Human Activity to Blame For 2003 Heatwave 813
Dirak writes "The temperatures of the summer of 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years. New research shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and by the middle of this century every other summer could be even hotter than 2003."
Norway real estate (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Norway real estate (Score:2)
If anyone's interested, I have some land in northern Alberta (Peace River) that can be had... mind you, it gets pretty cold there in the winter (nothing like going to school when it's -40 out!) so you might only want it as a summer property. Especially if global warming actually makes winters worse -- speculation on my part, that wasn't addressed by the article.
Eric
How to detect Internet Explorer [ericgiguere.com] from the headers
Re:Norway real estate (Score:4, Funny)
What a great boon for real estate in Norway!
huh, not really, unless you want to live underwater !!
(melting ice cap and all ... )
This is what the Pentagon has to say about it (Score:4, Informative)
An interview whith one of its athors (Doug Randall) is here [worldchanging.com].
The BBC has some reactions [bbc.co.uk] from scientists on it.
Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
You obviously have much greater insight and wisdom than these scientists. Never mind that you don't even seem to know the difference between weather and climate. You'll go on with your head firmly planted in the sand so you can rest easy in your comfortable ideology bubble.
"The sky isnt falling people.Move along,nothing to see here.More of the same crap that goes on year after year,nothing new here.Feel free to continue life as it was and bring back regular gasoline."
Self delusion can be comforting. It's
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I blame the media for being lazy. Global warming and cooling has been happening for millions of years. We honestly don't have the data to say that human activity is causing more trouble than dinosaurs passing gas. We have nice curves to show that we think the temperature i
Re:This is what the Pentagon has to say about it (Score:4, Informative)
I will skip a lot of details and just say that people in Huntsville, Alabama are PARANOID about the weather for good reason. (I know that is an oxymoron but it will have to do) They forced the NOAA (US Weather Service) to put up a lot of facilities that they did not want because of this. The facilities include weather research etc.
For those who think that they lack for scientists who really study the weather see the UAH News Reports etc [uah.edu]. In their study of "Global Warming" they found little or no data to support this claimed occurance and have reported so. They do not lack for the best data Science can provide as they are associated with NASA in Huntsville as well.
I learned a lot from these people including insights that are pretty deep. If you will remember the "Acid Rain" threat a few years ago that has disappeared from discussion. Well that was pointed out to me to be the product mostly of TREES going terminal (forrest life cycle issue). There was some industrial and man affect which was very local. I saw the acidity maps! On Global Warming there are several points that render any claim of man's efforts here to be suspect. The scientists at UAH are not agreed with the Global Warming claims.
It would appear though that the claim that all Climate Scientists agree with the Global Warming ideas is just not so. There are a lot who think otherwise.
Re:This is what the Pentagon has to say about it (Score:3, Insightful)
In their study of "Global Warming" they found little or no data to support this claimed occurance and have reported so.
uhhh...ok dude, everybody agrees that the planet is warming up. There is empirical data from the last hundred years to back this up. The ONLY thing up for debate is the cause!
Re:This is what the Pentagon has to say about it (Score:3, Informative)
Depending on the rainfall (or lack thereof) at the time, this can build up and kill trees, most notably at the bottom end of watersheds where acid tends to accumulate
The pH of rain in the areas has measurably increased. According to that theory rain has remained the same.
Also, acid rain damage in trees is seen primarily at high alititudes, not in valleys.
Furthermore, someone finally pointed out that trees absorb most of their water (with whatever
Re:Post Hoc Fallacy, Anybody? (Score:3, Insightful)
And you got all this from this fluff article? Or have you read their research?
It's hard to tell from such a sort article, but It looks to me that they're using complex computer models to make these claims. You could argue that the computer models are flawed, but I don't see how you get Post Hoc reasoning out of this.
""the last 500 years". So... what happened 500 years ago?"
Galileo invented the thermometer.
