Global Temperature Set To Reach 1 Degree C Over Pre-Industrial Levels (metoffice.gov.uk) 735
Layzej writes: Based on data from January to September, the HadCRUT dataset shows 2015 global mean temperature at 1.02 degrees C (±0.11 degrees C) above pre-industrial levels for the first time. The Copenhagen Accord recognizes "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius (PDF)." Physicist Ken Rice points out that the next degree Celsius may be closer than we think. "It's taken us about 160 years to warm by about 1 degree C. This is associated with emissions of about 550GtC (550 billion tonnes of carbon, or ~2000 billion tonnes of CO2). Current emissions are around 10GtC/year. If we continue emitting as we are, we will double our cumulative emissions in about 50 years. If we continue to increase our emissions, it will be even sooner.
Even more ... (Score:3)
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... wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat because when she came home the house felt cold so she turns it up to 90.
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It would if it was an analog control loop but of course it isn't. Most people think analog.
Thermometer accuracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thermometer accuracy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thermometer accuracy (Score:5, Informative)
If mercury itself can be made that accurate and we did it over 100 years ago, I tend to struggle why in the hell we would use anything else today.
Mercury thermometers could break occasionally. Mercury_poisoning [wikipedia.org]
And Mercury is not an abundant element to find especially because it is liquid at room temperature.
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If you only had one reading, for instance, you could really only say what the temperature was +/- 1 degrees. If you have a million, you could say you know almost for
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The error of any single measurement is larger than the error of an average of them.
For a measurement with error sigma, the error of the mean, aka standard error, [onlinestatbook.com], is sigma/sqrt(n). It shrinks in proportion to the square root of the number of measurements.
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A Good Thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Also known as one degree warmer than the Little Ice Age.
Increase of 1 degree C over pre-industrial times? (Score:2)
So is this milestone due to an increase in current temperatures, or a decrease in temperatures in pre-industrial times?
Re:Increase of 1 degree C over pre-industrial time (Score:5, Informative)
There was a slow cooling for about 6000 years, followed by an abrupt change in trajectory over the last century. The warming over the last century has been attributed to fossil fuel emissions.
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What I really want to know: (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and all you climate change-deniers out there? Get yourself a CPAP mask, hook it up to the tailpipe of your car, and see how healthy it is for you to breathe that. Regardless of 'global warming' being a thing or not, isn't it time we started moving away from internal combustion engines? And burning coal? Even natural gas isn't that great in the long run. Time to grow up, everyone, and stop using these baby technologies that are poisoning us regardless. Redesign fission power plants so they're safer, operate them safer, build lots of them. Continue to develop fusion technology until it's practical. Better electric storage technologies so plug-in electric vehicles are more practical. Keep researching and developing high temperature superconductor technology, to eventually improve the efficiency of electric vehicles (and everything else that uses lots of power). Solar and wind to fill in the gaps while we're working on all the above (and by the way how would high temp superconductors improve solar?). Don't know about you but I'd welcome a motorcycle with a 500 mile-on-a-charge range and a superconducting powertrain, that would out-perform the best superbikes currently available.
stop beating up on car drivers (Score:5, Informative)
I agree that moving away from IC engines would be good for the enviironment, and I agree that motor vehicles are a significant contributor to human-caused emissions of greenhouse gasses, but lets get this into persspective:
The entire transportation sector only accounts for about 27% of the total man-made greenhouse gas (MMGG) emissions:
http://www3.epa.gov/climatecha... [epa.gov]
Of that 27%, Road transport accounts for 72%,
http://www3.epa.gov/climatecha... [epa.gov]
the rest is aviation and marine. That means about 19% of all MMGG is road vehicles.
From http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/clima... [epa.gov]
About 23% of that 19% is from heavy duty vehicles (so 18 wheelers etc are responsible for 4.37% of all MMGG), which means that all the millions of family cars on the road are actually only responsible for 14.6%.
Clearly we need to target electricity generation (31%) and industry (21%) long before just beating up on car drivers more.
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Regardless of 'global warming' being a thing or not, isn't it time we started moving away from internal combustion engines? And burning coal? Even natural gas isn't that great in the long run.
