Arctic Ice Loss Driven By Natural Swings, Not Just Mankind, Says Study (reuters.com) 279
Alister Doyle, reporting for Reuters: Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday. The study indicates that an ice-free Arctic Ocean, often feared to be just years away, in one of the starkest signs of man-made global warming, could be delayed if nature swings back to a cooler mode. Natural variations in the Arctic climate "may be responsible for about 30-50 percent of the overall decline in September sea ice since 1979," the U.S.-based team of scientists wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. Sea ice has shrunk steadily and hit a record low in September 2012 -- late summer in the Arctic -- in satellite records dating back to 1979. The ice is now around the smallest for mid-March, rivaling winter lows set in 2016 and 2015. The study, separating man-made from natural influences in the Arctic atmospheric circulation, said that a decades-long natural warming of the Arctic climate might be tied to shifts as far away as the tropical Pacific Ocean.
I smell a rat...or alternative facts (Score:2, Insightful)
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Nature is responsible for 30-50%. That still leaves 50-70% responsibility to mankind.
Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts (Score:5, Informative)
Guestimation of ranges based on no science what-so-ever. Good one.
What? It's based on the study that is being discussed here. Based on the article, I don't have enough details about the study to find how they came up with those figures, but neither do you have enough information to say that it was based on "no science what-so-ever".
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See here [ucsb.edu].
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Thanks for the link. I shall read through that once I have had a few coffees to get the brain going!
Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts (Score:5, Insightful)
The article doesn't need to prove anything, other than cite the study, because it isn't science. It is just news about the science. I am sure that the study itself, which was made by scientists and published in a scientific journal, would actually show their workings; otherwise they would not get published. But the fact that we haven't seen the study is not itself evidence that the figures were based on "no science what-so-ever".
If you walk into a room with your eyes closed, you cannot definitively say that there isn't a red ball in the room. All you can say is that you can't see a red ball. Similarly, if you haven't read the paper, you can't say that the percentages are unproven. All you can say is that you haven't seen the proof.
Should the original poster have read the study before discussing the percentages? If this were an academic discussion or an official policy document then absolutely. But this is just a forum on the internet, occupied by deniers who make no effort to prove their own claims. Regurgitating figures from the article is a step up for a lot of people around here who never get past reading the headlines.
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You are going to need some actual proof if you want to claim that the data is fake. The fact that you don't like the word trick is simply not enough. For a conspiracy as massive as what you suggest, you should easily be able to find dozens, if not hundreds, of disillusioned scientists who came into the profession thinking that they were saving the world. These people would be able to furnish actual proof massive levels of fraud. So where are they?
Instead, we have the same level of paranoid ravings as that a
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How about this, fairies and pixies may, I repeat 'may' and I do not mean the month of May but http://www.dictionary.com/brow... [dictionary.com], just so there is not doubt, well there is actually a whole lot of doubt but now to get back to the point, fairies and pixies may be responsible for all global warming.
So the new corporate double speak science, things might happen, forget the old fashioned, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. In newspeak science, things might happen and things may happen and likely and probably a
Re:I smell a rat...or alternative facts (Score:5, Informative)
Just a bad summary... this article is better: https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
"Anthropogenic forcing is still dominant -- it's still the key player," said first author Qinghua Ding, a climate scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara who holds an affiliate position at the UW, where he began the work as a research scientist in the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory. "But we found that natural variability has helped to accelerate this melting, especially over the past 20 years." ...
"In the long term, say 50 to 100 years, the natural internal variability will be overwhelmed by increasing greenhouse gases," Ding said. "But to predict what will happen in the next few decades, we need to understand both parts."
