It's So Cold Outside That Sharks Are Actually Freezing to Death (vice.com) 424
An anonymous reader writes: As climate change ushers in another year of extreme global temperatures -- a phenomenon President Trump seems a little confused about -- cities up and down the East Coast are facing record-breaking snowfall and subzero temperatures. But while city dwellers might be able to hide indoors and crank up the heat, some animals aren't so lucky. According to the Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, it's gotten so cold that sharks in the area have been washing up on the shore and essentially freezing to death. This week, the organization responded to three thresher sharks that likely suffered "cold shock" in the surrounding waters. Organisms suffer cold shock when they're exposed to extreme dips in temperature and can sometimes experience muscle spasms or cardiac arrest. Scientists believe the sharks swimming off the coast of Cape Cod -- where temperatures have dropped to 6 degrees -- suffered cold shock in the water, and then wound up getting stranded on the shore, where they likely suffocated. "If you've got cold air, that'll freeze their gills up very quickly," Greg Skomal, a marine scientist, told the New York Times. "Those gill filaments are very sensitive and it wouldn't take long for the shark to die."
so (Score:2)
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As long as hypothermia means "my lungs are freezing", then yes.
Some sharks don't have lungs.
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Cold shock is different than hypothermia. Hypothermia is when your core body temperature drops below normal. Like the opposite of a fever. Cold shock happens when you're suddenly exposed to cold water. You have a physiological reaction that involves confusion, muscle spasms and a sudden intake of breath. It's actually what usually kills people who fall into cold water without a lifejacket or PFD.
I don't think that's really what's happening here though, or maybe the marine biologists use the term differe
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How does cold shock not kill if you are wearing a PFD or lifejacket? Either it kills you or it doesn't, the PFD isn't going to keep you dry or warm. The only thing the PFD will do is keep you from sinking under water and drowning if you lose your swimming ability.
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The PFD will keep your head above water, thus preventing the muscle spasms and other lack of coordination from causing you to drown. All that still happens, you just are suddenly more buoyant, thus have a higher probability of survival.
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because; the cold shock causes you to gasp for air --- which if you're under water (and here's where the PFD comes in!) causes you to inhale large quantities of cold water.
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Which is probably instant death, unless you're a shark..... It is Doubtful that cold-blooded sharks experience an at-all-similar physiological response to extreme cold as a warm-blooded human, however..... for one thing: it's not possible for a shark to "gasp"
It's more likely the extreme cold simply immobilizes the cold-blooded shark, whether it was gradually introduced or suddenly introduced.
However, the shark may be at an inconvenient location when it discovers the sudden cold water, and be unab
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Yes. I suspect that the article is either using the term cold shock incorrectly, or is using a term correctly from a different context. Cold shock is due to sudden immersion in cold water. That doesn't happen to sharks. But sharks are basically cold blooded, so if they find themselves in water that's colder than they're used to, perhaps because they swam into shallow water close to shore in a cold snap, they may find themselves too cold to swim away.
Re:so (Score:4, Informative)
If you fall in the water with a PFD on, you take a breath of water and are to confused to do anything productive for half a minute or so. During that time, your PFD brings you to the surface, and after that you're very unhappy, but probably alive, and quite likely near your boat.
If you don't have a PFD on, you go further underwater, take a breath of water, and are confused for half a minute or so. During that time if you manage to actually swim, it's very unlikely it's towards the surface. In the meantime, you're breathing water like a madman. Welcome to the afterlife. Cold shock doesn't kill you: it makes you unable to prevent yourself from drowning.
The Canadian and US coast guards did a bunch of experiments with volunteers (and proper medical and dive support) in moderately cold water. Even though the volunteers knew they were going to hit cold water, so a lot of the shock was reduced, the results were pretty dramatic. Since then, both coast guards have added the concept of cold shock to boating safety and certification courses in addition to hypothermia.