That sounds nice, but we don't have decent replacements for those things yet. We should of course keep working on them, and one day they'll arrive... but as it stands, we're going to be burning coal 50 years from now, regardless of all the hand waving.
The real question is... (Score:3)
If we continue emitting as we are, we will double our cumulative emissions in about 50 years. If we continue to increase our emissions, it will be even sooner.
We all know the oil reserves will be severely depleted by 50 years from now if we just keep the current consumption rate. I doubt we can just keep the pace at which we are emitting greenhouse gases for 50 years. Before we reach the 50 years milestone, the oil price will skyrocket and consumption will collapse.
Agree.... (Score:2)
Although scientists don't have a great track record of predicting the end of "peak oil" ... it does seem to me that we're on track to phase out the burning of fossil fuels as a primary means of energy production.
Without any legislative interference, we're going to find "supply and demand" will dictate a change of course in coming decades, if localized pollution issues don't dictate it in some cases first.
What we DO know is that the major oil companies have been investing larger and larger amounts of money t
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We all know the oil reserves will be severely depleted by 50
Since the largest single source of anthropogenic CO2 is from coal, which is the most rapidly growing source of energy in the world and will remain abundant well beyond the next 50 years, running out of oil doesn't actually matter. Especially since our climate policy is about left-wing political prerogatives and not actual emissions, so we exempt all of the largest and fastest growing coal burners from limits, guaranteeing any CO2 emissions we might prevent ourselves will be matched and far exceeded by othe
Again, so what? (Score:2, Informative)
So warmer than the early 1800s which were colder than the early-to-mid 1400s?
The only reason for claiming that the early 1800s are the correct zero-point is to support a (false) claim that the only reason for the change can possibly be industrialization.
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https://tamino.files.wordpress... [wordpress.com]
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So you are saying that CO2 has no effect on warming? Really? Hint: If you are scientifically illiterate, it doesn't help for you to goatse your ignorance all over slashdot for people to point at and laugh.
CO2 is the main driver of warming. Without human activity, CO2 levels would be decreasing, as the natural sinks for CO2 are greater than the sources. We know it's industrial CO2 emissions which are driving warming. We know this. You simply stating that it's erroneous is pathetic, as you have no evid
Yeah, I know, I'm probably a denier... (Score:4, Insightful)
...but what a load of hogwash. Today, we are one entire degree warmer than "pre-industrial temperatures", which they define as around 1850. Coincidental, I'm sure, that the "Little Ice Age" ended around 1850, meaning that they could hardly have picked a colder point in time. I should certainly hope that we are warmer than that! The Little Ice Age saw the largest glacier extents for thousands of years, devastating many communities as they were inexorably covered with ice [www.ccin.ca].
Note, also, the temperature graph in that article - a lot more than one degree drop from temperatures a couple of centuries before, which brings us to the next point. They label today's temperature range as "uncharted territory", despite the fact that the planet was almost certainly warmer than this during the Medieval Warm Period, and before that during the Roman Climate Optimum [dailycaller.com].
The rest of the TFA is all about beating the panic-drum.
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https://tamino.files.wordpress... [wordpress.com]
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And doesn't your theory actually make the problem worse (since we have some sort of natural warming plus nobody has explained the mechanism whereby adding greenhouse gases causes zero warming (despite the obvious thermodynamic problems). So according to you that heat must be bunc
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the planet was almost certainly warmer than this during the Medieval Warm Period, and before that during the Roman Climate Optimum
Yeah, try looking the actual study [landscapeonline.de] next time, rather than conservative rags or biased blogs. Nowhere does it claim to offer data for the whole planet; rather, it looked only at tree fossil remains in a specific area in Sweden. Claims that this somehow demonstrates anything about the planet as a whole are the worst kind of cherry-picking.
Speaking of, remember your dark implication that picking 1850 as the reference point "just happened" to coincide with the end of the Little Ice Age, and this was chosen deli
Nonsensical Title (Score:2)
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The global average surface temperature.