Direct link to paper (Score:5, Informative)
Ding Q, J. M. Wallace, D. S. Battisti, E. J. Steig, A. J. E. Gallant, H. J. Ki, L Geng: Tropical forcing of the recent rapid Arctic warming in northeastern Canada and Greenland [ucsb.edu], [PDF] Nature, 509, 209-212, (2014)
Re:Direct link to paper (Score:5, Informative)
This is not the paper described in the summary, but rather an older paper with some of the same authors. The paper referenced in the summary was published online yesterday in Nature Climate Change. I'm sorry that I can't give a direct link to a .pdf (yay for paywalls keeping all of the non-ivory tower plebs out! huzzah!), but for those with access, the paper can be found at Influence of high-latitude atmospheric circulation changes on summertime Arctic sea ice [nature.com]. For those without access to an academic library, the first author provides an email contact. One presumes that a polite request would yield the full text of the paper.
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Thanks for the correction. The new paper doesn't appear on Qinghua Ding's publications page, and I've yet to find a non-paywalled link.
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From that link:
Natural swings in the Arctic climate have caused up to half the precipitous losses of sea ice around the North Pole in recent decades, with the rest driven by man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.
Do people really believe that no one was accounting that nature drives part of the process? It's never been claimed we cause 100%, we've always know natural processes were involved as well. The only question is how much. If deni
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Considering that Antarctic ice has been at record levels the last few years, this seems to correlate pretty well with that...
Except since October of 2016 Antarctic sea ice has be mostly at record low levels.
Interactive sea ice graph [nsidc.org]
You'll have to click on the "Antarctic" button and use the legend on the right to highlight different years. I suggest you highlight 2016 then start clicking other years on and off to make the comparison.
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Why does it take 37 years to show nature is responsible?
Something doesn't smell right.
What do you mean, "nature is responsible"? The article basically says that, despite global warming, weather is still variable.
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Are you seriously saying that you can determine the cause of the warming just by looking at the temperature graphs alone? How is that supposed to work?
And how can you possibly have so much certainty as to be able to make the utterly fantastic leap that all the climate scientists in the world are lying just to make a buck. Don't tell me that you can also see psychological insights in temperature graphs too. I can't wait until you start solving crimes by barometric pressure readings.
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Sorry. We just can't muster the energy to effect climactic changes on that scale, short of having a Nuclear War.
A nuclear war doesn't involve that much energy either. Every bit of heat generated on Earth's surface is radiated to space in short order. I would guess within a couple of weeks. We don't freeze to death because solar power and to a much lesser extent geothermal heat continues to heat the surface of Earth.
What increased levels of CO2 change is the amount of infrared frequency heat radiated to space. This is why the "greenhouse effect" got its name. CO2 and a number of other "greenhouse gases" are transp
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Trouble with a nuclear winter, beyond the obvious, is that it would almost certainly be a temporary event. Within a decade or so a much of the particulates that were blasted into the air will have fallen back down to earth and things would get back to normal fairly quickly after that, temperature-wise. There's been a handful of recorded volcano blasts that were large enough to have this sort of effect (look up Year without a Summer) and even the biggest such events renormalized within a couple of years.
Of
not alt-facts, just a reasonable statement. (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article...
30-50% of the warming is due to natural, not man made, effects.
Or, as scientists have been saying for decades, the majority of the warming (50 - 70%) is due to man made effects.
This includes scientists at shell oil [wired.com] and Exxon-Mobil [scientificamerican.com]. I remember debate class in high school, fall of 1979, our team was 'pro' nuclear power. We used research from oil companies about the dangers of global warming as one one the arguments in favor of expanding nuclear power use. We won the debate, despite the fact that the 3 mile island accident happened in spring of '79. That made it a very tough debate to win the pro nuclear side of the argument.
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Read the article... 30-50% of the warming is due to natural, not man made, effects.
Not warming, but Arctic ice loss. Local climates, such as the Arctic, are sensitive to existing heat moving around the Earth in a different pattern, but global warming is much less affected by that. Global warming is 110% man made, and -10% natural.
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Not hardly.
Picture a gerbil in a ball running back and forth up the slopes of a skateboarder's half-pipe - that's your "natural contributions" - there is no steady long-term push in either direction, at worst you get a few decades or centuries of climate anomalies before whatever forcing factor is causing it subsides. The gerbil's never going to be able to make it up that slope.
Now picture what happens if you start building a bunch of fans or something that blow up one side of the half-pipe hard enough to
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I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.