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The Canadian and US coast guards did a bunch of experiments with volunteers (and proper medical and dive support) in moderately cold water. Even though the volunteers knew they were going to hit cold water, so a lot of the shock was reduced, the results were pretty dramatic. Since then, both coast guards have added the concept of cold shock to boating safety and certification courses in addition to hypothermia.
2 summers ago, I helped a friend deliver a 46 foot sailboat from Los Angeles to Seattle. As a recreational sailor from the Pacific Northwest, it shocked me how lax people were down there when it came to safety and safety equipment. We're used to being out in the foulest of weather, always being in proper PFDs and clothing, and tethering ourselves to the boat on anything other than a nice day. As we pulled into the fuel dock before heading north, it really shocked me that we were the only people in sight wea
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Washing up on the Atlantic Coast: Fresh frozen at the moment of death, delivered directly to your table!
I smell an opportunity!
All you need is a band saw and a total lack of ethics about food safety..... Oh, and a truck to pick up stuff with.
That smell isn't what you think...
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Japanese have been eating shark fin just fine for thousands of years.
Far too often "food safety" is just "I don't remember what we did before refrigeration was invented"
I remember from History class that folks died from eating bad food or illnesses which where carried in food. We've come a long way.
Refrigeration isn't all that necessary, but other means of preserving food can be inconvenient or involve large quantities of salt, sugar, or processing to keep it safe to eat.
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
You would think there would be a mention of lasers somewhere in the post. It is Slashdot after all. Sharks, ice, and ... Come ON, it writes itself... how we have fallen.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
The lasers have gotten too efficient. There used to be enough waste heat to keep the sharks from freezing, but not anymore.
This is another unintended consequence of the environmental movement demanding energy efficiency, but not considering everyone who would be affected by their policies.
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You would think there would be a mention of lasers somewhere in the post. It is Slashdot after all.
I guess they couldn't work that in and their a dig at Trump.
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I guess that we can now wait with baited breath for SharkBlizzard, the next sequel in the Sharknado series.
Oceans getting colder? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oceans getting colder? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's what I heard too. I'd honestly like some more of a scientific explanation for the claims so off-handedly thrown out there in the topic heading here?
Picking on Trump's comment aside (and honestly, I'm pretty sure he said that in jest) .... what's the reasoning for climate change causing these low temperatures and snowfall along the East coast? Last I checked, the record low temperatures in Washington DC for NYE was set way back in 1912 or some-such. As cold as it was at the end of 2017, it wasn't record-breaking or anything.
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What's been happening recently is that changing ocean temperatures have been disrupting and weakening the jet stream. Normally, the jet stream blows west-to-east, and acts as a sort of barrier to keep arctic air up north. As it destabilizes, it flows in big lobes, allowing arctic air to push further south. Right now, there's a big lobe that covers Ontario and Northeastern USA.
nb - layman's explanation from a layman. Not a climatologist. Not a meteorologist. Not even a TV weatherman.
Re:Oceans getting colder? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought the missing heat (that which caused the pause for most of the first part of this millennia) was accumulating in the ocean...
It is. But heat isn't uniformly distributed, either in the air or in the oceans. For exactly the same sorts of reasons that global warming can cause land climates to get colder, it can cause some ocean climates to get colder.
Purposely confusing climate and weather&season (Score:2)
Look it is cold in winter, and from a year to the next there are variations. The missing heat is accumulating in ocean. That does not stop winter being cold. look at this serie :
* 10 then -8
* 11 then -8
* 8 then -5
* 12 then -8
* 9 then -5
* 12 then -7
The "high" have not much of a trend, the last high is nearly as big as the first. Neither do the "low" show much, there is evevn a "low" dip at the end. Yet the average increas
Surface versus depth (Score:2)
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The pause that you refer to was not a pause in global atmospheric warming, but a pause in the acceleration of the rate of change in temperatures.
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What missing heat? Practically the entire Northern Hemisphere has enjoyed unusually mild temperatures this week, except for North America and Greenland.
It's the environmentalists fault (Score:5, Funny)
It's all the environmentalists fault. If they had simply stuck with global warming, we wouldn't be having this problem. But nooooo, they had to change it to "Climate Change", which opened us up to wild swings in temperature in both directions.