Stretching the consensus (Score:2)
recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius
There is no such scientific view. I admit there is a consensus that humans have caused some degree of warming and I even agree with that. But to blandly claim without a bit of supporting evidence that there is a consensus on what temperature range is best for us is ridiculous.
What makes it worse is the lack of support for a temperature increase that small. There are a lot of countries that simply aren't on board with curbing human activities enough to avoid the cutbacks that are claimed to be necessary f
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Tell that to the Syrians.
Temperature goal misses the point (Score:5, Interesting)
There could be a change in ocean currents, or moisture content/cloud cover of other regions, or any number of other effects from relatively small changes in temperature that in themselves aren't dangerous but human reactions to them could actually be a 'doomsday' level.
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It's a simple fact that humans can't survive if the wet bulb temperature is 35C (95F) or greater. If the combination of temperature and humidity reaches that state it's impossible for your body to cool by sweating.
Keyword: "If". None of that is relevant.
Deserts have hot temperatures because they lack water to absorb the heat. A humid desert will stop being hot and stop being a desert.
You're jumping to the conclusion without paying any attention to whether its existence is plausible.
A humid Middle East will become a tropical land teeming with life like SE Asia. War may happen anyways, but not because additional water made the area uninhabitable.
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That "cyclical cool down" was a period of intense volcanism, lower insolation and significantly lower GHGs
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Actually the explanation is easy. It was refreezing molten ice. That is sweet water on top of salt water. ... guess what season we have there? Yes! Spring time! Will be a nice spring break when the ice breaks and suddenly in a matter of weeks the whole area is ice free again... no one
The only thing that is unusually big (actually it is just a little bit over the mean of the recent decades, there where bigger ice shelfs, so this is by far not a record), big in terams of area, not kn terms of actually ice.
And
Re: And what if we were just colder 160 years ago (Score:2)
It is not spring in the Arctic. It's nearly winter, cooling quickly and darkening fast.
You're thinking of the Antarctic.
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So was the parent :) ... ... about 10 degrees warmer than it should be, but well, nonone is complaining. It is quite nice to sit outside without a jacket around 8 in the evening and eating in a Beergarden, which is supposed to be closed since a month and usually would have like 5 degrees centigrade.
And the Artic has again a record low
Right now north europe has a warms wave
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And the Artic has again a record low ..
NASA says otherwise [nasa.gov], 2007 and 2012 were both lower - significantly - than 2015. So the Arctic is rebounding, Antarctica has record ice mass. That seems to be the trends from measurements - increases in ice off of lows rather than decreases.
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Actually the explanation is easy. It was refreezing molten ice. That is sweet water on top of salt water.
This is mostly conjecture; while we have abundant data for ice extent over the decades, we have little data of ice thickness. The abstract on this paper [ametsoc.org] suggests that the extent and thickness of the antarctic is increasing year over year, albeit at a lower rate than the decrease in the arctic. This is the critical point, because arctic ice is an order of magnitude greater than antarctic ice.
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This is the critical point, because arctic ice is an order of magnitude greater than antarctic ice.
Did you get that backwards? Or were you maybe meaning that the effect of Arctic ice is greater (as it is floating ice)?
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Nope. The mileage is similar: 15 million km of arctic ice vs 18 million km in Antarctica, but the ice is twice as thick in the arctic (2 m vs 1 m). I misstated when I said "order of magnitude" though. It's a solid multiple, IMHO.
Re:And what if we were just colder 160 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
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The only thing that is unusually big (actually it is just a little bit over the mean of the recent decades, there where bigger ice shelfs, so this is by far not a record), big in terams of area, not kn terms of actually ice.
Actually, the latest NASA paper says that the total Antarctic ice mass is increasing [nasa.gov] overall, not just the area or in a small location. The total ice locked up is at a new record.
Re:And what if we were just colder 160 years ago (Score:5, Informative)
From the NASA article:
A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
So there are some losses, but the accumulation is still growing faster. That's straight from NASA. How you debunk that without completely ignoring their results is a mystery to me. But you seem determined to do so! No thanks, I'll take NASA's statement and study that say ice volume is actually accumulating. Slower, but still accumulating overall.