Re:Norway real estate (Score:5, Informative)
The Sciencey Bit: 1 litre of water freezes to give 1kg. of ice. According to Archimedes' Principle, 1kg. of ice floating in water displaces 1kg. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1kg. of water -- in other words, 1 litre. Or, for the measurement-challenged: 1 pint of water freezes to give 1lb. 4oz. of ice. 1lb. 4oz. of ice floating in water displaces 1lb. 4oz. of water, which raises the level by as much as adding 1lb. 4oz. of water -- in other words, 1 pint.
Re:Norway real estate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Norway real estate (Score:3, Interesting)
We have the major climate apects we see today which are different from quite ancient history primarily due to the Himalaya mountains. Before the expansion up of the Himalaya mountains the earth was much warmer with northern Alaska being actually quite tropical. So was North America for that matter. With the Himalayas removed from computer models and the rest of the Earth elevations and oceans set to as close as we know we see the tropical environment we would expect from the fossil records on th
Re:Norway real estate (Score:3, Interesting)
In Sweden and Finland, and, to a lesser extent, Norway policy changes to industry, agriculture and the market in general are optimized to force the population into concentrated areas leaving these evacuated, desirable properties undervalued. Norway has been more stubborn or wiser about
Global warming may actually make Norway colder (Score:5, Informative)
Thats the theory anyway...
Also, Norwegain cottages are at a premium due to hytte culture- so dont expect any bargains there!!
Re:Norway real estate (Score:4, Interesting)
The warm water from the Gulf Stream is what keeps Europe more temperate. Look on a globe and compare the latitude of London to Nova Scotia. If the gulf stream shuts down most of Northern Europe will become a tundra. Such a shift in climate will be financially and politically disasterous to the world.
Fossil fuels? (Score:5, Funny)
It involves burning servers heating the atmosphere and such...
Re:Fossil fuels? (Score:3, Funny)
Bloody overclockers!
Fawed Research (Score:2, Interesting)
You might want to read though it and draw your own conclusions before you buy into the media hype.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess it's very hard to get continued funding for a study that says "Everything's fine, situation normal" That must be why, no matter what the scientific endeavor, there's always some cataclysmic disaster looming on the horizon.
So -- using that old razor of Occam's -- either the entire world and every observable natural system is on the brink of an unheard-of disaster, or there is a noticable (and understandable) trend in scientific rese
Re:Fawed Research (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the chemists saying that bucky-balls are a major cause of global arthritis?
Or the recent flood of biologists publishing data suggesting that trees are plotting behind are backs.
These results are based on model runs. You can believe them or not (although its unlikely you're qualified to make a informed assessment), but I've heard of no climate modelers deliberately putting falsifying data or results in order to keep funding.
Do you have any references to such activity, or are you just spreading malice?
Re:Fawed Research (Score:5, Insightful)
As an architect who has written both simulation engines and created complex models of various systems, I can tell you that the implicit assumptions going into a simulation are the ones that cause poor predictive ability. These are almost never discovered until later when better models are created.
Nobody is accusing the world of science of foul-play. I'm simply pointing out that scientists are people too. And as a system of people, they also have observable behaviour. It might be a better use of one's time to look at the pattern of scientific herd-mentality FIRST, and then take into account individual studies second.
I'm certain that all involved were top-drawer and well-meaning people.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:4, Insightful)
You're saying that scientists are either falsifying or wilfully misinterpreting their results (stressing that "there's always some cataclysmic disaster looming on the horizon" which you imply is fictional). And you suggest, they do this for personal, professional or financial gain.
You have absolutely no evidence for either implication, both of which are absolutely disgraceful.
And yes, I'm emotional, you've just accused me of being a dishonest charlatan. I'm allowed to be emotional.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the equivalent of Microsoft funding a report against linux, there may not be anything misrepresented or false in a report, but you have a pretty good idea that if the study expanded their parameters to also look at data inconsistent with the preconceive
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say I'm not convinced of how certain we can be that human activities are the cause of increased global warming and other climate change, but it seems that the only people who are trying to look at the issue carefully and dispassionately are scientists. And it seems that it's quite difficult to be certain, but it appears that all things being equal it looks more reasonable to believe that humans are significantly effecting the climate.
