US Climate Report Says Global Warming Impact Already Severe 627
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Darryl Fears reports in the Washington Post on the U.S. government's newest national assessment of climate change. It says Americans are already feeling the effects of global warming. The assessment carves the nation into sections and examines the impacts: More sea-level rise, flooding, storm surge, precipitation and heat waves in the Northeast; frequent water shortages and hurricanes in the Southeast and Caribbean; more drought and wildfires in the Southwest. 'Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Insurance rates are rising in some vulnerable locations, and insurance is no longer available in others. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the spring, last later into the fall, and burn more acreage. In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and autumn storms now cause more erosion, threatening many communities with relocation.' The report concludes that over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly and that increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change. 'What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now. While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.'"
Frequent hurricanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, this is Newscience. Predictive ability of a theory has no relevance anymore. All you have to do is keep issuing more and more dire warning and lots of press releases, backed by a consensus. In Newscience, if you repeat a mantra often enough, it becomes true.
Re: (Score:3)
Hurricanes impacting the US have been on the decline [wordpress.com] for decades. The warmists wanted to start naming hurricanes after congressional "deniers" in 2013. Only problem was we didn't get any. At least none worth trying to use for political demagoguery.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, that one data point you have for one year is certainly damning!
After all, everyone knows that climate is a simple system where if you feed more energy in, then you see output increase linearly.
Good thing you read the actual report and ensured that the summary was only speaking of Atlantic hurricanes in 2013.
You'd look like quite the idiot if you found out (just picking a random example), that the measurement was a study of hurricanes since 1980.
Re:Frequent hurricanes? (Score:5, Informative)
That's why they changed it to "Global Climate Change". Literally every possible observation is confirmation!
Re:Frequent hurricanes? (Score:4, Insightful)
It didn't change. Global warming and climate change are two distinct things. Climate change is the result of global warming.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Always a fun fact about this particularly inane talking point. "Climate change" was a heritage foundation focus group identified term to make the phenomenon seem less scary to average americans. It got into the public lexicon from right-wing shill group "skepticism", and scientists picked it up because things like changing ocean currents would actually cool some(very regional) places, and it was deemed more accurate.
Re: (Score:3)
"Climate change" was a heritage foundation focus group identified term to make the phenomenon seem less scary to average americans.
Where's the evidence for this claim?
and scientists picked it up because things like changing ocean currents would actually cool some(very regional) places, and it was deemed more accurate.
Not on a scientific basis. "Anthropogenic global warming" describes both an effect and a cause of that effect. Climate change merely is a change in climate (subject to some nuance as described below) without any attribution of the phenomena or a model to which to attribute the phenomena.
Modify the first label to "anthropogenic global warming with ocean acidification" and you describe virtually all uses of the term, "climate change".
And what does "change" mean to a s
Re: (Score:3)
Literally every possible observation is confirmation!
You have that backwards. Literally no possible observation is something that disproves anthropogenic climate change. Since climate is a statistical expression of average weather to disprove it you need a statistical expression of average weather that is counter to the climate change theory. That's not something any single event is capable of doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, next year when there are 10 category 5 storms he'll downplay that too. Honestly though it's not climate unless you are talking decades as the smallest unit of measurement.
Insurance rates on the Gulf coast are going to go through the roof. Too bad all the people that made their money in oil will move out and leave behind all the poor to take the pain. Insurance rates in Florida are now subsidized by the state because of Hugo and a couple other major Hurricanes in the 90's, that just might be the
Re:Frequent hurricanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Hum. I did a quick google for "accumulated cyclone energy"
http://policlimate.com/tropica... [policlimate.com]
I don't see any particular upward trend there.
I'd guess that 2014 isn't going to be that dramatic.
if it's weird, then no need to worry (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's pretend that a tiny tiny sampling of hurricane frequency matters a whit.
If so, then plainly climate change is REDUCING the frequency of hurricanes. So then why again should we panic about climate change if in fact it makes coastal life calmer?
