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Climate Changes Shift Springtime in Europe
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Aug 27, 2006 01:39 AM
from the cue-the-dancing-hitlers dept.
from the cue-the-dancing-hitlers dept.
gollum123 writes to mention a BBC article on a study of Europe's changing climate. The study collated information from 17 nations and 125,000 studies involving 561 species. The results indicate that, at least in Europe, 'Spring' is coming earlier and earlier every year. From the article: "Spring was beginning on average six to eight days earlier than it did 30 years ago, the researchers said. In regions such as Spain, which saw the greatest increases in temperatures, the season began up to two weeks earlier. The findings were based on what was described as the world's largest study of changes in recurring natural events, such as when plants flowered. The team of researchers also found that the onset of autumn has been delayed by an average of three days over the same period."
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A Stark Warning On Climate Change 926 comments
cliffski writes "In a report based on computer predictions, UK government advisor Professor David King said that an increase of even three degrees Celsius would cause drought and famine and threaten millions of lives
The US refuses to cut emissions and those of India and China are rising. A government report based on computer modeling projects a 3C rise would cause a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops, about 400 million more people at risk of hunger and between 1.2bn and 3bn more people at risk of water stress."
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30 years ago? (Score:5, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
The arguement usually goes that before 1970 we thought there was a new ice age coming, due to a global cooling trend. This is usually followed by the arguement that climate scientists don't know what they're talking about, and that man-made global warming is a myth. What this "talking point" ignores is that the so-called "new ice age" never had much scientific credibility; it is primarily remembered because it had a great deal of press coverage. Further, IIRC the global warming hypothesis goes back to at least 1968.
In every single
Note that the GP's point is valid, as there was an observed period of lower temperature 30 years ago (which is what sparked all the media speculation regarding a new ice age). However, I'm sure the scientists who did this study took that trend into account, and in any case the cooling trend was both brief and comparatively small.
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The Earth did cool 1940 - 1970 (Score:4, Informative)
The Earth was cooler from 1940 to 1970 - this was due to diesel engines producing sulfate aerosols, which are highly reflective. Right now we gain about 4.0 watts/meter^2 due to CO2 and methane, but we lose about half of it due to the sulfate aerosols still in the stratosphere. The cleaner burning fuels we implemented in the 1970s resulted in lower amounts of that stuff in the atmosphere, hence the reversal of the cooling (dimming, actually) trend.
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Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahhhhhhhhhh, how ironic this could look in another 20 or 30 years.
KFG
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Re:Yes....well...... (Score:5, Informative)
Mars, just like earth, undergoes natural climate fluctuation. On Earth we have Milankovitch cycles [wikipedia.org], based on the eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit. Mars also has interesting orbital variations, and significantly greater orbital eccentricity than the earth. This results in similar, though differently timed, significant variations in climate. Mars also suffers from severe dust storms which can have a large impact on climate due t changes in atmospheric opacity. Combine that with the current solar variation [wikipedia.org], to which the IPCC attributes around 30% of the Earth's observed warming, and it isn't that surprising that Mars might be experiencing some climatic change currently.
The real difference between climate change on Mars and climate change on Earth is that the degree of change currently observed on Mars is entirely explainable in terms of observed natural effects, while the climate change on Earth is not. Anthropogenic effects, to the very bestof our knowledge, are required to explain the currently observed warming on Earth.
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Re:Yes....well...... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, there is that. Of course in mentioned that in the post you just replied to:
So the answer is that solar variation is likely having an effect, and our best current studies put that effect at up to 30% of current observed warming on earth. It's not like this is being ignored or anything - I'm not sure what your point is exactly.
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Re:Yes....well...... (Score:4, Informative)
Not by the people actually studying this. The IPCC TAR devotes an entire section to solar forcing of climate and, as I said, concludes it has had a significant (up to 30%) impact on the recent observed warming here on earth. Variation in solar radiation is considered in pretty much all climate models. I can't exactly see how you can call that ignoring it. If you want more then try some [mps.mpg.de] papers by [mps.mpg.de] Solanki and others [mps.mpg.de].
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Re:Yes....well...... (Score:5, Informative)
It's interesting you say that - could you provide me a reference for where the IPCC TAR concludes that the changes are "entirely explicable" as natural forcings? When I read through the conclusion of the attribution chapter [grida.no] I don't see anything about natural forcings providing adequate explanations. On the contrary we have
The best I can grant you is: "Natural factors may have contributed to the early century warming." but the warming in the last several decades cannot adequately be attributed to natural factors alone.
