'Impossible' Research Produces 400 Years of Climate Data, Shows El Nino Now Stronger (phys.org) 162
Long-time Slashdot reader William Robinson writes:
Using cores drilled from coral, scientists have been able to produce the first 400-year-long seasonal record of El Niño events. "This understanding of El Niño events is vital because they produce extreme weather across the globe with particularly profound effects on precipitation and temperature extremes in Australia, South East Asia and the Americas," reports Phys.org.
The results? A new category of El Niño "has become far more prevalent in the last few decades than at any time in the past four centuries," reports Scientific American. "Over the same period, traditional El Niño events have become more intense."
Obtaining this data was considered impossible, until a Melbourne PhD researcher realized that coral cores, like tree rings, captured the "signature" of El Niño events going back for several centuries, according to the article. They were then able to identify that signature using machine learning techniques, and after three years of work produced the 400-year record.
The study's lead author now says that "By understanding the past, we are better equipped to understand the future, especially in the context of climate change."
The results? A new category of El Niño "has become far more prevalent in the last few decades than at any time in the past four centuries," reports Scientific American. "Over the same period, traditional El Niño events have become more intense."
Obtaining this data was considered impossible, until a Melbourne PhD researcher realized that coral cores, like tree rings, captured the "signature" of El Niño events going back for several centuries, according to the article. They were then able to identify that signature using machine learning techniques, and after three years of work produced the 400-year record.
The study's lead author now says that "By understanding the past, we are better equipped to understand the future, especially in the context of climate change."
Impossible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why put "Impossible" in the title when the summary goes on to explain clearly that it is not.
Re:Impossible? (Score:5, Interesting)
More interesting is that 400 years ago we were starting to enter the so called 'little ice age'. To get really useful data you need to get a longer period so we will know how the behavior was during Roman warming and the Viking and early medieval time.
Really? (Score:2, Informative)
We're Screwed: 11,000 Years' Worth of Climate Data Prove It [theatlantic.com]
There is no downside to fighting climate change. It'll reduce pollution, improve human health, help keep our way of life (with much less pollution), create economic opportunities (EVs, "green" energy,) and others that we can't even imagine.
But there's resistance and negative propaganda from vested interests. All the negativity against fighting global climate change is just lies created by the coal miners and oil companies. As we have always seen,
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Well, no downside except for the increased poverty, decrease in standard of living, reduced economic activity, slowing of scientific research, lowering of arts funding, increase in government control, and international tensions between the "haves" and "have nots" who will now never be allowed to become "haves" because of climate concerns.
But other than that, Mrs Lincoln...
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You can be a 70s style tree hugger without fully embracing neo-Stalinism.
Re: Really? (Score:2)
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The only losers in addressing climate change would be the shareholders of fossil fuel companies. For everyone else, it would be the biggest economic boom since the WWII era. And the costs of addressing climate change are utterly insignificant next to the costs of not addressing it. It's already costing the United States hundreds of billions each year
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This purely ideological assertion is completely contrary to all economic modelling on the topic. People keep assuming that if you remove fossil fuels the power that replaces it will somehow be generated by magic and all the coal miners and power plant workers will be unemployed and nobody replacing them.
Which is horseshit. Transitioning to a non fossil fuel economy wil
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This is fantastic! Exactly what the world needs right now.
So what is this new energy technology that can totally replace fossil fuels?
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Well, no downside except for the increased poverty, decrease in standard of living, reduced economic activity, slowing of scientific research, lowering of arts funding, increase in government control, and international tensions between the "haves" and "have nots" who will now never be allowed to become "haves" because of climate concerns.
But other than that, Mrs Lincoln...
Well that escalated quickly.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the subject was specifically the El Niño, not the global perspective. The interesting part here is the behavior of El Niño and how it has behaved in a long term perspective to get better data related to changes in climate.
And even with a large amount of data and a long timespan we are still looking at a chaotic system that we don't have full control over. Is the butterfly in Amazonas creating a hurricane in Mexico or is it preventing one. Maybe it doesn't have any effect at all today, but tomorrow it creates a hurricane while the day after it prevents one.
Looking at El Niño makes sense - it's a large considerable event, but we have to know it behaves really long term and combine that with the 10000 year data to really get a better understanding. Correlation does not always mean causation, it could be different events that have the same cause further back.
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Who gets the tax and how it is spent is ?
Tax is now the new science of energy production.
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People paying more and more for a new energy tax AC?