Re:Frequent hurricanes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
What he said. The dust bowl WAS caused by human actions. I doubt you'll look it up though to correct your own ignorance, so I'll tell you what happened. We overfarmed the shit out of the soil. Also, Deep plowing killed the grasses that were holding the topsoil in place. When combined with a drought, the topsoil just... blew away. Oops.
Yes, it's sad.... I agree.
you're confused (Score:3)
There was indeed a cyclical climatic phenomenon, 1936 N. American Heat Wave. The high temperatures and drought were not caused by human action. sad you instead ape the fact that poor soil management practices at the time made the dust worse but still ignore the reality of a recurring weather pattern
Re: (Score:3)
Nice how you put words in his mouth. He never said Dust Bowl wasn't caused by human actions. He said Dust Bowl wasn't caused by fossil fuel emissions.
Dust Bowl was caused by newly-arrived white farmers uprooting all the native prairie grasses that were drought-resistant and replacing them with cereal crops that weren't so drought resistant. It had nothing to do with carbon emissions or global warming.
Re:Frequent hurricanes? (Score:4, Funny)
We must stop Global Humanning!
Re: (Score:3)
We must stop Global Humanning!
Possibly the most insightful (and correct) comment on this thread.
Re: (Score:3)
Sea level was rising 12,000 years ago when we entered the current inter-glacial, but it had been stable for the last 8000 years
http://ourchangingclimate.word... [wordpress.com]
- until now. http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/... [noaa.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Very one sided (Score:5, Insightful)
It's extremely difficult to accept at face value a report that says every possible outcome from climate change is bad.
Especially when it comes from an administration that campaigned on the theme of change.
Several of the items they cite are not even principally related to climate change, but to population and
population density increases, and to past fire suppression policies. People being people, not people changing the climate.
Put tariffs on China (Score:3)
Also reviewed by the Bad Astronomer (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Care to share links to some serious reviews "written by the skeptical contingent of climate scientists"? (An honest request, I'm not trying to imply there are none...).
It's pretty soon yet, since the "sky is falling" report was released just this morning(?), but I'm sure if you keep on eye on http://judithcurry.com/ [judithcurry.com] you'll find a response. She seems to enjoy blogging about her field, and isn't afraid to tell the boys when she disagrees with them.
You make a very compelling argument, but... (Score:2, Funny)
La La La La La La! I'm not listening!
Hmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting that just today, I also read this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/env... [theguardian.com]
It claims that a full 1/3rd. of the warming in the 1990's, on record, was actually due to water vapor in the air, vs. CO2 emissions and the like. Yes, it's not saying this is cause to deny the phenomenon, but it shows how we're still really in the early stages of understanding the details..... The statements of fact about exactly what's happening are largely premature.
Re: (Score:3)
It actually makes perfect sense. You warm things up a bit and that gets more water vapor in the air causing further warming.
Re: (Score:3)
a full 1/3rd. of the warming in the 1990's, on record, was actually due to water vapor in the air, vs. CO2 emissions and the like
Yup. Warmer air will hold more water vapour. So a small amount of warming from CO2 will be amplified by the water vapour feedback. This was anticipated by the models and can now be observed.
I can't be bothered to care (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Did the mullet come with the car, or did you have to grow it separately?
(kidding, of course. The sad thing is, that car probably gets mileage than than just about anything made before 1990)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Downside: You'll go down in history as being a part of the problem rather than the solution. Your descendants will wonder what the hell you were thinking.
Still denialists, no surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's this unspoken assumption by "both sides" that serious measures, i.e. a command-and-control type solution, is what the doctor has ordered.
Yet a quick look around the world, and at history, shows we will be better off adapting and chamging rather than puttng brakes on things. The average wellbeing depends on a powerful economy to provide and invent. Command and control sucks at both, in spite of the apparently rational idea it should not. It is empirical data.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Still denialists, no surprise. (Score:5, Informative)
There is a point where a species cannot adapt and change fast enough.
