Why Groundwater Use May Not Explain Half of Sea-Level Rise 244
New submitter Sir Realist writes "A recent Slashdot scoop pointed us at a scientific study that claimed 42% of global sea-level rises could be due to groundwater use. It was a good story. But as is often the way with science, there are folks who interpret the data differently. Scott Johnson at Ars Technica has a good writeup which includes two recent studies that came to remarkably different conclusions from mostly the same data, and an explanation of the assumptions the authors were making that led to those differences. Essentially, there is some reason to think that the groundwater estimates used in the first study were too high. However, that's still under debate, so it's worth reading the whole argument. Scientific review in action!"
Scientific review (Score:3, Insightful)
Got it...
m
Re:Scientific review (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe it is simply that all peered reviewed papers get reviewed. And it is simply that climate change is a fact and it is happening ~ like we believe it is so all reviews of those papers turn up no problems.
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See also: Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Svante Arrhenius, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276. [globalwarmingart.com]
Now, if you clean up your act and stop simply spouting lies, we might have a discussion.
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From the summary of your own cite:
"Contrary to some misunderstandings, Arrhenius does not explicitly ... (emphasis mine - the latter to point out a bit of weasel-wording by the summarizer).
suggest in this paper that the burning of fossil fuels will cause global
warming,though it is clear that he is aware that fossil fuels are a
potentially significant source of carbon dioxide (page 270), and he does
explicitly suggest this outcome in later work.
In other words, as stated: No one was putting forth the theory tha
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Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Insightful)
These points have been refuted so many times that it honestly isn't worth listing them again.
I sure as hell hope that no scientist has to work under these ludicrous standards you demand of the climatology field. They've demonstrated on several occasions that they have nothing to hide, and denialists just keep piling on them with more cherry-picked quotes. It's sickening to watch.
Re:Scientific review (Score:5, Informative)
So where are the reviews that actually challenge the hypothesis - or is that untouchable?
Reviews don't do that; competing hypotheses do. In the world of science, a competing hypothesis overtakes the consensus if and only if it explains everything the old system could and more that it couldn't. Science demands alternative explanations that solve inconsistencies; finding a problem with the consensus is only the first step, and denialists are stuck there.
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It's not "untouchable", it's demonstration that the hypothesis is correct.
You don't know what science is. Stop making snarky comments about it like you have some kind of standing to speak in public.
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Insightful)
So, we can review groundwater/sea-level scientific studies, but 'Climate Change' is a done deal.
It's a scientific fact that global warming is real. There is no debate, and no controversy, there. We've got too many satellites confirming it, along with thousands of ground stations and the upward trend is undeniable.
It's still up for discussion why it's happening or what it will eventually mean for us. Ethical scientists generally take the side of "Until we can predict with some confidence what will happen, we should do what we can to limit the impact," similar to the ideal behind the Hippocratic oath. Our present models, understanding, and theories point to rising sea levels, melting ice caps, and heating to the point where much of the ariable land along the equator will no longer be able to sustain industrial farming.
We're already seeing some of the effects of this rapid heating (in geological terms); In Japan, native moss is no longer used at several Zen shrines because it's become too warm for them to survive. Coral reefs are undergoing a mass-extinction event, and we are seeing weather patterns which roughly correspond to modelling predictions for a warmer Earth. If these trends continue, life will become increasingly inhospitable to humans. While long-term predictions aren't reliable, it is almost certain the Earth of 200 years from now will have a radically different climate than the Earth of today; We are directly responsible for this planet entering a new geological age with as much speed and force as the Cretaceousâ"Paleogene extinction event.
The debate really doesn't center on whether or not these things happen; The choice faced by our generation is not whether or not life after climate change is possible, but what kind of life it will be.
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The choice faced by our generation is not whether or not life after climate change is possible, but what kind of life it will be.
QED
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>>>It's a scientific fact that global warming is real. There is no debate, and no controversy
How come it's getting colder over the last decade with record levels of snowfall and cooler-than-normal summers? (I had heard by 2010 we wouldn't even know what snow is in Great Britain.)
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Over here in Finland it is actually getting a lot warmer than it used to. For several years now the temperature can be above zero even in January, but when I was a child that would have been totally unheard of; back then the temperature could drop as low as -35 degrees Celsius where I lived in.