How about making energy 24/7 at a lower cost.
Everyone can do more, be more productive.
Production lines can add workers, products get exported. Win, win.
Put the money they had to pay to a new energy tax to "someone" towards something thats actually productive?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stick it to the libs and burn coal and oil and die in the hole...
If we really wanted to stick it to the libs, we would accept the climate data, and then convert our fossil energy base over to nuclear.
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If we really wanted to stick it to the libs, we would accept the climate data, and then convert our fossil energy base over to nuclear.
I'm a "lib." Go ahead, stick it to me. I'm all for nuclear. Supposedly there are new designs that are safer and don't produce waste that has to be stored for 5000+ years.
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Climate change doesn't need you to believe in it for it to happen. But if you click your slippers together three times, maybe you too can be back in Kansas.
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If you're the sort of person to tell a freshmen college student on a budget to pass up that used Honda Civic, and instead go for a $2.5 million Bugatti without seat belts or breaks, sure.
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Those resources are already being diverted, and the cost will continue to mount. The cost of a gallon of gas is not the be all and end all of costs.
Reading comprehension? (Score:1)
Because, as TFS states, it was deemed impossible until now.
Re:Reading comprehension? (Score:4, Informative)
Because, as TFS states, it was deemed impossible until now.
But the explanation of that (which refers to climate records in tree rings) makes little sense because 1) that is is many-decades-old science, and 2) there are plenty of locations In the El Niño target region - the western US - from which we already have many-hundreds-of-years-old 13C climate records from long-lived trees.
Re:Reading comprehension? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, the problem is that the Scientific American summary is bad.
What they discovered (which is something you could only use corals for) is that it’s becoming more common for the source area of the El Niño to be in the Central Pacific.
And the line about traditional El Niño being stronger is ... let’s be charitable and use the word “premature”. What the researchers actually say is “there are even some early hints that the much stronger Eastern Pacific El Niños, like those that occurred in 1997/98 and 2015/16 may be growing in intensity.”
Re:Reading comprehension? (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientists, during their training, usually learn to be more careful about their language, and not say, "It's impossible" when they don't know if it is.
Re: Guess why. You're not a climatologist. (Score:3)
Heads up, I have worked in the field of climate research and yeah "impossible" isn't really science language, "difficult" or "unknown" however is. However prior to this we really did have no idea how to get historic climate data in regions without land
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Please don't use the word impossible (Score:1, Informative)
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"They are ignoring the science." That is my favorite of the common accusations that fly whenever climate change arguments come up.
We want an abundance of clear evidence that leads unambiguously to a single inarguable conclusion. We want this as badly as Sauron wants his ring. So, we imagine we have it, even when we do not.
The human mind has a hard time grasping just how many variables are at work here, just how much evidence must be poured-over, just how much assumption must still be baked into our compu
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. You have never hired or tried to manage one.
No, in my last job I was managing a dozen.
They were all intelligent, inquisitive, fast learners, diligent and capable.
sorry.
Re: Please don't use the word impossible (Score:1)
The "citations, please" phenomenon is a great example of how Millennials pretend to practice science. It shows how they cargo cult as "scientists". They demand citations, and will offer them up gladly. The problem is that they're citing junk. Instead of citing objective scientific papers produced in strict accordance with the scientific method, Millennials prefer to cite things like Huffington Post and Vice opinion pieces. Again, this is the complete opposite of practicing the scientific method.
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In 2019 you can find a citation for anything.
It's true: source. [slashdot.org]
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Wanting to keep your own money is not greed. Setting up an elaborate Carbon Credit system to enslave the world IS Greed. See the difference. In one you are wisely managing and controlling what happens with YOUR OWN MONEY. In the other you are using the U.N. to Globally TAX and take away OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. See, that's greed. The Ozone hole was closing even before the first bans went into effect, didn't matter, they are STILL collecting that GLOBAL tax off the stupid. I want to keep my money. That's not be
The problem with that conservative rant (Score:3)
Is that carbon credits are a conservative, market-based approach to dealing with climate change. All you're doing is highlighting the fact that conservatives and markets have no solution for it.
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Your Al Gore Derangement Syndrome is showing. Carbon credits are conservative way to address climate change with a market based approach. No amount of ManBearPig butthurt is going to change the fact.
The lefitst approach would be to simply ban coal power and replace it with renewable energy while building mass transit.