Science versus politics (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you mean arguing against facts, because that's all that xkcd comic was. Which sounds exactly like something an anonymous coward would do.
As much as people like to insult and deride the other side, there are valid concerns there. The concerns are so large and looming that the "correct" side has lost a lot of credibility. I think a lot of the public is noticing the elephant in the room, and this is giving the deniers leverage in the minds of the people.
Rather than continue to insult and deride, perhaps it's time to address the credibility gaps.
Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer. Specifically, Bill Nye, who is the global warming champion, didn't have an answer to that question.
Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?
Point 3: Also from Scott Adams is the observation that NO other complex model has ever had predictive value, and why should we believe that this one does?
Point4: From my view, climate change is closely tied with the actions that "we must do to save ourselves!", and those actions are always a) part of the liberal agenda, b) involve reducing our standard of living, and c) negatively impact most people while further lining the pockets of the rich and powerful.
Nowhere do we see proposals that make more electricity available to more people, nowhere does anyone point out that 85% of all resources are used by industry (therefore reducing home electricity consumption is less effective), no one proposes solutions for a decentralized grid, or reducing consumption by giving everyone fast internet access (doing things online generally uses much fewer resources than in person), or changing tax rules to promote telecommuting, or any of a hundred other easy changes that would make our lives better while being more efficient. It's always about enduring more hardship.
Point5: From my view, the "correct side" has lost a lot of credibility simply by their actions over the last 3 months.
If "that side" will riot over the outcome of a fair election, headline unsubstantiated lies, leak secret information for political assassination, call for literal assassination, how is it that they have any credibility over other issues?
Leonardo DiCaprio flies an eyebrow artist 7,000 miles to do his eyebrows, and we're supposed to believe him about global warming?
It's not that I don't believe in the science behind global warming, I do.
I just don't believe in the politics of global warming, that's all.
Re:Science versus politics (Score:5, Interesting)
If all you've heard is "we need to lower everyone's quality of life", then I suspect you've been listening primarily to sources contributing to the smear campaign, because I've heard a great deal of things along the lines of "let's promote transitioning to other energy sources" and "Let's move government subsidies from fossil fuels to emerging alternatives".
The science of anthropogenic global warming itself is actually quite simple - adding more insulation slows heat loss, and the planet has to get hotter until it resumes radiating heat as fast as it's getting it from the sun.
Crude back of the napkin calculations ignoring all subtleties and knock-on effects (the vast majority of which will make things worse): water vapor and CO2 combined are responsible for the vast majority of the greenhouse effect. There's about 10x as much water vapor in the atmosphere as CO2, so assuming both molecules are similarly potent infrared scatterers, CO2 is responsible for about 10% of the total planetary insulation. Human activity since the industrial revolution is clearly responsible for about 25% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, meaning we've increased total planetary insulation by about 2.5%. To restore the energy balance, the planet must therefore radiate about 2.5% more energy. Thermal radiation increases with the 4th power of temperature, so we can therefore expect planetary temperature to increase by a factor of (1.025)^(1/4) = 1.0062, or 0.62%. Current average temperature of the planet is 289K, so that translates to an increase of 1.8C, or 3.2*F, possibly not enough to be devastating on it's own, but quite sufficient to potentially allow normal variability to push things past a tipping point so that the planet transitions back to a tropical/desert state, probably killing most life in the process (a warm Earth is potentially more hospitable, but the transition periods have generally not been kind). And of course that's also only the expected change if we managed to completely halt the increase of CO2 today, which is all but impossible.
Where the model gets complicated is trying to make it predictive in the face of a chaotic system - there's *lots* of different forces in play, and to actually become meaningfully predictive you have to take into consideration at least the overwhelming majority (by effect weight). You don't need any of that to know that "doing X is going to be very bad", but you *do* need it if it's clear that "doing X" will continue despite your warnings, and you want to be able to predict what exactly "very bad" is likely to mean so that you can start preparing for it.