It seems to generally be those who object to the idea of anthropoge
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Informative)
Individuals are intelligent, but people are stupid. Or, something to that effect. You're accusing the parent of personally accusing you, and you become emotional. He was not attacking you, but a profession. Within a group of people, you may have individuals who are of quality amongst a sea of others. To take my leading sentence into context, individuals are credible, the science community is dubious.
The parent is right to a certain extent. The
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
i) The models are right.
ii) The models are wrong, but scientists don't know it. They predict global warming, but due to omissions in the theory, this won't actually occur. The scientist believe the results, because they're the best we've got.
iii) The models are wrong, the scientists do know it, but they're not telling anyone because they'd all have to get proper jobs.
I put it to you that either (i) or (ii) happen to be the case, but that only (iii) is consistent with
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fawed Research (Score:5, Interesting)
True enough, Up here in the arctic the change in temprature is really noticable. Over the last few years all sorts of plants and animals that would hardly ever bee seen in here just 10-15 years ago have become common place. They do concede in this article that the climate is still colder than it was during the middle ages when people were able to grow wheat in quantity as far north as sub arctic Norway, Sweden and in Iceland: "...the temperatures of summer 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years." So I'm still not convinced that this isn't just a natural fluctuation in the climate, althought is is probably not completely unaffected by human activity.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:4, Insightful)
no matter what the scientific endeavor, there's always some cataclysmic disaster looming on the horizon
It's funny that when scientists warn of impending disasters, they get ridiculed and their motives questioned. But when politicians cook up another external threat as an excuse to spend trillions and send young men to die in a faraway country, the people eat it up.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flawed Research (Score:3, Informative)
The astronomers who report, "No, that asteroid is not going to hit us" still get funding. Since there are a lot of countries and businesses that will be incurring big costs from the measures that will be required to control global warming, I'm sure that there is plenty of funding
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, you don't write the conclusion to your study before you seek approval. You write it after you finish the study.
>> either the entire world and every observable natural system is on the brink of an unheard-of disaster, or there is a noticable (and understandable) trend in scientific research to a) follow the herd, and b) doomsay.
Two things here: first, your implication that science
Re:Fawed Research (Score:5, Funny)
Well, spank me on the arse and call me shorty!
I'll look forward to reading your comments in the next issue of Nature.
Re:Flawed Research (Score:3, Informative)
HOWEVER, we can be fairly certain that such articles do exist. Phrenology was a very popular theory, and the scientific communit
Re:Fawed Research (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. Fuming liberals were responsible for the heatwave.
They are cooling off now though.
Re:Fawed Research (Score:2)
Its not - it simulates possible outcomes over one summer from models which are based on readings over a long period.
The estimations on temperature growth are not really supported by anything - I think it was written to grab headlines.
Nature is one of the most rigorously peer-reviewed journals - it does not publish research which is
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, of course we should try to save the environment-interestingly enough not fo
Re:Fawed Research (Score:3, Informative)
Have you read the article?
Probably not, because you need a (rather expensive) subscription to Nature to read the full article. I am able to read the article from here, so I can comment on your "analysis".
The findings are basically a statistical analysis of the probability of a summer like the one in 2003 to occur in different scenario's. It was concluded that there is a >90% confidence level that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave of th
Human Activity... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Human Activity... (Score:3, Informative)
They even carried on quoting it after some eminent scientist wrote in to point out their idiocy in missing the fact that CO2 production by humans is a closed loop, whereas fossil fuels release stored CO2.
Re:Human Activity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because CO2 released when burning fossil fuels is magically tagged so that plants know not to use it for photosynthesis ever again.
What process caused the CO2 to get "stored" in the first place, again?