Over here in Canada, the temperature could drop like that too. It could also be much colder than that. And much warmer. In fact we had a much warmer winter than average, last winter we had a much colder winter than average. In fact 50 years ago, seeing 10m snowdrifts and 8m of snowfall in a 1 day period were very common where I live. Not so much now, but last year we had it too(Southern Ontario). People leaving from their second story windows? Yep that was common 60-70 years ago too, happened last yea
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>>>It's a scientific fact that global warming is real. There is no debate, and no controversy
How come it's getting colder over the last decade with record levels of snowfall and cooler-than-normal summers? (I had heard by 2010 we wouldn't even know what snow is in Great Britain.)
They don't. Global temperatures continue to show a rise, despite certain local climate variations.
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Weather != climate. In fact, global warming has been shown to make weather more extreme - more hurricanes (a nice big hurricane can cool the ocean by a couple of degrees - it is a big heat engine after all). Summers will be hotter, drier, winters will be colder, snowier, etc. In fact, the melting ice cap has an interesting
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Because it's not.
Shut up already.
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Informative)
How come it's getting colder over the last decade
Whoever told you that was lying to you. They cherry-picked the year 1998 for a two-point comparison because it was anomalously high. If you picked 1997 instead you'd see warming way above predictions. But that would also be a lie. That's why climate scientists don't do that, and instead use rolling averages to find the underlying trends.
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Because precipitation snow or rain - increases with increasing temperature. And it comes down as snow if the temperature goes up as long as it's still below freezing. If the temperature goes from -10 to -5, it still snows, but the amount of snow goes up.
But I'm guessing you knew that already and just asked the question in bad faith.
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It's still up for discussion why it's happening or what it will eventually mean for us. Ethical scientists generally take the side of "Until we can predict with some confidence what will happen, we should do what we can to limit the impact," similar to the ideal behind the Hippocratic oath.
My concern here is that without being able to predict the outcome with confidence it is not possible to determine what action will "limit the impact". What we need to do is to verify the models by predicting a future change and see if it happens as predicted. If so the model used is "good enough" and we can see if limiting carbon emission makes things better or worse.
We also have to get ridf of the myth that climate is something stable. The earth is on a journey from creation to end. No year will ever be th
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Wrong. Climate scientists have clearly identified the rising CO2 (and its equivalents: GHGs) concentrations in the atmosphere as the mechanical cause of the climate change, driven by overall average warming. Climate scientists have further clearly identified a reduction in the GHG concentrations produced as industrial waste as a way to cause abatement of the recent changes.
That is the science. Politicians who scream and legislate mostly legislate based on bribes and threats from global polluters, when the a
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"1. Controlled tests"
We do not have spare planets to experiment on. Ergo, controlled tests in climatology are impossible.
But, by that standard, you can also dismiss meteorology, archaeology, economics, astronomy, and lots of other fields of science.
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Okay, so you accept the parts where increased temperature cause increased releases in CO2, and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes temperature to increase, creating a feedback loop. This, by the way, does mean CO2 and other GHGs are "the mechanical cause of climate change".
Your issue is that something has to cause some initial warming in order to start this feedback loop, and in the past it wasn't CO2.
Yet the part where CO2 is a greenhouse gas that can cause warming, this being the whole idea behind t
Re:Scientific review (Score:5, Interesting)
I followed and agreed with your first two paragraphs. Even the first couple sentences of the 3rd paragraph. Then you went crazy.
Inhospitable? You know the earth has been much warmer with humans living on it? Earth had a radically different climate 200 years ago, and 200 years before that, and 200 years before that. Define "radical" please.
Then you finish with "we are directly responsible". That is the part being questioned. Not that the earth is warming, but the cause. You conveniently failed to bring that part up in your first two paragraphs. You even say "it's still up for discussion why it's happening". Did you come to the conclusion while writing the paragraphs in between?
Then you finish by saying earth will not be inhospitable. What is your opinion here???
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Insightful)
Define "radical" please.
The rate of change is important. Toss me a baseball and I'll catch it, whip it at my head and I probably won't.