Basically, most of the climate science for the last few decades or so has had little to do with proving human responsibility - that was already done many decades ago and the observations are continuing to support those crude predictions relatively well. Current research is trying to make the model usefully predictive so that we can pinpoint where exactly the tipping point is (have we passed it already? Is there realistic hope for avoiding it?), as well as giving us as much warning as possible as to what we need to prepare for.
For example, over a decade ago I attended a talk by a group who had run by far the most detailed simulation of expected climate change effects in California over the next few decades - which predicted that within ~30 (50? I forget) years California would no longer have any substantial snow pack, meaning their water would come almost entirely as floods. Their recommendation was to start building dams immediately since due to the engineering and political challenges, dams have an expected 20+ year lag between when the decision to build them is made, and when they're actually completed. Got to start the process today if you want to have them finished in time to be useful. Thus far, their predictions seem to be holding up fairly well.
As for DiCaprio's hygiene choices - so he's a hypocrite, so what? So am I for that matter, though I don't have the resources to be nearly so excessive
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Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.
The answer is 50-70% according to this latest research.
Point 2: Another Scott Adams observation is about the models. Why is there more than 1 model? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best model and just use it? Shouldn't scientists agree on the best *data* and just use it?
Define "best model". For example,
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Point 1: Scott Adams pointed out that when asked the question "how much of global warming is caused by humans, and how much is natural" in debates and televised interviews, no scientist had an answer.
The answer is 50-70% according to this latest research.
Don't confuse the effects on Arctic ice with global warming. This research is saying that 50-70% of the ice melt is caused by the temperature increase from global warming. Our current best estimate is that 100% of global warming is caused by human activity. [realclimate.org]
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" Our current best estimate is that 100% of global warming is caused by human activity. [realclimate.org]"
Gosh, that is quite hilarious. Presumably you have heard of Ice Ages large and small and the Holocene optimum. Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?
I'll assume you are going to claim fossil fuel burning is a large part of changes since 1880 (I would), but if you look at HADCET you'll see that recent (since 1880) spikes in temperature change are not unusual in
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Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?
You are quite correct, it hasn't. Natural variation accounts for -10%, and human contribution is actually 110%.
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Gosh, that is quite hilarious. Presumably you have heard of Ice Ages large and small and the Holocene optimum. Why has natural variation in temperatures ceased just because we are on the scene?
Because you apparently don't know this: the long term natural trend is towards lower temperatures. Looking at the historical record, we see a significant upwards spike at the end of each glacial period followed by a slow decline (10-20 thousands years) into the next glacial period. Our post-glacial spike period ended thousands of years ago and the earth has been in a slow slide into the next glacial period since then. While there is some natural variability, over relatively short time scales (20 years) t
Re:Science versus politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting your climate science from people yelling at each other on TV (or Scott Adams for that matter) is a bad idea.
From IPCC AR5 [climatechange2013.org], back in 2013: It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together. The best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.
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HAHAHAHAHA You think the liberals will do that? No no no. They want us POOR people to stop spending our money on nice things, you know the one thing that makes most peoples life not seem like shit(mine included). And they want us to pay for the efforts. But the fact that the 1%(dem/rep) will never ever give that up, they will continue to bitch and complain. While the whole time brainwashing children and what i assume to be people who dont really care(as nobody can be that stupid, can they?) into thinking th
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At least knowing it's due to naturally occurring phenomenon will allow us to avoid harmful carbon taxes that won't actually do anything to solve the problem.
Except that is not what this study found. Since man-made warming plays the larger role, it seems that carbon taxes will do something to solve the problem. And I think that you will find that the effect of carbon taxes on the environmental would not be described as harmful.
Of course, if all you are interested in is the economy, then it will survive and grow just like it has despite the abolition of slavery, etc.
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Even if you eliminate the human element completely, then the same end result will still occur, although it may take longer to get to that point.
That is an unsupported supposition. As we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the temperature keeps on rising. Even if we reduce it, we only slow the rate of increase. It will continue this way until we can eventually get our emissions under the level that can be dissipated and absorbed naturally.