And for those interested, that point is approximately the speed of AGW divided by 10,000:
http://news.discovery.com/eart... [discovery.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Another thing to consider is that a species can achieve an average tempera
Re:Still denialists, no surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
And how would we have adopted to lead poisoning? We put the brakes on lead, CFCs, China-style air pollution (see: late 1800s/early 1900s US) and just dumping toxic shit into the environment until the land went barren and the rivers caught fire, and yet we're still here. We command and controlled those problems into submission like a bunch of commies and yet there are no bread lines.
You might want to take a closer look at history.
Even Fox is a believer now! (Score:3)
Latest episode of Cosmos broadcast on Fox TV:
"We just can't seem to stop burning up all those buried trees from way back in the carboniferous age, in the form of coal, and the remains of ancient plankton, in the form of oil and gas. If we could, we'd be home free climate wise. Instead, we're dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past, the ones that led to mass extinctions. We just can't seem to break our addiction to the kinds of fuel that will bring back a climate last seen by the dinosaurs, a climate that will drown our coastal cities and wreak havoc on the environment and our ability to feed ourselves. All the while, the glorious sun pours immaculate free energy down upon us, more than we will ever need. Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?"
The show:
http://www.cosmosontv.com/watc... [cosmosontv.com]
The news:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
Re: (Score:2)
News Corp will sell anything they think they can sell. They'll sell science on Fox Broadcasting and paranoia on Fox News. The various properties don't have to get along, so long as they're profitable. Witness this jab at Fox News by The Simpsons, which also appears on Fox Broadcasting:
http://www.thewrap.com/sites/d... [thewrap.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Our excuse?
Well... well... I DON'T WANNA DO WITHOUT MY SUV!!!
(and yes, I'm aware that caps are yelling, that's the idea behind it, thanks for the info, /.)
Re: (Score:3)
Our excuse?
Well... well... I DON'T WANNA DO WITHOUT MY SUV!!!
Is that what all the fuss is about? Best I know, the "climate-changer's" agenda is simply stuff we ought to be doing anyway, like reducing emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels. You know, things that also help with smog, health, war, pollution/land-wasting/strip-mining, and other things we all know are bad already. Climate change is just one more reason, right?
The coal and oil barons have a problem, sure, 'cause taxes and regulations for this or that reason eat into their easy money. But your
Lots of other human-created reasons too (Score:2, Informative)
At least here in the west, the increased wildfire issues are also partially caused by lack of proper forest-management. Wildfires are a natural phenomenon that allow forests to rebuild themselves - but in our zeal to prevent them, and also to prevent forest thinning via logging over the last few decades, we are breeding wildfire territories.
As for water shortages in California - we have been court-ordered to drain reservoirs and dump extra water into our rivers in order to flood the delta so that "endangere
WalMart parking lots? (Score:2)
Here's what I think should happen. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the President should go on a few more golf outings, you know, fly in his big old 747 to somewhere far away and play a round or two, and then fly back to DC. Then, we need to have a UN Climate Summit somewhere tropical, and figure out how to solve the logistics problems inherent in having a meeting in a remote location, like how to make sure adequate supplies of caviar are flown in fresh daily and where to park all the jets ferrying individuals to their destination.
I'll believe it's a problem when the people who are telling me it's a problem start acting like it's a problem. When the logistics problems go from caviar to videoconferencing bandwidth. When the President decides that golfing locally is a better idea than flying somewhere.
"Oh, you just don't understand international diplomacy and the need for face-to-face communications to achieve consensus!"
You're asking me to change my life and not accepting any changes in the way you live yours. Hypocrisy at its finest.
Re:Here's what I think should happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think the climate scientists have anything to do with all of that nonsense, you are sadly mistaken. I sincerely doubt any of them even have access to a private jet.
Don't mistake the idiots that run things for the people who have a clue. There is little overlap.
Solution to my housing crisis (Score:2)
I bought my house and went crazy upside down on it. I'm in the better part of nation for climate predictions. Looks like my property value is set to skyrocket once everyone else runs out of water/food.