Re:Human Activity... (Score:3, Informative)
The human breathing cycle:
1) plant + sun + CO2 -> Biomass(food) + O2
2) Biomass + O2 -> (Human) Energy + CO2
where the amounts of CO2 in equations 1 and 2 are the same and these reactions occur over a similar time scale. The total amount of biomass in food plants is reasonably constant over time, or it would run out. So, however much running I do I can't have a net effect on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The fossil fuel cycle is the same basic equations. Eq
But what's the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But what's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be used to establish liability - just like the research into smoking causing cancer; before there was good research the tobacco companies could avoid liability (even though they knew fairly well that smoking caused various diseases), once the research was public they could reasonably be sued for carrying on their activities. Imagine Exxon getting sued for those excess 30,000-50,000 deaths per year due to anthropogenic global warming.
Don't think this is likely? The SCO nonsense should convince you that lawyers will do absolutely anything. On the example of the tobacco company lawsuits, I doubt such action would succeed, but it could cause serious costs and embarrassment to oil companies, car companies, etc., who fail to take action to moderate their impact.
Re:But what's the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I think there's a bit too much hype around global warming. On one side we have the "Oh my God, we're all gonna' die!" crowd. On the other, the "Just keep driving, everythings okay!" crowd. Like most things, the truth is likely somewhere inbetween.
As for the U.S. stance on the environment, I don't think we're doing horribly. Sure the Bush crowd may be a little too unconcerned, but they aren't completely oblivious. It's good that they don't adopt everything Greenpeace says or we'd all be living in huts.
Now, I do think that new technologies will make it easier for people to adopt cleaner ways of life. People, in general, in this country are becoming more and more aware of the importance of the environment, especially as compared to 30 or 40 years ago. Most would like to do the right thing, but they also want to keep their way of life.
I think the upcoming success of hybrids is a great thing and really indicates the mood of the nation on this issue. I worked in that industry about 5 years ago and really thought it was a rewarding job. Hybrids & their recent successes in the market (Accord Hybrid) are an indication of public perception. People are willing to pay a little bit extra for some good technology that helps them save gas and help the environment. Seems logical enough.
In reality, until cold-fussion comes on the scene or people decide that fission isn't so bad, fossil fuels aren't going away. They're just so darn cheap and easy to use. And as much as they might damage the environment, they are the best way to produce the power necessary for modern civilization.
Wow, that was long. Did I just rant?
Worst for 500 Years (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worst for 500 Years (Score:2, Insightful)
the temperatures of summer 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years
800 years ago they were growing grapes for wine in northern England. So it used to be hotter than this before the heavy industrial pollutants.
Linked to more than 27,000 excess deaths across the continent
Sorry to upset the liberals, but people do die. It stands to reason that the older and weaker will die when it is particularly cold or particularly hot as their frail bodies
Re:Worst for 500 Years (Score:4, Insightful)
> with half baked statistics that do not stand up
> to critical thought
Well, we would all like this, but you still insist on posting, don't you?
If you want to accuse the authors of publishing "half baked statistics", then by all means look at their methodology and critique it using your doubtlessly immense statistical know-how. The result is may be that we will get a better understanding of their data, or propose better methods for gathering data in the future.
Perhaps you should write a letter to Nature, berating the editors for not taking this customary step themselves before publishing the article.
As for the pseudo-science part, well "nature" isn't "science" but i doubt the editors of either publication would agree with your comments.
Re:Worst for 500 Years (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Worst for 500 Years (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as a pendulum that has slowly gone back and forth has now very suddenly rocketed towards one extreme as if someone whacked it with a tennis racket. Yes, it was already heading in that direction, and it hasn't reached the previous extreme end yet. However, the speed causes more difficulties for species to adapt than they had before, and we worry what will happen when it reaches the extreme end, and if it will continue in that direction much further than before.
Plus there was a built-in governor (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Plus there was a built-in governor (Score:3, Informative)
On the contrary, the official explanation (p. 17) is:
And now for the Canadian perspective (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent, it sure sucked where I live.
