BEST Study Finds Temperature Changes Explained by GHG Emissions and Volcanoes 355
riverat1 writes "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature studies latest release finds that land surface temperature changes since 1750 are nearly completely explained by increases in greenhouse gases and large volcanic eruptions. They also said that including solar forcing did not significantly improve the fit. Unlike the other major temperature records BEST used nearly all available temperature records instead of just a representative sample. Yet to come is an analysis that includes ocean temperatures."
Re:Koch Brothers? (Score:3, Interesting)
The BEST study failed peer review at JGR Atmospheres but flew peer review at the inaugural issue of "Geoinformatics and Geostatistics" by an Indian publisher. The funding is irrelevant to the study except to people in denial of the massive fossil fuel funding of climate alarmism.
Not credible (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, "peer reviewed". This is apparently volume 1, issue 1 of a new series of journals started by an Indian publisher that decided to simultaneously launch 53 new journals [scholarlyoa.com]. In order to fill them, they took pretty much anything that anyone wanted to publish.
Taking a larger set of stations would seem to mean that this study includes stations that other studies eliminated as poor-quality. For example, stations with siting issues, stations that have moved over time between rural/urban locations, stations suffering UHI in unknown amounts.
Given the need to work in corrections for all of these quality issues, and given a pre-stated conclusion, it is very easy to make the corrections in a way that supports your desired conclusion.
In short: not credible.
Re:Koch Brothers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Spark notes (Score:4, Interesting)
This same research has been rejected by every other climate and atmospheric research journal, by the peer review process.
Key researchers are omitted from the paper - like Judith Curry, who I suspect will have something to say, since she was a key member of the BEST project.
Go figure.
Re:Funded by Koch brothers and Getty family ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually I seem to recall that gas produces far less CO2 for energy produced that coal or oil. The thing is though, that we should take this as an opportunity to move to clean energy because it is better all round. No pollution, no digging dirty great holes in the ground (and I am in Australia, we are famous for the size of our holes in the ground). Sure it will be more expensive in the short term, but maybe that reflects the TRUE cost of energy, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will plummet in price if the world made a commitment to full conversion. As a side benefit there would be huge investment into energy storage which should finally give us flying cars.
There was a recent study on how green energy could provide all of our energy needs in Green:tech http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-about-99.9-percent-renewables [greentechmedia.com].
Incidentally I was in Saudi Arabia in December and while I was there the king announced a US$25 billion program of investment in solar PV. He must know something we don't...
Re:Typical bad summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Measurements on the great barrier reef have shown a temperature increase of 2 degrees since the 60's, and they are expecting another 2 by 2050, which is largely regarded as the temperature needed to kill it off. Already outside a reasonable range for the fauna that live in the area, which are migrating down the coast. If this were to happen over millennia the reef would probably migrate south, but at this rate of change it can't propagate quickly enough.
See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-18/warming-to-put-oceans-and-reefs-in-hot-water/4470104 [abc.net.au]
"Alarmists" are often climate scientists. "Denialists" seem frequently to be corporate funded loons with no expertise in the area. But even if both sides were equally populated by people of the same calibre I would still think it was worth trying to switch to alternatives ASAP to avoid the risk.
Think about it - if someone said "do this, or there is a 50% chance your house will burn down" you would do 'this', even if 'this' was quite expensive. After all, most people do exactly 'this' when they buy home insurance, and the chance is way lower than 50%.
Re:Typical bad summary (Score:4, Interesting)
while "denialists" tend to argue that these positive feedback loops are counteracted by negative feedback loops that tend to keep the temperature within a reasonable range.
Well, then these "denialists" should come with a sound proof for that statement, I would say. The "alarmists" have done their work.
Re:Typical bad summary (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been a while now that I've been hoping for a slashdot poll on this subject. For example...
My views on AGW are:
1) It doesn't exist
2) It does exist, but it's not caused by us so why get all worked up about it?
3) It does exist, but I think that change is a good thing (or the change will be neutral)
4) It does exist, and it's going to kill off millions of plant and animal species
5) It does exist, and it's going to kill off millions of humans
I'm guessing that it's a few loudspoken people on slashdot here who would choose 1-3, whereas the vast majority would choose 4-5.
Re:[citation needed] (Score:3, Interesting)
This study says A, that study says B.
Seriously, there are literally hundreds of climate models littering the back issues of science journals. Coming up with data and a model that fits some historical context is one thing, but we're still no closer to knowing what 10, 50 or 100 years from now will look like. When was the last time someone showed you the famous Al Gore hockey stick graph, without hastily and profusely making excuses about it?
Re:Predictions? (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't have to wait for a decade, they can just crop out the last decade of data and ask the model minus 10 years of data to predict it.
That only works if you never ever intend to run the model with different parameters, otherwise you just settle on the parameters that "fit" the existing data.. which continues to not be prediction.
Not if you remove that data (that you have cropped out) from the original model. As far as the model is concerned, that data does not exist, and it not used to create the model parameters.
This has been done with ocean temperatures and other climate models.
It's not as simple as fitting the line then hiding the last 5 data points and saying "oh look, the points are on the line".
So now what? (Score:4, Interesting)
You can argue all you want about whether global warming is real or not, and if so, man-made or not. But those who believe it is real (and I am cautiously one of those) deploy a long array of data, scientific studies, models, peer-reviews and global consensus.
BUT, when it comes to deciding what action is needed, if any, then the solutions are based on nothing at all. Where are the scientific studies that prove that renewables, carbon capture and storage, fossil fuel phase-out or carbon taxation, etc. leave us globally with a better standard of living? There are other alternatives, but the hysterics only promote the ones that inflict maximum misery by returning us to caves. And the unintended consequences are rarely evaluated.
As Hippocrates would have it regarding a sick patient, "First, do no harm". I believe that doing nothing is the best strategy.