I considered overly hot summers to be an acceptable tradeoff for having mild or almost non-existent winters. But now we have to deal with stupidly hot summers AND stupidly cold winters.
Go back to global warming!
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But now we have to deal with stupidly hot summers AND stupidly cold winters.
"Continental United States: Now 50% more continental for the same price!"
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I would like to update it to "energizing the atmosphere." That makes the eventual transition to "immanetizing the eschaton" that much easier, because of the similar rhythms and letter usage.
Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the first paragraph of the article - right up to where it berated our President and then I stopped. If this is about real science, and I don't deny climate change, keep the politics out of it and just state the facts. We have plenty of time to do politics here or at the bar or wherever. Also, are these temperatures really record breaking or is that just more hype?
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
"If this is about real science, and I don't deny climate change, keep the politics out of it and just state the facts."
This is the problem. You have armchair climatologists ridiculing the president or anyone who dares to deny climate change based on regional weather patterns, while at the same time these pseudo intellectuals likely don't know the first fact about how climate change can cause more severe weather patterns. My guess is most of them couldn't begin to explain why winters can continue to be cold, and even colder than in years past, while global warming continues to increase.
But, sarcasm is the cheapest form of intellectualism. It requires no real knowledge while attempting to shame those with whom you disagree.
Stick to the facts. If you disagree with someone, make a solid argument to prove your point.
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
"If this is about real science, and I don't deny climate change, keep the politics out of it and just state the facts."
This is the problem. You have armchair climatologists ridiculing the president or anyone who dares to deny climate change based on regional weather patterns.
You also have armchair climatologists ridiculing actual climatologists.
Not that either way is good, mind you.
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Look, you don't have to be an expert to have an opinion on this. The problem is people not having their facts straight, either about what the science says, what the science said before this is happening ... they don't even seem to know what is going on right now. It's cold outside their door, therefore they seem to think the whole world is cold.
History (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't know history, then STFU. History proves that science is cabalistic and prone to bias. That's why science is hard and also why eminent scientists like Freeman Dyson are not part of your stupidly concocted 97%.
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is, most "climate change denial" is politically based. Everyone knows that climate change is real, certain people just choose to pretend it isn't real because it fits their politics to do so (and yes, some people deliberately exaggerate it greatly because it fits their politics).
It would be nice if the issue were not politicized and we just dealt with facts., but there is a lot of attack on the science from some of a certain political persuasion, that an issue that SHOULD BE non-political, has become VERY political unfortunately. You can't detangle politics from climate change now, some people are too invested in it being political.
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"Everyone knows that climate change is real"
Yes.... and thank God. Otherwise North America would sill be under a mile think sheet of ice.
Re:Two sides to that coin (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of cooking of data
Except that recalabration of data points based on new knowledge isn't cooking data, but rather valid adjustments.
The one that many of the doubters trot out is the adjustment that was made to the global seawater temperature data sets. For decades, sea surface temperatures were measured by ships, using a temperature sensor on the seawater intake used to cool the engines. As ships crisscrossed the ocean, they would record the temperature and location as part of their normal record keeping, and these have been compiled into large data sets.
In more modern times, the sea water temperature measurement has been supplemented by data recorded by buoys, which in turn report their data automatically. The trouble is that the two data sets didn't jive. The buoy data was showing things were slightly cooler (I think on the order of 0.25 to 0.5C) than what the data from the ships showed. If you took the temperatures at face values, it would make it appear that there had been a slight global cooling of the oceans rather than an ongoing increase, the so-called "Pause."
So what happened? Well, the scientists went back and looked at how the data was collected on ships, and realized that even with properly calibrated thermometers, they would read slightly high due to factors from the ship itself as it travels through the water. The ship's hull, engine room, plumbing, etc... slightly warms the water before it hits the temperature sensor, causing them to read high.
Once these factors were calibrated out, the "pause" largely disappeared. Is this cooking the books? I don't think so, but many people claimed it was.