"Smoking" gun (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does anyone expect America to respond to AGW any quicker or more effectively?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, I hate to be the one to point this out, but nearly every one of those things can be attributed to governmental overreach as much as it can be attributed to the environment. Just look at the water shortage statistics. States that were hit the hardest all had laws against rain water collection. Wildfires, likewise, may also be related to the insane laws we have in place. Insurance companies are being regulated to death, and are playing it as safe as they legally can. It has more to do with this insatiable need to regulate the hell out of them than it does with actual conditions. Sea levels go up and down all year long, and no amount of climate change legislation is going to have any power to control that. Of course the government is going to tell you that climate change is a big problem, and that more of your tax money is needed to combat it. They have a profit motive to do so, duh. The people to listen to here are the ones who have no political or financial agenda.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, let's squabble about terminology. It's also not climate change, it is ... what was it? I forgot the current buzzword.
That's the real problem, don't worry about the climate. Oh, sorry, weather.
Re: (Score:2)
The data covers decades, so it is climate, not weather.
Re: (Score:3)
Climate is made up of weather. Any particular instance is weather. A statistical clump of pieces of weather is climate. When they say particular pieces of weather are becoming more common, they are talking about climate.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
AGW is easy to solve compared to the little lies we tell ourselves about what is moral, in order to protect our little empires.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
We could fix this problem easily with barely any significant change to our style of life.
...so why hasn't anyone proposed this mysterious solution if it fixed the problem that "easily", with "barely any significant change in our style of life"?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
...so why hasn't anyone proposed this mysterious solution if it fixed the problem that "easily", with "barely any significant change in our style of life"?
They did, it's called "reduce, reuse, recycle" and it's been around since the 70's. People have demonstrated how easy it can be, but to our collective inability to think and plan ahead, it's not commonplace.
Re: (Score:3)
We could fix this problem easily with barely any significant change to our style of life.
Because ponies. Just because you want something doesn't mean it magically becomes a good thing to get, especially for everyone else.
So far, the current efforts to restructure energy infrastructure to cause less global warming have resulted in a doubling of certain types of energy in parts of Europe. For example, petroleum prices have more or less doubled over the US prices in Europe. Similarly, residential electricity prices in Germany (note that Germany and Denmark, both with heavily subsidized, high sh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Incredibly well stated, sir. Sadly, nobody who reads proclamations of The Government as if they are gospel truth seems aware of the fact that we are currently extending the all time record interval without a category 3 hurricane making landfall in the US, that like it or not SLR is being measured at the terrifying rate of between 2.5 and 3.5 mm/year, within noise of its 140 year rate (and if anything, is currently actually decelerating, although statistically neither any observed "acceleration" nor "decele
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if that's totally true. I put a non-trivial portion of my salary into a 401k every month because I've been told, repeatedly, that to be old and poor is much less fun than being old and middle class. Why wouldn't I make the same decision to act now so that my elderly years are less impacted by climate change?
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
As a conservative I do not believe in borrowing from future generations. We would all benefit now from running massive deficits but future generations would suffer. Dick Cheney said "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter" but that is clearly not true. At some point the hammer must fall.
That's what we are doing with the climate. We all enjoy the benefits of cheap fuel while our kids are forced to bear the brunt of climate change and make the transition to new energy sources. It is not a good legacy.
Re: (Score:3)
Many people in the current political climate believe that any formal, organized response to climate change will hurt the economy, cost jobs, cut growth, and create additional spending. In a larger sense, and if we accept these concerns, is this not borrowing from the future?