Vulcanism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Vulcanism (Score:4, Informative)
If you did it was inaccurate. I don't have the figures any more, but I did work them out for a previous reply on this subject where I had believed the same thing you have been told. It turns out that vulcanism only accounts for about 50% of CO2 emissions in total at the moment. No single source dwarfs human production, as is routinely reported in some sources.
Re:Vulcanism (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vulcanism (Score:3, Informative)
That's what I keep telling the kids... (Score:4, Funny)
fight the smog (Score:2)
This is by building a chembuster [educate-yourself.org]
So, just build one and test it out.
summer heatwave? (Score:2, Interesting)
seriously tho - i live in a place that is so unnacustomed to snow, that when it finally does get around to snowing it makes the front page of the local newspaper. my daughter said to me the other day "dad, remember when it snowed three years ago, there was enough snow for us to make a snowman!". and i can remember building snow forts as a boy. the weather is seriously messed up, w
Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protocol (Score:3, Insightful)
In the Kyoto Protocol [wikipedia.org], signed 1996, the many countries agreed to reduce their Co2 output below 95% of the output in the year 1990.
However, the biggest Co2 producer was among the countries that decided not to ratify the Protocol - the USA - while resposible for 25% of the Co2 produced worldwide, they decided that protecting the environment of the entire world was not an important issue.
Brief update: a few weeks ago Russia ratified the Protocol - way to go USA, even Russia has a higher priority on clima protection than you.
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:5, Insightful)
Name an actual climatologist who seriously believes Kyoto will actually stop global warming.
Name an actual climatologist who seriously believes doing nothing at all is better than Kyoto.
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the world is more complicated that what your "Save the Earth" after school specials lead you to believe.
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:3, Insightful)
I cannot name a climatologist, however, lets assume:
Now, any one of those assumptions could in fact be wrong. However, if they are true, then I believe that many experts on environmental matters (including some professors I've had)
Re:Perhaps now the USA will join the Kyoto Protoco (Score:4, Insightful)
For those of you that found the parent to be insightful, please go read a newspaper, and get an education. Russias ratification of Kyoto had nothing to do with them trying to be good shepherds of the environment, and everything to do with money, and their admittance to the WTO.
Go easy on France (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just kind of odd that a nation with a billion-plus population poised to become an industrial juggernaut gets a free pass on Kyoto.
Re:Go easy on France (Score:3, Interesting)
The arguments the US uses to avoid signing on to Kyoto are bunk. Both China and Russia have signed, and exceeded their responsibilities under Kyoto. The US has got itself into the position where it cannot sign, because its targets are unattainable.
Bad title (Score:5, Insightful)
Heatwave? I'm freezing in San Jose California (Score:2)
Instinctive Denial (Score:5, Insightful)
I sincerely hope we're not at the brink of self inflicted global destruction. But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Instinctive Denial (Score:3, Interesting)
But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
Man, so many problems with this statement that I'm not sure where to begin.
First of all, there are over 250,000,000 people over here. Not only can we all think for ourselves and don't deser
Re:Instinctive Denial (Score:3, Insightful)
Allow me to stop quoting here (well, I guess you can't stop me anyway) and point out that SUVs are popular. Most Americans seem to want SUVs, and they buy other vehicles because they
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Human activity! (Score:3, Funny)
Too much "human activity" in Europe?! *nudge* *nudge*
I always get scared when this Slashdot posts this (Score:5, Insightful)
I am however, very familiar with how large corporations do PR campaigns. It always strikes me as spooky how a large corporations sees a profit problem, hires a PR agency giving it millions of dollars, whereas the PR agency does things such as write bogus reports from "independent" institutes saying whatever the company wanted (Linux was not written by Linus Torvalds, smoking tobacco is not bad for you, whatever...), as well as a media campaign which includes commercials, the "independent" institute people going on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and if they're lucky, the major corporate news stations as well.