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1. That result hasn't been reproduced, and there is some healthy skepticism that they're measuring right since they used satellites to estimate snowfall and then estimate how much of that turned to ice (a surprisingly complicated process). Plus, it used old data (8 years old, and we know that ice loss has increased dramatically since then). So, the short version is,
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Hey, at least you didn't put cosmonaut like the Golden Girls AC.
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Often warming temperatures equals increasing precipitation due to the warmer air holding more moisture. In the case of the Antarctic, a continent that is mostly desert, the expectation should be more snowfall which can lead to more ice. Kind of surprised that snowfall is considered consistent. And of course if snowfall is increasing due to warming (numbers pulled from my ass and exaggerated) from -40 to -10, then the expectation should be more ice buildup.
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What conclusion do you reach because the ice is at a high level right now? What information do you gather from that data point?
We wouldn't want to be skeptical of the scientists, right?
We should be skeptical of everything - the government and their subsidies, the record profits of fossil-fuel companies, the motivations of those companies, their marketing campaigns, their political contributions, and yes, even science in general. In fact, skepticism is pretty much at the core of the scientific method.
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Whenever someone points to the fossil-fuel company profits, I wonder what they think of Hollywood accounting, and that all of the Hollywood companies pay no taxes at all. It seems that the majority of people who identify as democrats hate the oil company subsidies and the record profits they make, and how little taxes they pay, but are just fine with the same exact situation in Hollywood.
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The freezing point of pure water is 0 degrees Celsius. The freezing point of salt water is -2 degrees Celsius.
Why is this important information? Because as the Antarctic Sea Ice melts it dumps water into the ocean, which lowers the salinity of that water and raises the temperature at which the water can freeze. Which creates a larger area of ice.
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Well, it's a good thing that Antarctic Sea Ice just reached the highest level ever seen, according to NASA.
Why would increasing ice levels in the antarctic makes us skeptical of scientists?
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So lets do something about it.
Unless doing something about it is worse than doing nothing about it - such as crippling your society in order to make a barely measurable change in CO2 emissions. There is a lot of profoundly bad policy aimed at mitigating global warming.
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It does seem a bit strange that the late 1800's are most definitely the ideal global temperature we should achieve for peace and love and whatever. Who's to say a slightly warmer planet won't have as many benefits as downsides?
It's not per-se the "ideal" temperature. It is, however, the temperature to which we've adapted our current society and land use. Changing the temperature will entail massive disruptions, and that will be expensive.
If nothing else, 32 percent of the world's population lives within 37 miles of the coast-- having three billion people migrate due to rising sea levels is going to be pretty disruptive. Not to mention the trillions of dollars of real estate value submerged.
If you really are interested in th
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Just think of all the land in Canada and Russia that will be opened up to farming.
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lol.
Gasoline is such a small part of emissions. You want a real target? Look at the meat farming industry!
A vegan driving a hummer makes far less emissions than a meat-eater driving a bicycle. ;)
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But I like my truck and use it for Boy Scout trips. Are you against Boys learning life skills? You monster!
Re:Is 1 degree good since it didn't go down by 2 ? (Score:4, Informative)
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Since the current "trajectory" as measured by real satellites has been flat for over twenty years
No, it hasn't.
Might want to take your head out of the sand (Score:2, Interesting)
Global warming pause [google.com] Is now such a widely understood concept that even the IPCC talks about it [bbc.com].
If you want to really understand things, you have to stop being a closed minded denier of data.
Re:Might want to take your head out of the sand (Score:5, Informative)
Global warming pause Is now such a widely understood concept that even the IPCC talks about it.
first link is entitled: A Pause In Global Warming? Not Really - Forbes
Second link to wikipedia which notes:
While hiatus periods have appeared in surface air temperature records, other components of the climate system associated with warming have continued. Sea level rise has not stopped in recent years,[14] and Arctic sea ice decline has continued. There have been repeated records set for extreme surface temperatures.
It also notes that the start of the "pause" was an exceptionally high preiod, higher than expected. This makes the "pause" substantially shorter than you think, since the beginning of the pause is actually the measurements being hoter than expected. What remains isn't remotely outside the bounds of general statistical variation.