If a business has made its money by "borrowing from the future" through unsustainable and environmentally damaging practices, and that business is subsequently put out of business because of legal reform that makes their practices impractical financially, well yes, you are hurting certain current economic concerns, but in the long run those concerns would continue to do more harm than good.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
A silver lining? - I heard what could be considered good news to everyone (except coal barons). Here in Oz we're busily industrialising the great barrier reef by building a controversial coal mine and the largest coal port in the world. The multi-nationals who were behind the project (BHP, Rio, some banks,..) have all walked away from the project. It's now been reported (on a local business show) that the mine will probably not have the customers in India it expects. Why? - Because wind and solar are now roughly at parity price with imported coal in India and prices are dropping at a rate such that in 2-3yrs time renewables in India will be 10% cheaper than imported Aussie coal. What's is sounding even better is that coal exports have dropped significantly in price since the project was announced and yet it is still neck-to-neck with the price of renewables in India.
If those reports are not a gross exaggeration then it looks like some developing nations really will leapfrog the west and go straight to renewables.
Serious effects.... (Score:3)
Prio
Re:sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
See, this is why I don't think global warming matters much after all. We're collectively incapable of preventing it because our minds just aren't made to care about long-term issues that can only be understood analytically.
It is also very, very, very difficult to do anything about it. Even if we (humans everywhere) reduced emissions to zero, global warming would continue for quite some time. And .what are the chances we could drop to zero emissions overnight, even if everyone agreed we should? Yes, we need to reduce fossil fuel use where we possibly can. It has all kinds of benefits. Just keep in mind that reversing global warming is not among those benefits. Not for some time.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
No. It's not even that.
The really big problem is, "Okay. It's happening. Now what do we actually DO about it?"
Right there the knives start coming out. Because everyone has a different idea of what should happen.
And there are very few concrete plans, based on actual, proven science.
Most are just variations on "lets tack on a bunch of fines and taxes to make doing certain things unpopular". Which doesn't ACTUALLY address the problem.
Then you have all the people proposing stuff like carbon sequestration through iron doping of algae and all sorts of unproven schemes based on pseudoscience.
Not to mention the fact that we STILL don't have a computer simulation that ACCURATELY models the phenomenon. In short, we can't even properly quantify THE PROBLEM. How the hell are we supposed to come up with a "solution"?
On top of that, everyone in the US could stop producing greenhouse gasses RIGHT NOW, and it wouldn't do a damn thing. Because everyone else is still putting the stuff out. SPECIFICALLY China. Unless we have government buy-in representing the majority of the world's population all that's happening is that we're trading one set of bad actors for another.
And everyone's so precondition to fight over the smallest detail on this that I honestly feel that nothing will ever TRULY be done about it.
Not through lack of care for the long term. But over-abundance of inflexible actors working at cross purposes.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Best estimates are that had we started maybe 10 years ago it would be about 3% of GDP over a defined period to solve the problem. It's a large number and it will take some effort, but so what? Previous generations dealt with problems larger than this. We have the means available with Nuclear power, solar and wind, which will only get cheaper as newer technologies arise through investment.
The problem is, people don't want to admit there is a problem. The honest truth of the skeptical position: "There's a problem but I'd rather leave it for future generations to solve than get off my arse" sounds a bit amoral, and hence we never hear that spoken out loud. Admit you have a problem and move on.
Re: (Score:3)
If us dumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is causing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to increase (and hence the problem)
There is no single "The Problem". And the bigger problems, such as poverty and overpopulation, have solutions that currently depend on elevated generation of greenhouse gases. We can crudely divide countries by whether they're near the bleeding edge in wealth and well being of their citizens or not and whether they care enough about global warming to make any sacrifices. It turns out the only parties willing to make sacrifices are those who are wealthy (such as the EU) or under the climate gun (such as Bang
Re:sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
If the problem is rampent overconsumption, british columbia proves that increasing taxes does make people use less fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
Yes, I realize that everyone hates all taxes. I am not saying whether it is right or wrong, but the province of BC proves that it is effective at addressing the problem of too much carbon emissions being produced.
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/t... [gov.bc.ca]
100% correct predictions [Re:sigh] (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
No one can predict the future.
I predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, and also the next day.
I predict the average temperature where I live will be warmer in August, and it will be cooler in January.
I predict a full moon on May 14, and a partial solar eclipse on October 23.