For example, I've been tracking Wal-Mart and the Walton family's giving in this regard. Two of the things they try to do is privatize education and create what we call "right-to-work-for-less" laws. I care more about the latter than the former, but I've been researching the former more lately. The Walton family is obsessed with privatizing education, giving massive amounts of money to efforts to do so, including giving $10,492,047.38 [wffhome.com], just in 2003, to the Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation America [disinfopedia.org]. They've also given millions in the last year alone to a variety of such education privatziation organizations, as have the foundations of other billionaires and millionaires such as the Olins, Scaifes and so forth. One of their jobs is to "astroturf", e.g. make fake it appear that a fake grassroots campaign exists to privatize education. Many of the privatize education groups have black and Hispanic faces at the top of the organization to talk to the press. These foundations also create scholarship foundations (for private schools only) to put a humanitarian face on the effort, and the scholarship front of this massive effort draws in people like Charles Rangel, Will Smith and people like that. These people are very clever and you wouldn't believe how tens of millions of dollars from the Wal-Mart billionaires alone can change the public discourse. And of course, the Olins, Scaifes and so forth are involved with this, even Bill Gates is peripherally involved.
My point is to stress how big money can generate all this talk you hear about privatization of education, charter schools, how our schools are failing and the need for tests and so forth. I am not deeply concerned with this relative to other issues, I'm just using it as an example, and I have been following it lately. I've been more concerned with Wal-Mart and the Walton Family and other businesses very successful campaign to do away with labor laws, or create bad labor laws around the country. They passed a right-to-work-for-less law in Oklahoma a few years ago, mostly by focusing on the massive evangelical churches in Oklahoma and preying on job and unemployment fears, the law passes something like 50.1% to 49.9% on a referendum. They're pushing these laws all over the country - they're even trying in Pennsylvania which is scary, because one thinks of Pennyslvania as a union state. Anyhow big money combined with a public which is more apt to be accepting Jesus as their personal savior in evangelical churches then seeking rank-and-file run militant labor unions can lead to all sorts of wacky laws passing.
Which is why the attitude on Slashdot about global warming scares me. Admittedly I am not an expert on chemical reactions with fossil fuels. I only have seen this show before: some group with no axe to grind and is objective as one can be says there is a problem (tobacco causes cancer, whatever...). Big corporations hire lawyers, PR firms, their own "experts" blah blah blah attacking this effort. Soon they're putting commercials on TV, catch phrases and so forth. Soon I hear the same thing coming out of people's mouths at lunchtime, they're complaining about trial lawyers or so
Re:I always get scared when this Slashdot posts th (Score:5, Funny)
Some people get paid to post here? I gotta get me some of that!
Re:I always get scared when this Slashdot posts th (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the funniest replies I've read in this thread claimed that researchers cannot get funding unless they shout "Doomsday is coming". Not even the most imaginary hypothetical example is cited - the report is simply made up by some liberal asshole. And that's even modded insightful. And then for each and every such knee-jerk reactions you get another opposite knee-jerk that Bush and co. are to blame for global warming.
Reading Slashdot on such topics makes you think the world is really only divided into two kinds of persons - the coporate man/politicians and the crazy gaians. Every scientist has a conspiracy in mind, every environmental research is biased and meaningless. If someone is thinking about starting a business I'd suggest selling tinfoil hats here, the Slashdot crowd simply cannot resist it.
Top-notch research (Score:3, Interesting)
If we suppose the probabilities from the models are correct, the attribution of part of blame to greenhouse gases is correct, just like one can claim some lung cancers are caused by tobacco.
I have already seen speculation about the possible use of the results in courts against the polluters.
Legal immunity for C02 producers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on! (Score:3, Funny)
Another interesting study (Score:4, Interesting)
There is also the case of a DJ on a radio station in the Midlands who was playing a rather old, worn record one day, and the needle skipped. Several listeners rang in to apologise for jostling their sets and causing the record to skip!
Sun Spot Activity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA!!! (Score:3, Funny)
BS (Score:3, Insightful)
The best quote it has is this - "This new research - reported today (2 December) in Nature - shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave"
CAN be blamed on increasing the risk..thats it folks. Move along.