We generally don't know the rate of change that previous global climate changes had, but the rates that we're seeing today would be equivilent to the ice age ending in a matter of decades or at most a couple centuries. 1.5 degrees so far might not sound like much but when look at the global scale that is a big change.
That's one of the problems with many proponents (Score:5, Interesting)
They start with the statement of "It is a scientific fact that global warming is happening," which is true. That the Earth is getting warmer outside of known cycles is a claim of fact, something you can measure, and measurements show it is indeed correct. No problems there.
However the problem then starts that they make a bunch of other claims, such as that if the warming continues Earth will be inhospitable, and so on, and want to claim that is all scientific fact too. No, not so much. That things will get worse would be an assertion or judgement call that would be based on a bunch of theories and hypothesis about what will happen if the warming continues. It is the kind of thing that is actually up for a lot of debate since you have to evaluate all the different theories of what might happen, how well supported they are, and then pass a judgement call as to if it would be better or worse.
Thing is, they present it as just something you have to accept part and parcel. A situation of "If you deny any of this, you are denying the facts." No, not really. Anyone who says the Earth isn't warming is denying facts, unless they can show how the measurements that we use to reach that conclusion are flawed (given the measurements are world wide and spanning a century, it is possible, though unlikely, the conclusion is incorrect). However from that it does not automatically follow that things will be horrible.
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They start with the statement of "It is a scientific fact that global warming is happening," which is true. That the Earth is getting warmer outside of known cycles is a claim of fact, something you can measure, and measurements show it is indeed correct. No problems there.
But it's a bit more than "warming". That's where everybody gets held up. They think "warming" and automatically equate it with a temperature rise.
Yes, there is a temperature rise. But the temperature rise is a symptom, not the disease, so to speak. The overall temperature rise is a result of there being more energy in the system (our planet's climate). How much of that extra energy translates to how much temperature rise is an equation left to the scientists.
There are other symptoms of having energy in the
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Inhospitable? You know the earth has been much warmer with humans living on it? Earth had a radically different climate 200 years ago, and 200 years before that, and 200 years before that. Define "radical" please.
No, the Earth has NOT had radically different climate change since the end of the last ice age... that's about 20,000 years of a pretty steady and unchanging climate. There have been a few glitches caused by volcanic eruption and the like, but it's always returned to baseline. Climate change has only really accelerated in the past 50--100 years, which is a drop in the bucket compared to that amount of time. Scientists are already pointing to climate changes observable within a single person's lifetime. In g
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Earth did not have a radically different climate 200, 400 or 600 years ago. It had a radically different climate 13-25 thousand years ago, when there were kilometer thick ice sheets across the places most populated today. That was inhospitable, even though humans lived through those millennia. We should do what we can to avoid returning to those bleak times.
Especially since the changes now will destabilize a world packed with people and WMD. Climate change today among modern humans could easily cause us to
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When I read your second paragraph, I was really ecstatic for a minute there. You hit the nail on the head that so many climate change prophets are attacking with screwdrivers. There is a huge difference between the very well-demonstrated rising temperature and the significantly hazier predictions of future states based on extremely complicated and chaotic models. But based on very simple arguments, our actions are _likely_ to have an effect, and so doing what we can to minimize that possible effect is rat
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In the field of risk management the hazier the risks the more value there is in trying to avoid them. If you know well what the risks are you can plan for them effectively but if the risks are not clear but could potentially be bad then you invest more in trying to avoid them.
FACT! (Score:2)
FACT: Earth didn't always have CO2 in atmosphere
FACT: Over time CO2 has increased
FACT: Earth didn't always have complex life
FACT: Over time complex life has increased
THUS: The more CO2 we have in Earth's atmosphere the more abundant and complex life we have.
I'd make you a pretty graph but I'm too lazy, instead I'll describe it: It involves two correlated lines closely mirroring each other upwards.
There take that!
Is that the whole story? Probably not.
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I think you have that a bit backwards. Around 500 million years ago when complex animal life was first developing the atmospheric level of CO2 appears to have been around 5000 ppm. Since then it has generally been on a downward trend reaching lows around 180-280 ppm in the past million years.
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a scientific fact that global warming is real.
As the Earth being the center of the Universe was, once, another scientific fact.