On the other hand, the natural swing found by the study will most likely swing back to become cooler again. It will not result in the same runaway warming that we are causing. There are other long te
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Care to specify which sentences, or are you going to just continue to vaguely decry it as lies without actually addressing anything head on?
Ah, but that would be feeding the trolls. But if you look at the one bit of evidence that was provided (the link to Wikipedia article on global cooling), you find that this is the second sentence:
Re: Climate "science" has never been consistent. (Score:2)
Scary stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
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propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.
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How about a partial solution (increased efficiency) that would be relatively painless while there are still low-hanging SUV's to be picked, and might buy us some time to figure out how to really solve the problem without bouncing us into the dark ages? Nobody's saying to simply stop using fossil fuels right now - but certainly we can use less of them - and pollute the environment less while doing it. But of course, folks like you will raise red herrings about the dark ages as an excuse to do nothing. So
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certainly we can use less of them
I can't tell you how many liberals I know use Amazon Delivery for something they forgot at the store ... because they are too lazy and can't wait till the next time they drive by.
Rich Liberals who love to tell us the world is burning/melting because of AGW, but still fly around the world on private jets to private islands and gated communities, who arrive in three car SUV entourages.
The only authentic liberal I know of is Ed Begley, who lives like he preaches. I don't agree with him on much, but at least he
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Delivery is a red herring though, having items delivered is likely a more efficient use of fuel than using a car to get items for single household. A delivery driver can server a 1 or 2 dozen families a day for approximately 6-7 hours of driving. If at a low estimate 12 families instead drove themselves to the shop (or possibly several shops) with an average round trip of an hour that's already more fuel burned and 12 times as much traffic capacity taken up. I don't have a car though so delivery is often a
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Delivery is a red herring though, having items delivered is likely a more efficient use of fuel than using a car to get items for single household.
Where I live, population density is 14/sq mi. It's more efficient in my case to drive into town once a month or so in a larger vehicle, load up on everything I need for the month, come back, and not burn any fuel after that (I work remotely). If I missed something, I do without it until the next time I go out (barring actual emergencies, e.g. a suddenly dead well pump or a solar inverter that goes on the fritz, though I do keep spares on-hand for both).
In GP's assertion, a 1 lb. item burns an impressive amo
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Why would even Koch want to do nothing, come to think of it...
The Kochs are lizard people. Their hatchlings will thrive in a post climate change environment.
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I mean, there are plenty of bits of progress that don't take us back to the dark ages being proposed.
For example, lets invest heavily in solar, wind and nuclear power.
Even those are opposed by the coal/oil drilling nut jobs.
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I mean, there are plenty of bits of progress that don't take us back to the dark ages being proposed.
For example, lets invest heavily in solar, wind and nuclear power.
Even those are opposed by the coal/oil drilling nut jobs.
Q: What did South Australia have before candles?
A: Electricity.
Have a look at the South Australian experiment in renewable energy: http://search.abc.net.au/s/sea... [abc.net.au]
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propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.
Nuclear energy. It's clean, it's safe, and it would be cheap if it weren't for paranoid over-regulation. Yes, some safety regulation is needed, but the nuclear industry has far more than it needs, which only restricts its much needed development.
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I really want to agree, but even today we see countless examples in the US and abroad of the existing regulations getting ignored, "special allowances" being granted, corners getting cut, etc.
Lets see some real accountability among those making the choices, and I'd be all for it - I mean if a plant suffers a meltdown or other environmentally contaminating disaster that should have been avoidable, let's see the entire board and executive staff be immediately put to death - after all they're the ones with th
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>propose a solution that doesn't bounce us into the dark ages please.
Okay.
Phase in a massive carbon tax on fossil fuels, proceeds to be immediately distributed among the population. No net effect on the finances of the average consumer, but anyone using more efficient of non-fossil energy sources anywhere in the supply chain would immediately enjoy a price advantage over their carbon-powered competition. Let market forces sort out the best low-carbon solution(s) from there.
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How about the same solution we'll use when fossil fuels run out, but we'll just get a head start ?
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what do we do about it?
Move to higher ground.
