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Earth Science

Study Links Pacific Coastal Warming To Changing Winds 207

tranquilidad writes: In a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two authors ascribe the majority of northeast pacific coastal warming to natural atmospheric circulation and not to anthropogenic forcing. In AP's reporting, Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist with the Carnegie Institution for Science, says the paper's authors, "...have not established the causes of these atmospheric pressure variations. Thus, claims that the observed temperature increases are due primarily to 'natural' processes are suspect and premature, at best." The paper's authors, on the other hand, state, "...clearly, there are other factors stronger than the greenhouse forcing that is affecting...temperatures," and that there is a "surprising degree to which the winds can explain all the wiggles in the temperature curve."
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Study Links Pacific Coastal Warming To Changing Winds

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  • by neonv ( 803374 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:27PM (#47978277)

    What really need are some big fans to increase coastal winds and cool off the world. I recommend them in large quantities. We'll call them fan farms. Maybe power them from those reverse fan farms that generate electricity and drain our global wind supply causing global warming!

  • by geekpowa ( 916089 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:37PM (#47978375)
    Surely they know better than to not yield before the awesome explanatory power of AGW; which succinctly explains every possible and conceivable observation. I am relieved that more learned people than them are quick to point out that those causes have in turn their own causes and those causes are almost certainly where AGW manifests.
  • Deniers! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BobandMax ( 95054 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @04:39PM (#47978399)
    This is apostasy and can only be punished by academic death. They will never get a grant in this town, again!
  • Denier: anyone who does not agree that the earth's climate is being significantly warmed by the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      If you don't think excess greenhouse gasses, (CO2, tc) are cause an increase in trapped energy, then you are an idiot. This is proven science.

      anthropomorphic global warming (AGW) is a fact.
      In fact, it's so simply even you could devise a test.
      1) Visible light strikes the earth Testable? Yes. Tested? Yes. Could anyone devise a test? Yes
      2) Visible light has nothing for CO2 to absorb, so it pass right on through. Testable? Yes. Tested? Yes. Could anyone devise a test? Yes
      3) When visible light strike an object,

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Proven in that the increase of CO2 has not had a statictically significant increase in temperature.

        So, its settled proven fact, unless you actual observe the actual data of no warming for 18 years. So other than the predictions of your hypothesis not matching expected results, it is fact.

        Whats it called when you perform an experiment, don't get the expected result, and call anyone who points it out names instead of modifying your theory and experiment?

        • No warming for 18 years? Then how could we have just had the warmest summer ever recorded [latimes.com] with continued melting of ice worldwide [slate.com] and rising sea levels [noaa.gov]? I think this was all predicted by the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming, and is now being observed. If we see the warming stop, and the melting and sea level rise slow significantly, then we can talk about rethinking the hypothesis. Let me know when that happens.
      • I sense a teachable moment. Carbon dioxide molecules certainly absorb infrared radiation leaving our beautiful planet. They have been doing that for most of the 4 billion years that the Earth has existed and had an atmosphere of gases. Fortunately for the planet, though, those same co2 molecules do not 'hold on to' (or store) the IR but, instead, 'release' it via collisions with other, far more abundant molecules in the atmosphere (O2, N2, H2O) or re-radiate it. Someone has noticed that the carbon dioxi
        • by Anguirel ( 58085 )

          So you're saying we'll run out of all known sources of fossil fuels fairly soon (even assuming a linear instead of geometric or exponential rise, that's ~25 years to reach 550 ppm and completely exhausting all known reserves), and should therefore move to other technologies as soon as possible to ensure a smooth transition. So without regard for whether the climate is changing or not, the results of pursuing policies which have tended to originate from the climate change movement and that would cap (and eve

      • by neonv ( 803374 )

        The paper does not imply that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. Rather it implies that the estimates of the effects of CO2 may be overestimated. Since meteorologists tune their models based on past weather data, this would mean that the predictive models are tuned wrong and give too much weight to greenhouse gases in temperature predictions. The criticism of the paper also brings up valid points that should be investigated.

      • by MacDork ( 560499 )

        I wonder... do you actually believe your spiel [slashdot.org] or do you just keep copy/pasting it to karma whore? Last time, I pointed out that there are significant unknown sinks of CO2. [youtube.com] Yet here you are, lobbing the same half truths at the audience. So, tell us oh wise one... if you were in charge of the planet today, what would you do to reduce atmospheric CO2, given that the real climate scientists don't even know where it is all going now? I'd love to hear your plan, glorious leader.

  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @05:01PM (#47978569)

    ... Underscores the real problem here. This is far too politicized to be judged scientifically anymore. There are very few open minds left and those few that are open are not listened to by anyone.

    Consider for the sake of argument if everything you know about this issue is wrong. Just for the sake of argument. Now reexamine these little niche issues one at a time to see if they have anything interesting to say WHILE in that frame of mind.

    This is something I do every time I get new information. I take all my opinions, convictions, and beliefs... and I put them in neutral. Then I read it all IN that frame of mind. Often I will be reading something that contradicts my previous understanding. And unless I kept that frame of mind I would probably prejudge and discount it without properly considering it.

    Everyone does this from time to time. The best scientists in the world have been caught doing this occasionally. You never stop being human.