Every single scientific fact is prone to scrutiny and refutal. Every single one.
We can assume that some scientific facts are insanely unlikely to be refuted (Gravity Law, for the sake of my balls and despair of my girlfriend's boobies, are one of them). But never, ever, assume any "scientific fact" above any controversy or debate.
Dogmas have no place here.
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the geocentric theory was not science the way we practice it today. It was biblical theology, dressed up to look like what passed for science before science was science.
Yes, in the future we'll have even better science about climate. It will be more precise, but the accuracy of current climate science saying "human pollution is increasing the Greenhouse Effect, overall warming the Earth and changing the climate" will not be changed. Because current science is good enough to state facts, even if their precision can always be improved. We can tell the difference between -1, 0 and +1, even if we can't always tell the difference between +1 and +1.1 .
Of course we should also debate and challenge the science, especially science this important. That's how we make both the facts more precise and the science itself better at investigating. But there's not going to be any disproof of climate change science. This isn't 1955, when the science wasn't based in enough data and repeated studies to be reliable. It's reliable.
Saying that there shouldn't be controversy about whether humans are changing the climate with our pollution isn't dogma. It's merely recognizing scientific fact. And defending it from the people who will say anything to undermine it, though they can't say anything scientific.
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I hate to defend geocentrism, but it certainly was science. Given the evidence of the sun, moon, planets, and starts pretty clearly moving across the sky in a revolving fashion, what scientific explanation would you come up with? Was every astronomer prior to Copernicus not actually a scientist?
When people proposed the heliocentric explanation, the church intervened and said that the Earth is the center of the universe for theological reasons, and that was certainly not scientific.
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But never, ever, assume any "scientific fact" above any controversy or debate. Dogmas have no place here.
There's no assumption, I just get tired of arguing with morons. I mean, yes, I could entertain the 'controversy' of evolution, but I would succeed only in wasting my own time, and adding not a lick of knowledge or wisdom to humanity in the process. Likewise, while there may be a debate to be had with climate change, I grow tired of dealing with morons who wish to argue every single nuance, because they've already made up their minds and now they're off on some big effort to assimilate everyone else into thi
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The Earth has got cooler and warmer before, and that time was not out fault.
There're a lots of evidence that our presence is affecting out habitat, but there're also evidence that Earth has a recurrent cycle of Ice Eras and Warm Eras - and nobody could prove, yet, that this is not what happening now: a transition from one Era to another.
Of course we're polluting our biosphere to a level where our extinction here will be inevitable. We're facing the ending of our sources of drinkable water. We're facing the
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While the phrase "Get used to that" can be used in the context to deliver the intended concept, it came to my attention that in US English that same phrase can be used to do it in a harsh or perhaps pejorative way.
It's not my intention.
What I mean it to deliver is a Stoic, conformist intention: as something not that good that we must endure in order to get something good.
Sorry if that intent was not fulfilled in my previous post.
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It's still up for discussion why it's happening.
We are directly responsible for this planet entering a new geological age with as much speed and force as the Cretaceousâ"Paleogene extinction event.
I'm struck with the contradiction in what you posted. Why is still an open question yet you assume "We are directly responsible?"
For the sake of argument, I'll stipulate that Global warming is happening. However, we do NOT know, for sure, that man is the cause of it, or that we can do anything about it. It may be time to start planning for a warmer earth, but unless we KNOW that specific human activity is actually causing the issue we need to carefully consider all the impacts on what we do. Incomplete u
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So you're a 12 year old posting BS from your basement? Science from before your birth is OK for you to get wrong when you cite it about other science you get wrong, but others getting it right are "crotchety old men"?
You're an idiot. I don't care how old you are. Shut up.
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Oh, so you're one of those extremely advanced people who thinks to themselves "Folks were up in arms about a problem, a bunch of changes were made to fix the problem, and now there isn't a problem... gee must never have been a problem in the first place!
I hope to God that some day I can hear people talking in such an advanced fashion about AGW: "Remember when everyone was predicting dramatic climate change from human emissions, so we made all those massive changes to clean, renewable energy sources and we'
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Global warming is neither of the above. In the 1970's, it was all about global cooling. In the 1980's, it was the O-Zone layer. Now it is global warming.