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Re:30 years ago? (Score:5, Informative)
In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually.
So, as a rough estimate growing seasons are about the same as they were in the 1950s. The researchers only went back 30 years so they wouldn't have to deal with this "anomaly". That is known in some circles as "cooking the data".
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This is what pisses me off about the GW thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Feynman said it best:
"It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another."
(http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_scie
This cherry picking of data, downplaying and/or ignoring of contradictory results and such is just not acceptable. It may very well be that there's something to the idea that humans are causing global warming and that it's going to lead to bad things, but the way to prove that is not to use bad science.
Because of all this crap floating around on both sides, I personally have just said "fuck it" in relation to global warming. I'm not looking in to it anymore, I don't know who to believe. I neither believe nor disbelieve the theory. I'll continue to conserve as much as possible in my personal life (biking to work, for example, which I highly recommend) since I believe in conservation for it's own sake and since it makes economic sense (use less, have more). However I'm not going to get all worked up about it because I just can't figure out if there's anything to get all worked up about.
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Re:30 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
North America's climate was cooler from roughly 1950 through about 1975; but I don't know that it was a world-wide phenomenon (it could have been; I just don't know.). However "cooler" is a relative term - it wasn't "Little Ice Age" cool or anything like that. It was just cooler than the period before and after. You might notice that a lot of your local record low temps occured in the 1950s; at least if you live in the US.
There have been a lot of fluctuations like this, and will continue to be whether global warming continues or not (that's one thing that bugs me - the debate shouldn't be "it is warming" versus "it isn't warming". The ice core records taken in the past two decades have established that IT IS WARMING UP. The question really is, is this observed warming trend caused by man's activity [anthropogenic] or is it a natural fluctuation?).
That's one of the problems with the global warming discussion. As the climate continues to warm year after year it becomes more and more likely that this is anthropogenic rather than natural; but by the time we are 100% certain it'll be too late to do anything. Unfortunately this sort of uncertainty is common in science, which means politicians can use their mad spin skillz to argue it whatever way their constituency wants.
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Easy solutions... (Score:4, Funny)
Springtime for Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Europe was having trouble.
What a sad, sad story.
Needed a new climate to restore.
Its former glory.
Where, oh, where was it?
Where could that man it?
We looked around and then we found.
The pollution for you and me.
LEAD TENOR SCIENTIST:
And now it's...
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
Glaciers receding at a faster pace
Look out, here comes the heatwave race!
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Rhineland's a fine land once more!
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Watch out, Europe
Al Gore going on tour!
Do NOT be alarmed! (Score:5, Funny)
What about the other seasons? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't believe everything you read (Score:5, Funny)
Re:someone's going to blame 'greenhouse gasses' (Score:4, Informative)
I'm reading the article article you linked to, and it seems to support the greenhouse gas theory. For instance, in section 5 (split over pages 2 and 3):
I can't find any mentions of volcanism. Please point them out or provide a better source.
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
We do not, of course, know for certain what is causing the observed changes. The best evidence we currently have, however, indicates that human actions play a significant role in the current warming. Attribution is a tricky question, so considerable study has taken place. There is quite a lot of data stacking up in favour of human factors being a primary cause. Take some time and read through the IPCC summary of climate attribution studies [grida.no] and bear in mind that this was as of 2001 - we know even more now. We're not talking about simplistic correlation based guesses, were talking about serious quantative analysis by a number of different methods, in a large number of different studies. None of that, of course, rules out other possibilities entirely - but we currently know of no natural phenomena that can successfully describe the current degree of change, and there is considerable evidence and explanatory power provided by anthropogenic changes. By all means keep an open mind, but face up to the fact that, to the best of our not inconsiderable knowledge on the matter, anthropogenic changes are the primary factor in current climatic change.
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Earlier on, you write,
"Take some time and read through the IPCC summary of climate attribution studies [grida.no] and bear in mind that this was as of 2001 - we know even more now.".
Are you implying that more (reliable and relevant) data has been collected over the past five years or that computer climate modeling has gotten more sophisticated and impressive to the layman?
For someone who asks everyone else to "keep an open mind", you already seem to have made yours up.