I predict that next year's calendars will (in America) mostly bear the year "2015".
I predict that in 2015 the Earth's atmosphere will still contain about 78% nitrogen.
I predict that, this coming June, elephants will be unable to fly under their own power, but sparrows will.
Of course people can predict the future. We can't predict everything. That doesn't mean we can't predict anything.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:100% correct predictions [Re:sigh] (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you and your denialist friends want a seat at the table and want your ideas to be heard, then by all means, bring your extrapolations to the table, if indeed, you have any.
How to predict [100% correct predictions] (Score:3)
You can't predict anything meaningful or useful. Telling me next year will have a spring and summer isn't useful, it's a given....
The statement I was responding to was "No one can predict the future." Not "predictions of the future aren't meaningful or useful."
However, I will state that my prediction that summer will follow spring and will be warmer than winter is useful, in that it tells me that I should plant my tomatoes in spring, rather than in autumn. Predictions of the future are, in fact, very useful, and we make them all the time.
The other commenter wasn't predicting anything of consequence. On the contrary, he was simply extrapolating from the past. Those are two very different things. Extrapolating from known cyclical behavior can indeed be useful, but as a "prediction" it's pretty much a joke.
Extrapolating from the past is one way to predict the future, yes; I'm not sure why you think it
Re: (Score:2)
You know, climate effects weather.... That's kind of the point. One is a subset of the other.
Just because it's snowing (weather) doesn't mean the globe (climate) is getting colder. Whereas if the global climate WAS getting colder, we WOULD see weather effects. Pretty much opposite the ones that we're seeing I suppose.
Anyway.....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anything that advances the anthropogenic global warming agenda is climate. Anything that doesn't is weather. Keep up!
According to the government's own figures, 78% of the United States has been experiencing the coldest year (i.e., 2014 so far) since 1937. About the only exception has been the SW like the LA region right now. Great Lakes have record ice for this time of year. Arctic is at normal sea ice levels and Antarctic levels are above normal. Which wouldn't be worth mentioning if it hadn't been a strong trend for well over a year. But what's really educational is to look at the actual record of past years, rather tha
Re:sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascinating. While I can't comment on all of these points, I did a bit of searching regarding the second LINK [wordpress.com] about global sea ice: That graph shows the global sea ice area, not the volume. The area slightly increased while the volume has steadily gone down [skepticalscience.com] over the same period of time.
This is what makes it impossible for the armchair scientist to understand this. Inevitably, someone will reply telling me why my link is a bunch of dumbutts and how that graph is irrelevant, we should be looking at something else.
Re:sigh (Score:4)
The troposphere isn't what most people think of when they talk about temperature. If you look at the very site he uses, WoodForTrees.org, pretty much every other graph, again using the simple linear approximation at play here, shows an increase. He pretty much cherry-picked the graph that confirmed his biases. This isn't to say that the graph is wrong or that my analysis is right. It just means that, as so many people have said already, you just CAN'T summarize the whole enormous complex machine that is the climate by a single measurement. What does that graph mean in relation to everything else? I'm not a climatologist, I don't know. From what I can tell [blogspot.ca], he's not much more recognized in the topic than I am. I won't claim that credentials are all that matters, but I will trust an actual scientific organization (or even just a single researcher in the field) before a random guy using a fake name on WordPress. Again, not because I'm doing an appeal to authority, but because this whole thing is way too complicated to start doing armchair climatology.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Anything that advances the anthropogenic global warming agenda is climate. Anything that doesn't is weather. Keep up!
According to the government's own figures, 78% of the United States has been experiencing the coldest year (i.e., 2014 so far) since 1937. About the only exception has been the SW like the LA region right now. Great Lakes have record ice for this time of year. Arctic is at normal sea ice levels and Antarctic levels are above normal. Which wouldn't be worth mentioning if it hadn't been a strong trend for well over a year. But what's really educational is to look at the actual record of past years, rather than just taking other peoples' word for it.
This guy [wordpress.com] is a very good source of historical comparisons to todays weather AND climate.