You seem to be confused. In 1970s some reporters made a big deal about global cooling, however, most scientists still believed the world would warm [skepticalscience.com]. It was about 60% warming and 10% cooling. The ozone layer was a different issue having to do with skin cancer, not climate change. In the 1980s the scientists continued to research global warming and most of the 10% who predicted cooling were won over by the evidence supporting global warming. That's how science is supposed to work.
There's data to prove global warming, and data to disprove it.
There's evidence to prov
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Interesting)
The Bering Strait had a record amount of ice still in the ocean well into April, the longest it has ever been present. If this ice was present in December, your argument may be valid. April is not winter, and the ice should not have been there.
And across the Arctic in the Barents and Kara Seas the ice levels have been extraordinarily low this year. Overall the level of ice in the Arctic has been slightly below average for this time of year. [nsidc.org] I have my doubts that "the longest it has ever been present." is accurate too.
Worth noting that theory of evolution was formed about 160 years ago, physics has been evolving for thousands of years, and tectonic plate theory is about 100 years old. Thirty years old for a scientific THEORY is nothing. And with people like you shooting down any critical review, of course there will be no peer review.
Fourier first noted that carbonic acid gas (CO2) absorbed infrared radiation in the 1820's. Tyndall quantified the effect in the 1850's. Arrhenius stated "if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression." in the 1890's. Ever since then we're just filling in the details.
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Wrong. Global warming is science. Thousands of climate scientists, who are scientists, who know what science is, say that it's science. You, who spell "ozone" as "O-Zone", do not know what science is. You say that "in the 1970s it was all about global cooling", but that's just something you heard on Rush Limbo's show, not what the climate scientists said was a consensus.
You do not speak for Newton, Einstein, Tesla or any of the other scientists whose names you've heard. You don't know what science is. Shut
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Methane is actually the #1 greenhouse gas emission from people.
The level of methane in the atmosphere is about 1.75 ppm. CO2 is about 396 ppm. Since 1750 CO2 levels have increased by about 116 ppm while methane levels have increased by a little over 1 ppm. See here (note that the methane levels are noted in parts per billion, not parts per million). [wikipedia.org] Methane is something to worry about but it's no where close to CO2 yet.
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"O-Zone"? That doesn't help your credibility.
Re:Scientific review (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow. That Kool-aid must taste great.
It's the other side that is chugging Kool-Aide. On one side you have climatologist and environmental scientists that have all agreed for a decade or more that we are seeing a major shift in the climate and we are the cause. On the other side are pundits that have an agenda to avoid changes that will affect lifestyle or corporate profits that have no formal education in climate science that say we can't affect weather no matter what we do to the Earth. Now which side sounds like the Kool-aide drinkers, the scientists or corporate America who are making a fortune off releasing CO2? I've heard claims all my life that we can't seriously affect the environment yet I've seen a massive change in the world over the last 50 years. Cities themselves cause heating because of all the dark roofs and roads so it's obvious we are having an affect on the environment. FYI the pundits are lying about all the experts that deny climate change. There was even a major study by a climate change denial group that had the same results as the climate scientist. Their reaction was to say that there is change but we can't be the cause. There was no proof that we weren't the cause it was their opinion. The carbon we are releasing predates the dinosaurs so it's insane to assume that it can't affect the environment. It took tens of millions of years to store it and we're releasing it in a couple of hundred years. To put it into perspective imagine a 1,000 years worth of your trash, you know those bags you leave out front for the garbage man. Now pile that thousand years of trash bags around your house. The pile would be hundreds of feet high. That's what we are doing when we release 400 million year old stored carbon. Think that ridiculous? Imagine ten million years of your garbage and you are getting closer to the truth. It's not the same thing obviously but it illustrates how extreme the release of CO2 has been over the last 200 years.
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We already know that the earths climate has swung quite naturally much hotter and much cooler than it is now.
If humans were making no impact on climate at all (Which would be very unlikely) sea levels will rise and fall and so will temperatures.
What we need to do is get off this fucking planet and figure out how to control climate. Mitigating our impact on it will not save us.
We need to be able to control climate. Not stand by and let it take its natural course.