Re:Scary stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.
Harldy anyone disputes the fact there is global warming. The dispute is over how much of it we're causing and whether or not its actually abnormal given that in the history of the planet it has been far warmer many many times over the millennia. Then there's what we should do about it and given how almost every other month something new is being found out about our climate and what affects it I hardly think we're in a position to be deliberately messing about with it. Sure reduce/eliminate what we put in the air etc but when you start doing things like schemes to reflect the sun, artificially forcing rain etc then we may find we're doing more harm than good.
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http://notrickszone.com/2017/0... [notrickszone.com]
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Did you not notice that the hockey stick nearly disappeared a some years ago? One day, it was everywhere you looked. Now you rarely see it except in deep disguise, like that comic strip turned sideways.
That's because a couple of statisticians disproved it, back in like 2003 or so. And by "disproved it", I mean into tiny pieces that were then burned and the ashes dropped into a volcano. Several members of the Hockey Team (their term for themselves) then destroyed what was left of their credibility by att
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Did you not notice that the hockey stick nearly disappeared a some years ago?
No, actually I didn't really. You might not see it because "climate skeptics" have largely conceded that the fight against the Hockey Stick has been resoundingly lost. If your main sources of information on climate science disagree with the consensus, they are naturally going to avoid reminding you that they resoundingly lost that battle.
One day, it was everywhere you looked. Now you rarely see it except in deep disguise, like that comic strip turned sideways.
Wait. You think "deep disguise" is rotating something 90 degrees?
That's because a couple of statisticians disproved it, back in like 2003 or so. And by "disproved it", I mean into tiny pieces that were then burned and the ashes dropped into a volcano.
Actually, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick showed that the statistical methods used were not the best m
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In fairness, that chart only covers the last 20,000 years, barely an eye-blink in the 4.5-billion year history of the world. It has indeed been far warmer many times in the past - just never in the history of the human species.
We know we're flirting with disaster precisely because there's lots of evidence that the planetary climate is bistable, and has transitioned many times between the current ice age state to a much warmer tropical/desert state. A transition that usually wreaks utter havoc on the globa
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Even that dispute is stupid. Say that someone discovered that global warming was 100% natural and humans were completely innocent. That doesn't change the fact that mass extinctions and suffering will be the result. We should still consider trying to do something about it (though in that case it would necessarily be something more extreme than "switch to renewable energy.")
For a similar example, if we saw a texas-sized meteor hurtling toward earth.. by your logic we should just watch as it kills us all b
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Ahh, our old friend, class warfare. Where else can you see a comfortably wealthy person tightening a noose around his own neck at the urging of one rich person, thinking it is somehow going to strangle a different rich person, who is nowhere to be found, and most certainly doesn't have a noose around his neck?
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At what point does global warming become so evident...the argument becomes what do we do about it?
Answer: At no point will some people who are $10K short of buying that in-ground pool for their summer home not seek to elude paying towards communal goals.
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Doing something about it requires economic adjustments and likely some sacrifices, at least for some people in the short term.
Because a lot of people have their incomes, wealth, and material comfort tied to the current carbon-intensive economy, most doing something about it takes a back seat to current economic wants. That's true for very rich oil barons who don't want to see any laws or regulations interfere with oil production and regular folks who want run their ACs all summer with low power bills.
Sad t
Re:Scary stuff (Score:5, Informative)
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Is that because of the higher efficiency of heat pump systems vs burning fuel directly? If so can you push ground source heat pumps far enough to do the same?
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That depends on the temperature differential and the technology used.
Or in the case of a heatpump (all ACs, but not all heaters) just the temperature differential.
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Um, no, not really.
It's a *lot* more efficient to heat something by one degree than to cool it by one degree same amount. Heating is typically pushing 100% efficiency, unless you do something stupid like turning heat into electricity someplace else, and then turn that electricity back into heat where you want it. Even then though it's usually substantially more efficient than cooling systems, which typically use that inefficient electricity to drive a similarly inefficient heat pump.
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It's a *lot* more efficient to heat something by one degree than to cool it by one degree same amount.