When you know a little actual history of our climate, you look at these "warming" scares and go "Pffffft. Baloney."
He posts some really great, actual historical stuff like THIS [wordpress.com] and THIS [wordpress.com] and THIS [wordpress.com].
Alarmists can say what they want about skeptics, but the historical record is the historical record.
Good luck trying to rebut the actual thermometers in, say, 1940 for example. They said what they said.
So the first link is the infamous trick of showing no warming by starting with 1998, the hottest year ever. Doing so obscures the fact that we've spent the last 15 years almost matching the hottest year ever!
The second link is an unsourced graph of percentage of weather stations experiencing 100F days. The implied interpretation is that 100F days are less frequent. The unaddressed question is how has the composition of weather stations changed in the last 100 years, are there more outside of urban centres,
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't matter who he is. What matters is whether what he posts is factual.
When he was confronted with an error me made, he admits it. Yet that blog post implies that somehow his integrity is in question because he ADMITTED ONE mistake? Sheesh.
As far as I am concerned, people who admit their mistakes are more credible than people who spread obvious bullshit and claim it's the truth.
And as for it being a pseudonym... so what? Is Dorkmunder your real name? If it's a
Re: (Score:3)
It's an F-350. It's tornado-proof.
Re:sigh (Score:4, Funny)
so you hope my F-150 is hit with an F5? well F1 you!!
Re:sigh (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The science was in for "peak oil" scare all the way back to 70s and the same kinds of people were calling deniers "stupid" and "cowards" and calling for urgent massive government spending on green projects and massive destructive regulation of job creating industries as a response. 45 years later and the peak oil has been exposed as a hoax, only for global warming to take its place.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Peak (US) oil happened. It's part of why we're doing the whole hydraulic fracturing thing.
The historical data of actual oil prices maps pretty damn well to the supposedly "bogus" Hubbert curve.
Re:sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Oil production has been plateauing despite more drilling in even more remote areas and deeper waters, with new methods of extraction being deployed (shale fracking - it's not just for gas y'know). We keep drilling more holes just to keep up with the diminishing returns.
The quality of the crude has declined, and it's gotten so bad in the past few years that now tar sands are economically viable because there's no place else to get it.
Or did you think "peak oil" means it would all run out in one night?
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:3)
Peak oil is not a hoax - it's mathematical fact. It'll happen at some point as the resources of this world are not limitless. Rising cost/barrel means some sources which are not financially viable become viable (as happened with the oil sands in Alberta). Fracturing will generate a lot of production in the short term but they are not long term sources.
While we have not hit peak oil, we have hit peak oil per capita (back in 1979).
Re:sigh (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know what peak oil is.
We are not finding new oil reserves faster than the rate of growth of oil usage.
We are always finding new oil, but the Chinese and other emerging industrial countries are consuming it faster than we are finding it.
New forms of energy are being stifled / legislatively hindered by oil interests. Why else are states trying to pass laws to tax solar panel installations?
Re:sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Cooling trend? Not sure where you come up with that. Here is the temperature trend over the last 15 years: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g... [woodfortrees.org]
That's a change of + 0.18 C over the period. That is a rather large increase for 15 years.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, you picked the wrong dataset. I forget which of those it is, but one of them. You gotta cherrypick real hard.
Re: (Score:3)
Yep, global warming impact is severe, alright. Coldest winter in recent memory, that warming sure is a bitch!
Ok, that comment was just begging for the obligatory XKCD link. [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Figure out the problem like Max Planck did and stop worrying. There's nothing any of us can do about it, sadly.
Re: (Score:3)
When the topic is climate change or guns, you can't reason with most of them.
Re: (Score:3)
As nerds, the first thing we should check is the power requirements of our technological gadgets in our daily activities.
Print with PLA instead of ABS, use a tablet or low-end computer instead of a gaming PC to read Slashdot and watch YouTube, stream Netflix via an Apple TV instead of a PS4/Xbox One, etc. The list is endless.