If you want to realy understand things, you have to stop overinterpreting short segments of noisy data.
Re:Might want to take your head out of the sand (Score:5, Informative)
If you really want to understand things, you have to understand what you're reading.
The IPCC never said that global warming had paused -- it was merely increasing at a slower rate than expected over about a decade. The general trend was still upwards, and the decade where it trended slightly less steeply was interesting and unexpected, but it still fits with the general overall trendline of the previous decades quite well given the variation in sampling. If you're reading that trend as flat, there is something wrong with your eyes.... or at the very least something wrong with the software you're using to plot a trendline -- even if you only plot the data during the period mentioned by the IPCC.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja... [forbes.com]
"The Pause was an idea from a 2013 UN report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that concluded the upward global surface temperature trend from 1998 to 2012 was markedly lower than the trend from 1951 to 2012."
It is beyond ridiculous to imply the temperature change was flat for decades given any real data. It may even be premature to describe the temperature change as slowing without more data points to corroborate it wasn't merely an anomaly -- likely brought about through unusual El Nino, La Nina, and other weather patterns which have multiple year cycles.
NOAA investigated this pause/slowdown and used blind studies and multiple statistical methods to prove the cherry-picked period is well within statistical noise and the slowdown or pause is bunk:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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The IPCC never said that global warming had paused -- it was merely increasing at a slower rate than expected over about a decade.
Yes, even the IPCC admits warming has slowed (others say stopped).
So if the IPCC says warming is slower, how do you extrapolate a greater increase of temperatures over the coming years than we have seen, as does the original post I was responding to?
This brings to mind a funny joke I just made :
"Question: How to you tell if someone is a warming alarmist? Answer: you wait five mi
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Yes, even the IPCC admits warming has slowed (others say stopped).
And other claim it's already a new glaciation, since oceans are not boiling. Reality: global warming goes on, we're breaking temperature records pretty much every year now.
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So if the IPCC says warming is slower (over the last decade), how do you extrapolate a greater increase of temperatures over the coming years
What we have is annual and decadal variability superimposed on a secular anthropogenic warming trend. If you look at a very short interval, you will see primarily the variability. If you look at a longer interval, you will get a clearer picture of the secular anthropogenic trend. Neil deGrasse Tyson has a good illustration here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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In my circles it is considered extremely dumb to google something, and then post the first two promising hits without reading the links.
Hint: if you had read the links you posted here, you had figured: they contradict your point of view (faxepalm).
Warming over the last few decades (Score:5, Informative)
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What a flat trajectory may look like [c2es.org].
This is nothing to worry about, though. As we know with 100% certainty, the rate of output of greenhouse gases has zero effect on the global climate. My gut tells me that we can double the amount of CO2 we release every year and see no meaningful change in any measured statistic.
Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times? (Score:5, Insightful)
& who indeed measured broadly enough to be statistically good measurement?
Scientists.
& who determined that it was not one of many long term cyclical changes that have occurred for millions of years.
Scientists.
& who will pay the cost of all the government activity? Every reader of Slashdot along with everyone else.
Yes, it's much better to pretend that nothing happens and then scream for the government help once your house is underwater or your tap runs dry in a drought.
& what if their efforts do not work?
And what if they do work?
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Yes, it's much better to pretend that nothing happens and then scream for the government help once your house is underwater or your tap runs dry in a drought.
Your Logical Fallacy Is: Strawman, Black & White
For those people that live close enough to the ocean for this to be an issue they will have decades of warning before their house can even see water, much less be "under" said water, unless you are talking about hurricanes which have been submerging dwelling since before industry existed.
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Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times? (Score:4, Insightful)
Droughts are natural and they havent been increasing in frequency or intensity, unless you can otherwise prove it.
Same goes for hurricanes.
Tropical disease spreading has not been linked to an increase of 0.8c, that would be rediculous.
Food prices have skyrocketed because of so called GREEN initiatives like wasting maze/corn for fuel production.
Look it up. The rise in world wide food prices is directly linked to the idiotic ethanol projects.