Control and escape. If these are not your prio
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Finally! Someone finally realized that since the climate has changed before, the fact that humans are changing it now into something we can't live in, and could stop changing and get all those other benefits, should all be ignored. There was an Ice Age! Dinosaurs! How come we never thought of that?
Now all the climate scientists can quit and go do something fun for a change. You're a genius! How come you never said anything before?
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Any real scientist would put "Earth has always gone through massive climate changes due to its nature and that of the sun" as the hypothesis to take down.
No real scientists wouldn't, because you don't need to invalidate the hypothesis that climate change occurs without human input in order to entertain the hypothesis that a specific instance of climate change is due to human input. They're not exclusive.
The actual hypothesis that you would have to take down would be that the current trend in climate change can be explained solely by natural factors like the sun, volcanism, etc.
And hey, guess what? Hard as it is to believe, real scientists are aware of thos
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You are stupid. Shut up.
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Way to cherry pick man!
Re:Scientific review (Score:5, Insightful)
Any individual study can be reviewed at any time. This rarely has any significant impact on the consensus formed by the weight of all other existing related studies. If there are two interpretations of a study based on two different sets of assumptions, the question can be resolved by testing the assumptions. The fact that a single study is ambiguous does nothing to cast doubt on the remaining vast preponderance of scientific studies which unambiguously indicate that climate change is both real and man made.
'Climate Change' is a done deal
The scientific community has overwhelmingly agreed that Climate Change is occuring, and that there is a greater than 90% chance it is man-made. [wikipedia.org]
That this is the consensus is a cold, hard, unambiguous fact. If you want to believe that climate change is not real, or not man-made, the only remaining avenue of rationalisation is that the scientific community a wrong or lying for some reason. This puts climate change deniers on the same ground as creationists.
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At one time it was the scientific consensus that light was a wave, and that it traveled through a medium called "ether" that filled the gap between the sun and the earth. 99% of scientists believed this.
They were wrong.
Consensus doesn't really mean much..... read "Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Learn about paradigm shift; how an entire generation of scientists can believe with absolute certainty a false fact.
Re:Scientific review (Score:5, Informative)
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>>>The idea that light was a wave moving through the ether was consistent with all available data, especially given the limitations of 19th century measurement
Well the same is true today, in regards to the limitations of globe-wide measurements. There is a ton of uncertainty there. (They can't even make-up their minds how much groundwater levels have dropped.)
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Okay, and when alternative hypothesis are not consistent with the available data even given the uncertainty, that tells you something about them.
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Right, so there's never anything that's a scientific fact, because in the past rudimentary science was prone to assertions. Wrong.
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One is one paper, the other is scientific consensus. Please troll elsewhere.
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We still review gravity studies, even though we've know that gravity is a done deal for centuries.
You don't know what science is. Stop talking about it in public.
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So, we can review groundwater/sea-level scientific studies, but 'Climate Change' is a done deal.
You're just behind the times. The sort of review the the groundwater/sea level studies are undergoing was occurring 20 or 30 years or more ago in regards to CO2's role in the climate.
Yes since LBJ (Score:2)
Good, let the scientists hash it out (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Glad to see REAL scientists questioning AGW tenets.
Ferret
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Wow, do people ever think any more? Okay, we pumped ground water out. Did it stop raining? Did the processes for saturation suddenly stop working? Did all of the ground water magically vanish that we were pumping out, rivers all dried up, and shit we all live in a desert now?
As of about five years ago, you should immediately have known that "Science" no longer means Science. What you read is from an agenda, and not Scientists.
Honestly, I feel really bad for Scientists that want to do real science. The
Re:Interesting Theory (Score:4, Informative)
The reason that ocean levels might rise from groundwater is that we are bringing it up faster than it can go back down. All that water has to go somewhere.
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Which of course becomes a contributing factor, but it's painfully obvious that it's not the only reason for the rise. Ice loss in the Arctic and Antarctic have much more bearing than ground water as the article tried to state. Those do not include Glacial loss, permafrost loss, etc...
If anything, I think the Global Warming issues point at an immediate problem we have with the Scientific community (by no way is that statement intended to blame the Scientists directly). Instead of doing "Science" they are
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What agenda do you think climate scientists are working for? If climate scientists were catering to the powerful, wouldn't they be publishing data and models that the oil industries like?