No. Weirdly enough, it's pretty much the same.
Heating is typically pushing 100% efficiency...
Sure. But for the same amount of energy you can pump several times as much heat in or out.
That might sound like it's breaking the laws of thermodynamics, but because the efficiency of a heat engine can't exceed the ratio of the temperatures it's working with, there's no 'free' energy.
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Brilliant.
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If that is true, where are the brownouts and rolling blackouts in cold climates? They are prevalent in urban centers in the high heat of the summer, but entirely absent in cold climates.
Why would natural gas furnaces cause brownouts?
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I don't know what to make of this. The GP is talking about heat pumps [wikipedia.org], which heat more efficiently than burning fuel and both heat and cool at about the same efficiency, and the fact that on average people need more heating than cooling due to temperature differences where people live usually being larger where it's cold.
125* in the American south in a heat wave noon day sun and, what, 25* in northern Canada on average
The American South has never gotten that hot, while it's 10* in Iowa (not Canada) right now. And that's the point - on a record-setting 115* day in Georgia they're pushing a 40* temperature
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I think the bigger issue is that some people can sacrifice basically their entire standard of living and it still won't guarantee a particular outcome. And this isn't even on the backs of the "wealthy fossil fuel barons" - this is just the average everyday person.
So it boils down to "absolutely everyone must do something" and the backlash of "who are you to tell me what I should do."
So then you get into "since everyone isn't doing it, I'm not going to sacrifice..." and nothing happens. Basically you have t
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One question I have is: At what point does global warming become so evident that there is no more argument as to whether it is occurring, and the argument becomes what do we do about it? I'm pretty sure we should already be there, but we aren't.
My question is: At what point does global warming no longer become the impetus for switching to renewable energy. Even if burning fossil fuels didn't cause any harm to the environment (which of course it does, but that's not the point right now) they are a very temporary solution. There's only so much oil and coal in the ground, and we're going to run out at some point. Switching to renewable energy sources is simply the pragmatic option. The longer we wait, the more of an emergency it becomes when it
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They all like to disguise the argument "we do nothing, and fuck everyone that isn't me" as "well, the evidence really isn't very strong, I mean, I'm not convinced it's really happening"
I agree those people exist. But we also have people who want to fuck over billions of people to show how much they care about the environment. Those people tend to wax poetic about how much future harm they're supposedly preventing.
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Exactly, it's happened many times for many different reasons, and it's always been bad news for pretty much everything alive during the transition.
This time we're the reason.
We know this, everyone in the world says. (Score:3, Insightful)
The natural swings are evident with the seasons, periodic shifts based on geo-solar geometry, probably sun cycles and everything else in the universe - *BUT the base/background temperature before those variations *IS* increasing *AS* we have measured C02 and greenhouse insulating gases, methane etc, reaching historic (in paleological terms, during all of human civilization and a long time before that, millions of years) proportions of our atmosphere. We know we've caused some acidifying of the oceans, which with warming dissolves further frozen/captured methane and such gasses at the bottom of the ocean and brings that into our atmosphere in a positive feedback loop which we can never control...
What of this one study exonerates BILLIONS of tailpipes in the world and TRILLIONS of tons of coal burned ongoing? None of it.
But watch them try to run with this deliberate, intentional misunderstanding of what actually was confirmed by this study. Watch and see.
Re:We know this, everyone in the world says. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who are these scientists? (Score:2, Troll)
And why haven't they been sent to the Ministry of Truth for reeducation yet?
percentages (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: percentages (Score:2, Interesting)
People don't understand distributions. It has to either be all or nothing. If humans contribute 40% to global warming and nature contributes 60%, the majority of people will fall into "well nature is doing it too" BS, deflecting the significance of their own contribution.
I'm all for honest reporting but I don't trust trust the average US citizen for reading, interpreting, and reacting to study results--nor do I trust media outlets with agendas that could care less about the environment. I can see the Fox he
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First I call bullshit on your black and white description of politicians. You may remember it like that (and other people too) but what I remember is strong anti-AGW advocates admitting that _some_ contributions could be due to human activities. The AGW (scientific) group will almost always at least indirectly point out that some effects could be natural.