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Scientists.
The same ones who, in pre-industrial society, were also quite sure that they could measure someone's criminality by feeling the lumps on their skulls? Those sorts of pre-industrial scientists?
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So you refuse modern medicine too, right?
No, I prefer medicine as it's practiced now, not medicine as scientists from the pre-industrial period practiced it. Are you having some reading comprehension issues? I wonder how a scientist from the pre-industrial period would evaluate your intelligence, and on what they would blame your tendency to get what you read exactly backwards.
Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times? (Score:5, Insightful)
You really know nothing about the procedures and methodologies we're discussing here.
Yes, I do. The procedures and methodologies that were recording temperatures in a handful of specific pre-industrial spots on the planet cannot be used to extrapolate a precise single "global temperature" within 1 degree C. There isn't enough data. There's no there there, there is only subjective modeling, at best. Suggesting that such a model is hostorically accurate to within a fraction of 1 degree is silly. You know it, I know it, and every scientist worth their salt knows it. The only people who hold that laughable position are those who need the hype. The situation could be WAY worse than a 1 degree change, or nowhere near that bad. It doesn't matter which position you embrace, the point is that talking about "a" global temperature is nonsense in that context.
Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times? (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientists? Which Scientists? What equipment did they use. Where is their raw data collected from pre-industrial times?
Answer: there isn't any. You are lying. The claim isn't being made through measurements from the pre-industrial age. It is arrived at by MODELING. More misleading crap.
Really? Here is a graph you should really have a look at. Ice core samples show that CO2 levels have not been at current levels in the past 650,000 years.
http://climate.nasa.gov/eviden... [nasa.gov]
Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to think that I do. I went to school for Software Engineering, but I would say that I do like science. But science to me is usually about the hard, provable facts. I'm more inclined to trust the mathematics where things require indisputable logical proofs.
For example, do you have any reading on anything like the math behind how much CO2 we have released and any scientific experiments that show that that amount of CO2 should be expected to raise the temperature of the planet by 1C?
To me, science is about the experiments used to verify reality. All I ever hear is data like the globe is warmer, we have released all this CO2, but does it really add up correctly in practice? From what I have read, it seemed like we really don't know whether or not the increase in global temperature we see is really what we should have expected to see given our measurements. It seems like too much uncertainty yet for the topic of global warming because there is too much data that we don't know and too many variables that we can't accurately isolate the one we are testing.
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For example, do you have any reading on anything like the math behind how much CO2 we have released ...
A crude calculation can be made from the amount of fossil fuel we use. We have fairly good statistics on global fossil fuel use. A chemical formula can tell you how much CO2 is released by any particular type of fossil fuel. For instance consider coal. The average coal is somewhere around 70% carbon. So if you burn a ton of coal that's around 1400 lbs. of carbon. The chemical formula is C + O2 ==> CO2. The atomic weight of carbon is 12 and of oxygen is 16. So you end up with a CO2 molecule that h
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No one is blaming 'industry' per se. ;) ... )
We point out, it is: CO2
Regarding to your questions, if you have not learned that stuff in school, I suggest google (I prefer it over bing, you likely either have to enter 'google.com' in your search bar and then do the 'real search' or get a friend help you to change the default search engine
Ok, I admit, I was in a mean mood.
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& what if their efforts do not work?
A better question is what happens if the models are correct and we do nothing.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what?
1) Global Climate change is disruptive and people will unnecessarily die or live worse-off because of the resulting displacement of peoples.
2) We can be carbon neutral in 30 years if we create large scale subsidies in existing state of the art in nuclear power. (oh and throw in a few renewable sources for up to about 30% of the total requirements)
And
3) If you think we can be carbon neutral and meet the energy needs of civilization with just subsidized renewables then you are the same as a "climate denier" because pretending to solve a problem (to get your extremely inadequate pet projects funded) is in effect no better than denying the problem and just waiting to run out of economically viable fossil fuels.
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So, up until now I understood this primarily as a problem that would really hit future generations, long after I die of old age. Now you are telling me that I might suffer from the consequences during my retirement???