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:5, Informative)
Which is to say, you didn't read it. Honestly, have a look at chapter 12 (Attribution) of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. You'll find just a single mention, buried in the qualitative section, of Mann's study, listed amongst 5 other different palaeological climate reconstructions by different authors, and only to note that "the 20th century warming is highly unusual." You can see those reconstructions (plus several others) charted together [wikipedia.org] if you're curious. Mann's studies, let alone the "Hockey Stick", far from being "the centerpiece", get scant mention. Instead the attribution factor considers many studies using indices and time series methods, pattern correlation methods, and optimal fingerprint methods. This table [grida.no] provides a summary of the attribution studies considered, along with the method, the uncertainty, the timescale considered etc. You might care to note that Mann is not involved in any of the studies considered.
Of course calling Mann's work a "scientific fraud" is rather unfounded too. You may note, in the chart linked above, that there are many other historical temperature reconstructions, done indepdently by different people, that arrive at a similar result to Mann. There is also the recent National Academy of Sciences report [nationalacademies.org] on the subject which concluded, with high confidence, that the earth was the warmest it had been in 400 years, and that while there was less confidence in reconstructions going further back, they still point to the earth undergoing unusual recent warming. On the other hand you have the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce [house.gov], and an economist [uoguelph.ca] and someone from the mining industry [exxonsecrets.org] claiming it is all bunk. At least McIntyre and McKitrick wrote some semi-respectable papers, though there is considerable dispute about their methodology [realclimate.org] (at least as much, if not far more, than there is about Mann's).
Let's cast all of that dispute aside however, and assume that Mann was full of crap - that still makes no difference whatsoever to the content of the attribution chapter of the IPCC report I linked to, and which you so very clearly didn't bother to read. I don't mind people having differing opinions, but when they are based on apparently willful ignorance I am a little appalled.
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Informative)
You said the SUMMARY not the chapter. The centerpiece of the SUMMARY was the thoroughly discredited "Mann Hockey Stick" a piece of shit so bad that not even Mann bothered to defend it when he testified in Congress recently. It was Mann's study that was touted as the "Smoking Gun" of man-made climate change and it was Mann's study that was reproduced five or six times in the Summary for Policymakers.
Actually the Mann Hockey Stick gets scant attention now because it's been revealed to be a fraud, which was shoved down the throats of scientists, politicians and the public. The other studies in that spaghetti graph are siblings of the Hockey Stick, using the same flawed proxies over and over again, as the Wegman report [house.gov] made clear. Steve McIntyre [climateaudit.org] has shown that ALL of those studies fail statistical verification tests just like the Hockey Stick.
Hockey Stick Denialism means rewriting history, and Wikipedia is the perfect medium to do it.
As Wegman noted, all of those studies used the same flawed proxies, and some used Mann's flawed PC1 as a proxy in itself, even though it had already been shown to be a product of bad data in 2003 and bad statistics in 2005. There's even a nice table in Wegman showing how they are all related. Wegman testified that Mann's study was a piece of "bad mathematics" and was meaningless.
The Mann Hockey Stick was a deliberate fabrication of the climatic record. It removed the Little ice Age and Medieval Warm Period as global phenomena and even last year Mann confirmed [sciam.com] that the Hockey Stick did not have those events. It should be obvious that writing "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" across the top of a set of graphs that doesn't show them is not exactly evidence, but we're dealing with Denialism here.
What they effectively was re-establish the Little Ice Age, which Mann had said didn't exist and downgraded the rest of his crap to "plausible" which my dictionary [dictionary.com] defines as
1. having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable: a plausible excuse; a plausible plot.
2. well-spoken and apparently, but often deceptively, worthy of confidence or trust: a plausible commentator.
That the Mann Hockey Stick was deliberately fabricated and knowingly false was the discovery of
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense.
If the climate change is minor and tolerable, we don't need to do much of anything, even if it's man-made.
If the climate change is going to be catastrophic, we should do something serious about it, even if it is natural.
Whether it's natural or not, has little bearing on whether humans (society) will be able to survive it.
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Re:Thats odd (Score:4, Informative)
What you're referring to is thermohaline inversion - the process by which the North Atlantic current is thought to stop once enough sweet water is released into the ocean from melting ice in Greenland and the North Pole. It has not yet occurred. But there are signs that the current in question is slowing down, which is the start of the process. Cooling of the Western European countries (specifically Great Britain) will only occur once the current actually stops. Before that, effects will be negligible.
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