And then I will call bullshit one the later part too. It isn't reasonable to assume, without backing evidence, that an issue _is_ a grey area. Without supp
Re:percentages (Score:4, Interesting)
Finally a study that shows percentages.The politicals have have claimed that climate change is either 100% man-made or 100% natural, depending upon which side of the argument they were on. Reasonable people knew that it had to be a bit of both, but there never seemed to be any studies that showed what the percentages of each it was.
Globally almost 100% man-made is accurate because natural climate variations simply aren't that fast enough to be a big contributor.
However, local climates are more variable, particularly the Arctic, so percentages come into play. From the article it sounds like previous research simply didn't have enough data to make useful percentage estimates.
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The proper paper should have error bars and assumptions listed. Otherwise I'd assume they are 100% unreliable.
Ah dan't know.... (Score:2)
is somebody paying for this under the table or what?
Aren't there $ billions on the table and under even more....
It started with industrialization and now, all of a sudden, a high % is nature.
Gimme a major break here!
Or. (Score:2)
Fluctuating temperatures (Score:2)
Incidentally, winter temperatures in the arctic are not directly from the greenhouse effect, because there is no sun and you need sun for the
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Snow storm? (Score:4, Interesting)
Very low rates of commenting today. Could it be the blizzard on the east coast keeping everyone busy?
Good to see it's not all robots posting here.
Back on topic, it's an interesting read. 30-50% may be natural climate trend and the rest man made (50-70%) man made.
It may be good science, but showing 50-70% man made probably won't go down well with the current administration. <sarcasm> Prepare to have the budget cut for this "U.S.-based team of scientists", unless they get their alt-facts corrected.</sarcasm>
Re:Snow storm? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, I don't know what's new about this theory aside from the fact it can be diced up into "alternative facts" that say hey! look! climate change (somewhat) natural! ... but we've known all along manmade climate change is most of the problem.
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Great comment.
I think a lot of the scientific debate has been about the models that project the changes into the future. I'm amazed at how accurate the Shell Oil researchers were with their predictions [wired.com].
Now we know why models underestimated sea ice loss (Score:2)
This study may partly explain why models drastically underestimated Arctic sea ice loss: http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6... [typepad.com]
Possibly sea ice loss due to man made global warming is in line with projections, but natural variability causes the observed melting to oscillate outside of projections. If so we should see the melt rate slow over the next few decades.
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If so we should see the melt rate slow over the next few decades.
Not necessarily. The Arctic area is subject to numerous feedback mechanisms, including albedo changes (dark water absorb more energy than white ice), increasing currents (feeding in warm waters), change in moisture contents (moving energy due to phase changes), change in winds (exporting ice to warmer water), salinity changes (salt water freezes slower), weather pattern changes due to different temperature gradients, algae growth on ice (increasing albedo), and plenty more...
It's quite possible that we can
Re:Snow storm? (Score:4, Informative)
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He tried to each us that despite CO2 being linked to global warming, much nastier gasses used to come out of cars and were made into plain ol' CO2 by catalytic converters.
So he definitely inserted propag
Re: Snow storm? (Score:2)
Climates are not simple systems , I think everyone agrees on that much. Knowledge of CO2s infra-red properties leading to the greenhouse effect has been around since about the 1870s (and scientists then where quite worried about it particularly in context to the widespread use of coal industry and oil lamps), the question has really been "how much have we put out there (almost more an economic question) and how does that extra thermal load affect things, the answers to which started emerging in the 1970. I
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I thought climate change was a Chinese hoax? Or is it only a 50-70% hoax now?
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Re: Snow storm? (Score:3)
I was thinking that a 20% uncertainty was kind of shitty. They could have said 30% natural, 50% man made, and 20% unknown. That's pretty bad for an analysis.
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I suspect we've reached a tipping point in the science of Anthropogenic Climate Change that dissenting views are similarly cast aside as a waste of time.
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We won't need it when we're all dead!