I am officially angry, and will start demanding legislation to force other people to pay up to fix this.
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We can be carbon neutral in 30 years if we create large scale subsidies in existing state of the art in nuclear power.
And start using electric cars.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
it is a false statement that only nuclear will meet those needs.
it is equally false that renewables are only pet projects and cannot meet those needs.
Nuclear is the only proven technology. With nuclear power you have France having demonstrated for many decades that nuclear can provide nearly all the electrical power for a large modern country. Hydro is a proven technology, but it has already been largely tapped out in much of the world and hydro can disrupt river ecosystems. Solar and Wind just don't cut it without either some other large scale supplies of energy... which hydro can't provide... or a massive overbuilding of Solar and Wind to account for the variability. Solar and Wind just can't cut it alone by a long shot, so its either Natural Gas, then coal or Nuclear.
If you can't offer a realistic solution then you are part of the problem.
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'solar and wind cant cut it alone'
Again.
That statement is purely false.
We know that more solar energy lands on the Earth in one hour than all of humanity consumes in an entire year ( it actually only takes ~40 minutes ). We need only harness a small fraction of that. and you also conveniently ignore any and all potential storage solutions, or advancing grid technology.
We also already know that, using current mainstream solar technology (therefore excluding advanced panels under development that are even mor
Re:Why should we care about faked data? (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize all of that climate gate conspiracy bullshit has been discredited [desmogblog.com] and that you're linking to something from 2009, right? ALL of that drivel which claimed to show manipulation was pretty much bullshit.
So either you like to trot this out because you haven't kept up to date, or you know damned well you're posting links to stale information which has been discredited.
Because, really, a Telegraph article from 2009 about how the Russians have confirmed that climate data was manipulated? That's about the least quality source of information you could pick.
In which case I assume you know you're full of shit. If you don't, well, you should fix that.
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When clowns like that post those FUD articles they know that your local libertarian will eat it up.
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Still waiting for low lying islands to go underwater. Let that happen, then I will give your ideas a second look.
That's the attitude that keeps any meaningful change from happening. Let the mass disasters start to happen, then we'll try to figure out a solution, because it definitely won't be too late by then and fuck all of the people living near sea level anyway. Once the refugees are knocking on your door, maybe you'll give a shit then, right? Why bother to improve the energy economy of the entire planet unless there is a specific need to do it immediately, right? God forbid the fossil fuel companies wouldn't b
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And I bet you'd complain if he asked to see the calculations proving said asteroid was going to hit earth.
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You're talking about it as if there isn't any cost. Do you have ANY idea how many people will starve TO DEATH if fuel becomes more expensive? Is it really worth murdering 50 million Africans in the most horrible way possible to prevent a disaster that might only be real in your mind?
And people who believe that CO2 causes temperatures to rise are the alarmists. Right.
Citigroup released a report not long ago which showed that investing in renewable energy was the more profitable way forward. In other words, that it is actually more expensive to keep using fossil fuels. Also consider this: if much of the civilized world stops using fossil fuels to generate power, will you expect the price of fuel oil to go up or down?
And, how about this: if solar power becomes a cheap reality, what is
Re: Why should we care about faked data? (Score:2)
Fake data isn't even an actual concern - the error bars in the Chinese emissions data are bigger than the amount of emissions necessary to trigger warming or not trigger of warming according to the current AGM models. The models suck, the data sucks - as usual the same advice applies: don't panic.
Re: Typical liberal thinking (Score:2)
Everything that doesn't bait Republicans and Conservatives does, by default, bait liberals, Democrats, and all others.
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I don't take the specifics of the post seriously, but the idea that this fear-mongering in the press about global warming is really a power grab by statists at the national and international levels isn't new.
It isn't new, but "this is a conspiracy by statists to grab more power" is a conspiracy theory that doesn't make a lick of sense.
Saying "be afraid of terrorists! We need to put policemen armed with tanks and bazookas in every schoolroom, and strip search everybody who ever gets on an airplane"-- now that's a power grab. Saying "we need to make changes in the regulatory system that will, over the course of decades, change the distribution of new power systems and will encourage more efficient use of energ