If you must keep reading you'll learn that all they did was "simulate" the 2003 year using god knows what kind of broken model and came to this conclusion..
"We found that although the high temperature experienced in 2003 was not impossible in a climate unaltered by man, it is very likely that greenhouse gases have at least doubled the risk"
There you have it folks, green house gases may, or MAY NOT increase the risk of heat waves.
Meanwhile Mt. St. Helens is getting ready to produce more CO2 than the US has produced in 100 years. It is already dumping between 50 and 250 tons of Sulfer Dioxide into the air EVERY DAY. (Note a common updated coal fired power plant produces some 20ish tons a day).
Call me when the other half of the planet buys a clue.
Re:BS (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile Mt. St. Helens is getting ready to produce more CO2 than the US has produced in 100 years.
There seems to be some debate as to the CO2 emissions from volcanoes vis-a-vis human CO2 emissions.
It is already dumping between 50 and 250 tons of Sulfer Dioxide into the air EVERY DAY. (Note a common updated coal fired power plant produces some 20ish tons a day).
Not sure what your point is here.. we shouldn't control SOx emissions? With your figure, it only
What the cited research actually showed (Score:4, Informative)
It's an important and clever study. One big question on the observational side of climate change studies is how much the direct observation of warming is due to local rather than global heating. Thermometers tend to be clustered near where people are, and there are local heating effects around cities that, while pretty trivial on a global scale, might be showing up.
The cited paper addresses this question and shows that this bias in the estimate is small. It does this by showing very similar trends in nighttime temperature on windy days as on calm days, though (for compelling and obvious reasons) the local heating effect is (and can be shown to be) much larger on calm days.
The strident denial camp, (many of them paid in the style of 'tobacco scientists') of course, loves the "urban heat island" hypothesis and often parades it around so as to deny one part of the science.
This paper goes a long way toward demolishing that argument. That's one reason why it's very important. The linked breathless journalism article is pretty unclear about that, unfortunately.
This work is also interesting as a lovely demonstration of how science works. I'd teach this one in high school science if I were teaching high school science.
Opinion On Global Warming Template (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone who doesn't believe the same thing that I believe is obviously riding on life's short bus.
Just look at [Anecdotal Fact A], [Anecdotal Fact B], and their relationship to [Widely-known prinicple], and the numerous scientists who support My opinion.
Those 'scientists' who don't agree with My stance have clearly sold out for political or monetary interests, while the scientists who agree with My stance are motivated by pure altruism.
It is clear that those who do not agree with My stance on this issue probably vote for a political party that I don't vote for, and probably masturbate too much.
Re:Great! (Score:2)
Re:Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Then I found out how difficult and expensive it actually is to make frewater from seawater.
The annual rainfall in the UK is quite high, but it is the water USAGE that is the problem.
Too much fresh water is wasted and not enough is done to reduce the loss of fresh water.
I live in Ireland now, and it is not uncommon here to see burst pipes leaking water from inspection covers for a couple of weeks before anything is done about them.
Mind you, the summer of 2003 wasn't too bad here, we go
Re:Great! (Score:2)
Re:Panic Time (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hard to believe since (Score:3, Informative)
Ice core samples from artic/antarctic. Also trees can tell you some things of the temperature centuries back, they grow faster and get bigger year rings warmer years.
It wouldn't surpise me if there are other ways.
Re:I doubt the Authors are even Real Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there are lots of records in europe. Perhaps you'd care to ask the Apache or Sioux for their weather records for 1504? And I doubt you'd get much better data from africa, australia, or asia (except maybe china & japan).
Re:STOP the pollution in Washington State! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm shocked -- shocked -- to discover that this is true in Washington State, universally regarded as a hotbed of US heavy industry and traditional center of your motor industry. Incidentally, care to guess what the biggest polluter in Michigan was? How about New Jersey?
Re:facts? facts schmacts (Score:3, Interesting)