The fact that there is such strong agreement among climate scientists in the face of such powerful and wealthy opposition is a very good indication that they are not in fact serving an agenda.
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There are at least 2 distinct lobby groups. Polluters, and GW. The GW group also breaks down in to two more groups. The natural and man made.
Each has their own funding and support, and each publishes reports based on biases that tend to show that the opinion they receive funding from is correct.
I think you are making a mistake in thinking that Money can only come from one source. You also make a second mistake, in that the creation of controversy has no financial gain.
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Obviously, the oil industry is huge and has a lot of money to put into research that would benefit it. However, the overwhwelming majority of the research out there supports the AGW hypothesis. Therefore, if you are correct and science is primarily agenda driven, the AGW group must have even more money than the oil industry.
Where do those funds come from, and how is creating controversy profitable for the group that provides the funding?
I mean, it's conceivable that creating controversy could be profitab
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, you are going to have to search for it since I'm lazy at the moment (actually to swamped with other things). This was a big internal discussion at my last work place, and a person was able to track down many of the funding sources. Greenpeace was one, and of course Oil and Coal were big ones.
The controversy I'm talking about is not quite the same as it seems you are thinking. Example: If I make a shitload of money polluting and you say it's bad, having a controversy allows me to keep polluting an
Re: (Score:2)
Greenpeace was one
Greenpeace's total budget is around10 million per year [activistcash.com]. How is it that they can influence the overwhelming majority of climate research?
If climate science is primarily agenda driven, and climate science is overwhelmingly in favor of AGW there must be a group out there that profits from the fabrication of data for the AGW hypothesis and has more money than the oil industry. I don't see any candidates.
The controversy I'm talking about is not quite the same as it seems you are thinking. Exa
Re: (Score:2)
Apologies, the Greenpeace US budget is around 10 million/year. Globally it's 360 million. I should have read more carefully.
I will point out that 360 million is still peanuts compared to the oil industry. If money speaks louder than facts in climate science, why is the consensus not what the oil industry wants to hear?
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Bias plays a role as well. Oil-friendly individuals don't exactly pursue careers in climate science.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_commercialization#Renewable_energy_industry [wikipedia.org]
Renewable energy investment increased 51 billion dollars in one year. Hint, someone got richer there.
Re: (Score:2)
This article does exactly what you say, however it's presentation by other media has been: "See, no global warming. We use to much water!". Sanity is not a requirement to work in the media. On occasion, I listen to a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh on the way to work. In the last week, I have heard at least 2 segments claiming that Global Warming is a farce because plants need CO2, so CO2 can't be rising to cause global warming.
And yes, I probably read way to much in to the comments of the post I replied t
Re: (Score:2)
Other researchers in the field can spot dodgy methods in a paper like the mascot in a cereal box knock-off of Where’s Waldo? Scientists know that every study is imperfect or incomplete in some way and are especially skeptical of results that contradict—rather than build upon—the existing science. When lots of data has been published supporting one conclusion, and then a single data set points in a different direction, the most likely explanation is that something is wrong with that rogue data set.
The thrust of the matter is that there have been several other previous studies on the effects of groundwater contribution to sea level rise, all with conclusions in roughly the same (low) ballpark. Then a single study comes along with wildly different results and that's the one which gets heavily reported on in popular media. I don't know who the real scientists are in this case (and you don't either), but we'll see if the new
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I know you are joking but cisterns are illegal in many areas.
Here is one of many stories that talk about it.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.18/a-good-idea-2013-if-you-can-get-away-with-it [hcn.org]
I could have told you (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I thought water evaporated (Score:3, Funny)
I think a 3rd grader better review all this data, because according to the current grade-school curriculum, water evaporates, condenses into clouds, rains, fills lakes, rivers, aquifers, etc, and then evaporates again in a seemingly recurring cycle.
With global warming, shouldn't the rate of evaporation increase causing more water to evaporate, increasing cloud cover and rain and filling up groundwater reservoirs?
Doesn't more cloud cover block the suns heat thus reducing Global warming?
I know everybody thinks the world is going to sh*t and we are living in Hell and the planet will be destroyed in a matter of decades, but I find it hard to believe that after a few billion years of water evaporating, condensing and raining that suddenly this basic concept of a global ecosystem some-how no longer applies.