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For decades, sea surface temperatures were measured by ships, using a temperature sensor on the seawater intake used to cool the engines.
And older ships would use a bucket on a string to scoop up some seawater and then someone would stick a thermometer in it, and write it down.
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In more modern times, the sea water temperature measurement has been supplemented by data recorded by buoys,
Actually a lot of modern temperature data is from satellites. I recall ten years ago or so a study that showed that the satellite data didn't match what they thought it should be, so they recalibrated all the satellite algorithms so it looked right.
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Because our whole civilization is based off of a VERY narrow band of world level weather patterns. The cost to adjust to even a moderate change is in the generations of world GDP. Chances that climate change will wipe out humanity? Low. Chances that unchecked climate change will set the quality of life back to the 1400's fairly possible.
You are ignoring this because you are apparently terrible at weighing the costs of long term major change. Don't
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:4, Informative)
nobody denies climate change
Plenty do.
Model output and measured temperatures:
https://twitter.com/ClimateOfG... [twitter.com]
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:4, Insightful)
nobody denies climate change
Plenty do.
Most of the people who are accused of denying climate change are actually doubting the anthropogenic causes, and anthropogenic solutions. It's more convenient to accuse someone of "climate change denial" if you ignore what they are actually questioning and then ridicule them for something they didn't say.
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That's because so many of the solutions bandied about are stupid.
Well, firstly, if you think the solutions are stupid, then come up with a better one. Secondly, just because the problem is hard, doesn't mean there is no problem. You can't cure cancer by denying it exists.
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't "berating the president" - it's that such a stupid, irrelevant editorial gets shoehorned into a categorically unrelated topic.
Honestly, what is the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "sharks are freezing"? Is it Donald Trump ? Congratulations. You have an autistic fixation and your associative thinking is so broken that all thoughts invariably lead to your stupid, frustrated partisan faggot feelings.
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
You phrased it better than I did. It was pretty awkward and shows how much free real estate he has in some people's minds.
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> what is the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "sharks are freezing"?
I wonder why they don't warm themselves with their lasers.
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> what is the first thing that springs to mind when you hear "sharks are freezing"? I wonder why they don't warm themselves with their lasers.
As a pilot, we are taught that when you run into an unexpected clouds or icing, and you have no evidence that conditions are better ahead of you, TURN AROUND.
I wondered why the sharks, when encountering cooling water, don't turn around and go back into warmer water. Before I read the summary, I also wondered how sharks were freezing when the water around them was much warmer than freezing.
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I read the first paragraph of the article - right up to where it berated our President and then I stopped.
Every article about climate change is framed that way. And it's why us deplorables become climate change "deniers".
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I read the first paragraph of the article - right up to where it berated our President and then I stopped.
Every article about climate change is framed that way. And it's why us deplorables become climate change "deniers".
Someone is mean to Trump, so you're going to throw the data out the window? That's ... an interesting approach to assessing the situation.
Re:Not a climate change article (Score:5, Insightful)
Historic averages for Boston [intellicast.com]. No it is not record lows, but maybe close. The only facts in this article is three sharks froze to death after beaching themselves for still as yet undetermined reasons. All the rest is speculation, they couldn't even be bothered to specify if it was 6 Fahrenheit or Celsius, or what the water temps are vs normal.
The rest reads like a social media blog, news reporting is a lost art.
Lol, Vice (Score:3)
Enough said. Living in New England this is really nothing new. Granted its a few weeks earlier than usual. I just feel bad for the ski areas that can't catch a break going from too warm last year to too cold this year.
But how cold is the water? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Saltwater freezes at 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit [noaa.gov]. How did these sharks get so cold if they were underwater?
From what I could gather from the article, the speculation is the three sharks were swimming along in normal temperature waters (whatever normal is, the article doesn't say) then hit a spot of particularly cold water (again, the article doesn't say anything about the temperature of the water) and became disoriented or disabled, washed up on shore, died, and then froze in the sub-freezing air temps (6 F, according to the article.)
