capture the perfect smile on each of the subjects. How cool is that?
Have you seen the new OS? It's quite slick. I have an iphone and it looks clunky next to the BB10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nt666iKTmw
Why does slashdot/timothy have such a hate on for Blackberry? They have just released a great new product with a revolutionary interface, hardware (including camera) that most reviewers are putting heads and shoulders above the competition. Slashdot just keeps slinging the FUD.
You really need to read section 10.5, but here is a quote from the summary for policy makers (cleverly hidden under the section called Climate sensitivity and feedbacks): Progress since the TAR enables an assessment that climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5C with a best estimate of about 3C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5C. Values substantially higher than 4.5C cannot be excluded, but agreement of models with observations is not as good for those values. {WGI 8.6, 9.6, Box 10.2, SPM}
But you could have found that with a simple search. I'm not sure why you are asking me to spoon feed you, or why you have taken a strong position on this without understanding the basic science. The IPCC AR4 has been out for 5 years. At least read the summary.
Ce? The minimum occurs in the summer....
It is not my definition. This is from the literature. Both the IPCC and more recent studies potentially have this tipping at 2C. The writing is already on the wall for arctic sea ice minimum. Clearly we are already hitting tipping points and there are more worrisome tipping points just over the horizon.
So? We are talking about summer minimum extent. If you are suggesting that because ice returns in the winter then it will be able to recover to historic levels in the summer then I think you are missing a few bricks. Forgive me if I've misunderstood your position.
Arctic summer temperatures will not return to historic levels just because it is cold in the winter. The carbon that has caused summer temperature records survives winter. On top of that you have the albedo loss. Even if we found a way to bury the carbon we would still have to find a way to compensate for the albedo loss. We would have to bury more carbon to reverse the effect than it took to cause the effect. This is not complicated.
IPCC AR4 - which is itself just a survey of the literature prior to 2006. Not much has changed on this in the literature since 2006 so these numbers are still valid.
I couldn't say what activists are using the term for. This is from the scientific literature braniac. Also, I'm not sure that loss of arctic summer ice is anything to scoff at. It already appears to be responsible for blocking patterns that have caused severe weather around the globe -and once gone it ain't coming back.
So now that we understand that we are heading towards tipping points (and have likely already toppled one), are there worrisome tipping points that we might hit at 2C? The IPCC predicted that a warming of 1.9-4.6C would cause radical shrinking or complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Newer research by Füssel, H. (2009) estimated this to be closer to 1.5-2.5C. This would radically accelerate sea level rise (which is already accelerating). Again, the resulting loss of albedo would mean that we would have to bury more carbon to reverse it than it took to cause it. On top of that there is no economical way to bury carbon.
so?
And true scientists, the ones who do science, will look at the data and understand that sometimes you only know a range, choosing an exact number is not possible.
Right! So we know that the range is between 2C and 4.5C with a most likely value of 3C. It could be as low as 1.5 or as high as 6 - but these are considered very unlikely. If we ignore the fringe values we clearly need to plan for as high as 4.5C warming. If we are interested in accepting fringe values then we need to plan for as high as 6C for a doubling of CO2. Since we will likely double CO2 by 2050 we should plan for much more warming by the end of the century. Anything over 2C is considered dangerous. At the low end of the range - best case scenario - we will hit 2C by 2050. Now do you see why we are worried?
The point is that you are wrong when you say: A "tipping point" is when the global climate changes irreversibly and strongly from one stable state to another.
That is not true. That is only a subset of the common usage of tipping point. As the paper states: In discussions of global change, the term tipping point has been used to describe a variety of phenomena, including the appearance of a positive feedback, reversible phase transitions, phase transitions with hysteresis effects, and bifurcations where the transition is smooth but the future path of the system depends on the noise at a critical point.
All of these are tipping points. Some of these are already occurring. It is only possible to say that we are not hitting tipping points if you narrow the definition - as was done in this paper.
It is certainly valid for a paper to narrow the definition. We want to understand what exact conditions they are looking at. It is not valid on a blog to say "we are not hitting tipping points" unless you add something like: "and by tipping point I mean everything that we are not already hitting."
Not so. See Lenton, Held 2008 for example.
if receding ice changed the temperature enough to keep the ice from coming back, then the ice would be gone already.
I'm not sure that follows - especially since the ice didn't recover from the drop in 2007 which was quite a bit below the (then moderate) trend. We have now had another drop (below the 2007) level of equal magnitude in 2012.
worrying about the changes in the low arctic extent is a bit curious considering the change from winter to summer is an order of magnitude larger
There is no sun in the Arctic in the winter so winter extent doesn't impact albedo. Summer extent is important because the summer sun never sets in the Arctic.
You know what the scientific consensus is built upon? The science of course. There will always be special interest groups who filter facts that don't confirm to their preconceivednotions. Some will only trust papers that find > 6C warming for a doubling of CO2. Some will only believe papers that show 1.5C to 2C warming for doubling of CO2. The consensus opinion is about 3C for doubling of CO2.
The only question is how much warming. Alarmist scientists say the warming will be significant, to the point of perhaps destroying civilization. Skeptical scientists say the change will be negligible, and is not worth worrying about. That is where the entire debate lies.
In the middle lies the consensus view, which predicts a worrisome and expensive amount of warming.
Some things to consider:
1) This chart does not include albedo change due to Arctic ice extent change. Likely because this is from the 2007 IPCC report - which probably means the data is from 2006 or earlier. Ice loss has been dramatic since then: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/files/2012/10/201209-record-low-monthly-arctic-extent-590x441.png
2) For this comparison you would need to look at albedo change due to decrease in Arctic summer ice extent vs radiative forcing of CO2 added in a single year. This will give you a good approximation of how many years worth of CO2 you would need to put back in the ground to address the forcing added by the albedo loss.
We are already hitting tipping points. See Arctic summer ice extent. We are already seeing impacts. See U.S drought of 2012 which is clearly exacerbated by record temperatures.
Tipping points are a certainty. We can observe them in the paleoclimate record, and we observe them occurring today. For an example see the effect of shrinking summer Arctic ice extent on albedo. This is already occurring. You can read more on tipping points here: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.short
Impacts are also a certainty. For examples review the following 1.6 million papers: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=impacts+of+climate+change&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
Which of course is making the assumption that there even is a tipping point, which isn't clear.
There are many tipping points. We are teetering on the fulcrum of one in the Arctic. As Arctic summer ice extent decreases the earth's albedo decreases and less solar energy is reflected. Once this occurs (and it is already occurring) even if we found a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-2012 levels we would still not manage to lower the Earth's temperature. The added solar energy would offset any gains made by reducing CO2. This is well established and basic science.
This study finds warming at the low end of the IPCC projections. Other studies find warming at the high end of IPCC projections. There is uncertainty, and that why the IPCC publishes a range - but this study is not outside the published range. If this study is right then we will be committed to 2C of warming by 2050. We are trying to stay below 2C to avoid hitting some of the more worrisome tipping points and impacts.
Hopefully this study is right. If so then there is a chance that we can get off of carbon based fuels before we hit the tipping points. I wouldn't bet my kid's future on this one study though.
Looks like someone with moderator points and an agenda doesn't want you to be heard.