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The Europeans and Chinese have a strong motivation to replace fossil fuels ... they have none.
So what is it they're pumping out of the North Sea, Ranch Dressing?
Well, that's Norway anyway. But all the Norwegians are driving Teslas, or so I've heard.
Re: No, they don't (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't really care about climate change one way or another. I'm old enough to be long dead if it ever becomes an issue.
My question is this: why does so much climate data require adjustments of some sort?
Why can every other field of science collect data without needing to adjust it, yet climate scientists apparently can't?
Additionally, if you're working with data that has been adjusted, are you really doing science?
Um... we have it (Score:2)
The only folk arguing over the degree of human impact on climate change are oil executives and folks scared their 401k will take a dive if we switch to a green economy. The former are just greedy bastages but the latter have a real concern (namely that change will negatively impact their ability to live). The solution is a Green New Deal, e.g. a large s
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Re: Yeah, let's give in to moronity. (Score:1)
Intelligent liberals look at facts and reality and then quickly become intelligent conservatives.
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The word you are looking for isn't "Scientist", its "Fucking idiot".
Folks, don't get your info from biased weirdos on youtube and blogs. Ge your info from people in the field. Climate change is very real, its mostly man made, and the picture is bleak.
Data graph (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be blind, then. (Score:1)
The graphs are showing the same feature. It's rapidly warning since ~1950 and fairly stable (compared to the change over the last 50 years) before that.
Capcha is ironic: redneck. You probably are.
Re:You must be blind, then. (Score:4, Informative)
The graphs are showing the same feature. It's rapidly warning since
LOL you insulted me for being blind, then didn't read the Y axis. Hint: it's not temperature, it's the ratio of central/eastern El Nino events.
(compared to the change over the last 50 years) before that.
You can't know that if you don't know the margin of error, among other things. For you who can't read a Y axis, that's an advanced concept you should leave to others.
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Re: Oooh, utter fail again. Binomial statistics. (Score:2)
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What on earth do you "think" you are doing here?
I think I am entertaining myself by talking to someone who doesn't understand statistics, and hilariously forgot the label on the Y axis matters. p
4,5,2,7,4,3,4,6,7,6,3 doesn't have any calculable standard deviation?
The sequence 0 has a calculable standard deviation, but that doesn't mean it's worth calculating. Understanding statistics means you know when to apply this stuff, more than just being able to use the words.
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The label on the Y axis doesn't matter.
Oh really now.
Please, by all means, get more angry, and say more entertaining nonsense. I enjoy fools in their anger.
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I don't prattle on about others knowing nothing when they have clearly displayed they know at least SOMETHING.
As a matter of fact, you've been doing so for several comments now.
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I'll have the roast leg of Fred with Basil (Score:5, Interesting)
One particularly strong El Niño year was 1846. Weeks of rain in the American Southwest delayed wagon trains, causing one party of settlers in particular to be trapped by early deep snow in the Sierra Anevada:
https://thestormking.com/Donne... [thestormking.com]
Just a thought (Score:1, Troll)
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This study had nothing to do with machine learning.
Yet TFA says exactly that:
After carefully refining the technique to reconstruct the signature of El Niño in space and time using new machine learning techniques , the scientists were able to compare recent coral results with the instrumental record.
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I wish the actual paper were available.
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Same here, particularly when it says things like the data being "teased out" over the course of three years using a technique that essentially came from Freund's own PhD thesis and she had to shop for a long time to get anyone to give her money to continue to play with (and then ending up with a fairly poor fit to the observed record, as you've already pointed out).
And the margin of error on the results is ....? (Score:2)
What is the margin of error of the model(s) on _known_ El Nino events and in the absence of ground truth for the really old 'signatures' how appropriate are the results?
Gist of the Nature article (Score:2)
(Limited by my understanding).
El Nino is the "warm" part of a weather pattern (El Nino/La Nina) that has a large scale effect on the sea surface temperature (SST) in parts of the pacific.
It is known, that there are two types of this pattern, termed EP (eastern pacific) and CP (central pacific) el nino, the most notable difference (as far as i can tell) is, that in the EP-version the surface temperatures in a "tongue" west of peru/equador are higher compared to the CP-version, where they are lower. This is
Not science (Score:1)
This is just one article. One article does not science make. It has to be peer reviewed. Can other people come up with the same results? Is it repeatable? Do we know if what it's saying is correct? That's science.
All we have right now is an interesting paper. It's not even really a theory yet.