Note how even the title of SciAm's article was biased - "Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist". The SciAm's editor later admitted to purposely choosing the most outspoken environmentalists to write the piece - thereby voiding any claim to represent science (if such a thing is possible!).
This paper puts out enviro-scare stories
nearly every day. They publish little else but wacko leftwing junk as most
Brits will tell you - that's why they have a tiny circulation. What has this
got to do with science and technology, and cool stuff in general?
I normally don't comment on slashdot articles, but this time the topic is in my area of science, as i am a Masters Geology at a New Zealand university and i have substantial spatial modelling experience.
Firstly, my comments based on my geology background. Taking CO2 measurements from the peak of a large active volcano and using it for broad scare-mongering stories on a potential approaching cataclysm is, well, stupid. The only legitimate use for such data is to form theories on relationships between CO2 emissions and basaltic volcanos and the Hawaii Volcanic Centre, and build some predictive models of C02 emissions and future volcanism. At the most you could claim you are investigating volcanic contributions to worldwide C02 concentrations.
See here for basic data on Mauna Loa: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/maunaloa/
See here for a study on C02 emissions from Mt Erebus, the most active Antartic volcano: http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/geochem /co2.html
Secondly, my comments from a spatial modelling perspective. Pre-satellite data collected in the past on C02 concentrations and temperature in the atmosphere (from balloons etc) and nearer the Earths surface (ground stations etc) are taken from discrete sampling locations, often at discrete points in time, often located near major urban areas. This leaves CO2 and global temperature models based on this data inherently biased due to:
1. the assumed spatial relationship between two or more points of data, ie a bogus belief by some modellers that you can simply interpolate data over regions of land or volumes of atmosphere between two or more real world locations.
2. the assumption that a measurement taken at one point in time is representative of all values possible over a certain time frame, e.g. taking a measurement at midday on one day of the year as being representative of all times in that day, week, month, season, year etc.
3. the inevitable complication of rising urban temperatures, not just purely in terms of temperature rises, but dramatic changes in the distribution of temperatures throughout a given day. This is largely caused by the thermal properties of concrete and other building materials. Search the Internet for "Urban Heat Island Effect" or similar. I imagine similar problems arise with C02 measurements taken near urban areas and airports, but this is not likely a problem near Hawaii.
And another point: do not trust the Guardian, or the Independent, or New Scientist or any other popular media publication, for accurate scientific sumnations. If journalists knew a damn thing about science they would be getting far better pay actually doing scientific research, rather than working for partisan media publications.
Slashdot Mirror
Another day, another Slashdot scare item on global warming/climate change.
:9 6-9517-1CDA-B4A8809EC588EEDF
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If you want a bit of history on the inherent bias, perversions of logic and ad hominem attacks preferred by global warmists everywhere, check out Scientific Americans "story" on "The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Bjorn Lomborg)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00000B
Note how even the title of SciAm's article was biased - "Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist". The SciAm's editor later admitted to purposely choosing the most outspoken environmentalists to write the piece - thereby voiding any claim to represent science (if such a thing is possible!).
Lomborgs rebuttal is also available from SciAm:
http://www.sciam.com/media/pdf/lomborgrebuttal.pd
This paper puts out enviro-scare stories nearly every day. They publish little else but wacko leftwing junk as most Brits will tell you - that's why they have a tiny circulation. What has this got to do with science and technology, and cool stuff in general?
Try searching Google for the Independent and global warming (156 hits)
or Independent and neutral (23 hits)
or Independent and unbiased (5 hits)
or Independent and Linux (5 hits)
Interestingly Independent and Bush evil gets 29 hits while Independent and god good gets 37 hits.... (okay I took liberty with the formulation of these last two, but you get my point).
Why is it that any environmental event worse than a mild hailstorm is now attributed to a global climate catastrophe bought on by humanity?
I normally don't comment on slashdot articles, but this time the topic is in my area of science, as i am a Masters Geology at a New Zealand university and i have substantial spatial modelling experience.
m /co2.html
:-)
Firstly, my comments based on my geology background. Taking CO2 measurements from the peak of a large active volcano and using it for broad scare-mongering stories on a potential approaching cataclysm is, well, stupid. The only legitimate use for such data is to form theories on relationships between CO2 emissions and basaltic volcanos and the Hawaii Volcanic Centre, and build some predictive models of C02 emissions and future volcanism. At the most you could claim you are investigating volcanic contributions to worldwide C02 concentrations.
See here for basic data on Mauna Loa:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/maunaloa/
See here for a study on C02 emissions from Mt Erebus, the most active Antartic volcano:
http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/geoche
Secondly, my comments from a spatial modelling perspective. Pre-satellite data collected in the past on C02 concentrations and temperature in the atmosphere (from balloons etc) and nearer the Earths surface (ground stations etc) are taken from discrete sampling locations, often at discrete points in time, often located near major urban areas. This leaves CO2 and global temperature models based on this data inherently biased due to:
1. the assumed spatial relationship between two or more points of data, ie a bogus belief by some
modellers that you can simply interpolate data over regions of land or volumes of atmosphere between two or more real world locations.
2. the assumption that a measurement taken at one point in time is representative of all values possible over a certain time frame, e.g. taking a measurement at midday on one day of the year as being representative of all times in that day, week, month, season, year etc.
3. the inevitable complication of rising urban temperatures, not just purely in terms of temperature rises, but dramatic changes in the distribution of temperatures throughout a given day. This is largely caused by the thermal properties of concrete and other building materials. Search the Internet for "Urban Heat Island Effect" or similar. I imagine similar problems arise with C02 measurements taken near urban areas and airports, but this is not likely a problem near Hawaii.
And another point: do not trust the Guardian, or the Independent, or New Scientist or any other popular media publication, for accurate scientific sumnations. If journalists knew a damn thing about science they would be getting far better pay actually doing scientific research, rather than working for partisan media publications.
Try "Science" or "Nature" instead.
Hope there arent any editing errors in this...
Cheers