    What is so distressing about AGW for me is that we're all so polarized on the issue that we can't even talk about it anymore without breaking into our little factional camps can calling each other names.

    • by hondo77 ( 324058 ) on Tuesday September 23, 2014 @05:31PM (#47978823) Homepage

      You are wrong. I am not a climate scientist. Almost all the people here are not climate scientists. However, if 97% of climate scientists [nasa.gov] around the world agree on something, it tends to sway me into their favor. Arguments to the contrary are always welcome but, from what I've seen, they aren't credible (because they are so easily debunked in ways I can understand). When the community of climate scientists is swayed, those of us with open minds will be swayed, too. Same goes with relativity, evolution, and whatever else. I have an open mind but if the overwhelming majority of the experts in a field agree on something, it gets my attention. It seems that what gets the attention of deniers is only what they want to hear.

      • When the community of climate scientists is swayed, those of us with open minds will be swayed, too

        That's not what is meant by being open minded.

      • You're just proving my point.

        This issue can't be discussed rationally unless you're able to be unbiased for five seconds.

        And no... science is not a democracy.

        ONE scientist can be right and every single other one on earth can be wrong. Science is not a popularity contest and it is not a democracy. YOU are thinking politically. Science is not politics.

        If you can't grasp that then you have no value to any scientific discussion because you don't know what science is in the first place.

        • by bware ( 148533 )

          ONE scientist can be right and every single other one on earth can be wrong. Science is not a popularity contest and it is not a democracy.

          But that's not the way to bet.

          Especially if you're not an expert in the field.

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          ONE scientist can be right and every single other one on earth can be wrong. Science is not a popularity contest and it is not a democracy. YOU are thinking politically. Science is not politics.

          Yeah, and think of all the money being channeled into funding anti-AGW theories. The fact that there's a LOT of special interests and few scientists to spend it on means they actually have a ton of money to throw around.

          People are spending millions trying to find a sound scientific basis to deny AGW. If there are cre

      • 97% of anthropologists thought piltdown man was the missing link and he turned out to be a human skull attached to a monkey jaw bone. The real missing link ended up being found by a guy those assholes mocked.

        • And now the 97% consensus have updated their models to include the new data. Prior to that discovery, their assumptions were based on what they previously knew or thought to be true. Once including that new information, their assumptions have been updated and the vast majority now assume differently.

          But, most importantly, they are still aware the difference between what they hold as assumptions/beliefs and what has been observationally confirmed.

        • 97% of anthropologists thought piltdown man was the missing link and he turned out to be a human skull attached to a monkey jaw bone. The real missing link ended up being found by a guy those assholes mocked.

          Untrue in all particulars.

          Almost from the outset, Woodward's reconstruction of the Piltdown fragments was strongly challenged by some researchers. [...] G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together."

          There is, of course, no "real missing link".

      • You are wrong. I am not a climate scientist. Almost all the people here are not climate scientists. However, if 97% of climate scientists [nasa.gov] around the world agree on something, it tends to sway me into their favor.

        That again? 72 people. Do you know exactly what it is those 75 people actually agree on [icecap.us]?

    • Consider for the sake of argument if everything you know about this issue is wrong. Just for the sake of argument. Now reexamine these little niche issues one at a time to see if they have anything interesting to say WHILE in that frame of mind.

      This is something I do every time I get new information. I take all my opinions, convictions, and beliefs... and I put them in neutral. Then I read it all IN that frame of mind.

      This is such a great idea.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by radtea ( 464814 )

      This is far too politicized to be judged scientifically anymore.

      The problem is that Warmists have politicized the science almost from the word "go". You can tell this because prominent political organizations like Greenpeace say on the one hand that climate change could be a civilization-ending event, and on the other hand we must not ever even think about using nuclear power to solve it, even though nuclear is the only proven, sustainable, economic and practical alternative to coal (this is even more true since the Japanese demonstrated practical extraction of uranium

      • That isn't productive either. You can't just say "well those people did it first"... I don't really care.

        Both factions can go fuck themselves. No one can have a rational discussion with those two four year olds poking each other, pulling each other's hair, and calling each other names. Its impossible to have a rational discussion on the issue with either group or possibly ANY group because if they are GROUPS they're not being scientists. They're fighting petty political battles at everyone's expense.

        • by sycodon ( 149926 )

          ... two four year olds poking each other, pulling each others hair, and calling each other names.

          Sounds like the majority of Slashdot discussions to me.

    • Did you just get modded insightful for basically saying "some people have different opinions so let's sit down and listen to them all"? Do you think that would have worked with the moon landings? You could have sat all day listening to people discussing how terrified they were of setting the cheese on fire or you could launch a fucking rocket and go there because that's what the scientists say is right. Which technique will prove more successful?
  • Burn them at the stake!
  • Why is the word 'global' so hard for people to understand?

    Hint: 'coastal' means something different from 'global'.

  • So the winds are slowing down, are they? What has mankind done that could possibly be responsible for that? Well, we put up lots of wind-turbines to extract energy from the wind...and because of conservation of energy, the winds can't blow as strongly afterwards...and slowly, wind turbines grind our planet's winds to a halt.

    Hey, I can dream...

  • Spot the scientist that relies on climate grants.

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