If a 3rd grader can just step up figure this sh*t out for us cause obviously the "scientific" community doesn't have a f*cking clue
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Is this a troll? Do you actually believe it's reasonable to attempt to refute current scientific studies with 3rd-grade textbooks?
No matter what folk personally believe (or want to believe), does it not seem inappropriate simply to assume scientists specifically or in bulk are simply stupid? Is it not more productive to maintain an inquisitive approach and ask yourself what you might be lacking in your own understanding?
Now, to the actual point, your trite reference to elementary school understanding of t
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I'm not convinced that this was a troll. I think that we might get told that we were trolled, but it's not far enough out of line with the AGW denying comments I've seen here lately. :/
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Please, someone tell the British Meteorological Office that water evaporates, forms clouds and this can lead to occlusion of the sun at times. I'm sure they'll be EXTREMELY GLAD that someone bothered to mention it to them.
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Although I do not know these scientists personally, I have a hunch that they understand the water cycle, and still believe that water evaporates. The groundwater is constantly recharging, it is just that we are removing the groundwater faster than it can recharge. This recharge deficiency could be due to a number of things, we could simply taking out too much water, or we could have altered the recharge mechanisms. Calculating how much water we take out is easy, but understanding all the
Re: (Score:2)
Well put.
May I, just from personal curiosity, ask in what particular field of geophysics you work? I used to share the building with our geophysics guys while I did my PhD in biochemistry. They were not so helpful on ecosystem questions, though - they were mostly concerned with high-pressure metamorphic stuff trying to model it in their diamond-stamp-huge-arse-pressure-press ;)
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Well, here's something that they neglect in 3rd grade: extra heat does cause evaporation, but it also changes the atmosphere's capacity to hold water. This is something that's readily observable in most climates as the seasons change, and we tend to look at it just as a local change that affects our comfort.
As AGW deniers seem to love pointing out, the most potent greenhouse gas is actually water. It stores heat exceptionally well. So if the atmosphere is warmer (on average), then it's holding more water. T
manbearpig (Score:2)
Yes, this is scientific review in action.
And it's Slashdotters tagging it with "manbearpig", too. People whose "science" is really "politics" is really "ideology" is really "cartoons" is really stupid. And they have the same vote you do.
Re: (Score:3)
The cause of Global Warming is Simple; Humans.
Because humans took the planet from 0 Kelvin to the temperature it is now, right?
Re:Cause (Score:4, Funny)
My home town nearly went to zero Kevins back in 1978.
It was a particularly cold winter, and we were already down to 3 Kevins (due to their low popularity at the time).
Kevin Thomas had flown out to be with his son's family for a wedding and got stuck in Boston for a whole week due to the weather. 2 Kevins left.
Kevin Lemmer was rushed to the hospital during my shift. I still remember the call from the EMTs as the ambulance was rushing toward us. "It's Lemmer. He's in bad shape. Drove right into the fucking ditch." We called the time of death at 6:15 PM.
At 6:16, all eyes turned to room 2217. Kevin Spencer was 82 and on his death bed with leukemia. His family being Catholic, he had already been given his last writes. If he couldn't hold out until Kevin Thomas returned, we would be at zero Kevins. Sure, we had 4 perfectly healthy Calvins, but they're just not the same.
It was 7:15 when Carla Brooks and her husband James burst through the main entrance. "She's not due for 2 weeks!", James exclaimed. As the staff bustled around getting the Brookses settled, they exchanged darting glances with each other. This was their first child, and they wanted to keep the baby's sex a secret. Of course, in a small town, secrets don't get kept. Nearly all of the hospital staff new that the child about to rip open Mrs. Brooks was indeed a boy.
The delivery was routine, and Kevin Brooks was born healthy, if a tad underweight, at 10:52 PM. Kevin Spencer was pronounced dead at 10:54.
It was, as they say, a close one. Kevin Thomas arrived two days later, the weather having finally cleared up. To this day, we still rib him about it.
Cedar Falls is currently at 5 Kevins.
Re: (Score:2)
pi = 3 [snopes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, that's just a vagina with hare.