It's also possible, I suppose, that the sharks washed up on shore for reason
Didn't say the sharks froze in the water. (Score:2)
It says they beached themselves and then "essentially" "froze to death" when they were out of the water. In fact the article is clear that the sharks didn't literally freeze in the water; they are believed to have beached themselves after suffering cold shock in 6F water.
In any case "freeze to death" is an idiom. When someone "freezes to death" they don't have their tissues freeze, then die. It's the other way around.
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But this wouldn't be Slashdot if it had a
sharknado 6 ice age sharks! (Score:2)
sharknado 6 ice age sharks!
Flamebait Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
-- a phenomenon President Trump seems a little confused about --
FFS, I'm no Trump defender, but tossing in random, snarky asides in the summary immediately lowers the quality of the discussion.
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The article is only stating facts as we know it. And honestly/sadly/seriously Trump does not understand nor has the first clue about climate change, and that's a big reason why our country is barely doing anything about climate change at the government level.
And that is why stories like this need to be super-mainstream to highlight the fact our elected officials are fucking over the country as know we know it.
So much wrong... (Score:3)
First, I don't see how this is so much of a record. I remember waiting for the school bus in high school in 10 degreeF temps. It didn't happen often, but there were a few mornings. I've been tracking the temperatures here in NC very closely. I'm trying to paint my airplane outside, and I need for it to warm up to finish. We haven't gotten down to 10 yet.
Second, a few days of cold air causes sharks to freeze to death? Why wouldn't it swim a little deeper. A few days of negative temps is not going to cause a significant change in deep water temperatures. Surface temps down to a few feet maybe, but not down at 20/30 ft. Did they just swim to the top, scream "Aaaargh!!" when they hit the cold water at the surface and then roll belly up? I would think there would be more of a gradient where the shark would think, "Damn, it's cold up there. I'm going to go back down this way." Kinda like how we do when we walk outside for our paper in the morning.
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Are you trying to work out the internal workings of the shark-mind? I mean.. they're sharks, they do what sharks do. Maybe a colder arctic current came farther south, and at the depth at which sharks do their sharkly things.
For your next mystery to solve, figure out why whales beach themselves, or mosquitoes are attracted to bug zappers. We're dying to know what you come up with! :)
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Water temperatures are obviously not homogeneous between layers, as you acknowledged when wondering why the sharks didn't just swim deeper. Temperatures can also vary by areas even at the same depths. For instance I would expect shallow areas like beaches with gradual slopes to be colder than water at the surface over deep water. I suppose it's possible that beaches could actually be generating colder water during this kind of weather. Since cold water is denser that warmer water it could form currents wher
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The solution is simple... (Score:2)
In real units (Score:2)
6ÂF = -14.444ÂC
(For the majority of the world that doesn't understand Fossil units)
Re: In real units (Score:3)
That's an issue with Slashdot. The  characters above are degree symbols. Slashdot doesn't encode them correctly.
WHAT ABOUT THE SHARKS? (Score:2)
Think of the sharks!
Re:I bet the friggin sharks (Score:4, Informative)
It could very well be the case that this IS global warming (AKA "climate change" for those who don't understand averages). A hotter climate can power more extreme weather on both ends of the temperature scale. [scientificamerican.com] So those sharks might appreciate *less* global warming.
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It could very well be the case that this IS global warming (AKA "climate change" for those who don't understand averages).
Whether this is "global warming" or - more likely - just regular climate variability at work... what's silly is drawing conclusions based on a strictly local phenomenon.
I'm too lazy to dig up the map again, but - when the cold first descended on the continental US, there was a global map showing the departure from mean temperature on that day. Virtually every other location on earth was either normal or above normal... the eastern 2/3 of the US (and Canada) was the only significant area it was colder than a
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The sharks would disagree. So would polar bears, Syrians, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Barbudans, Houstonians, etc etc...
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True. That's because before then, people were overhunting them. [panda.org] So we're not killing them as badly with global warming as we were with bullets. Their populations are still expected to fall to 2/3rds of today's levels by 2050 at the current rate of course. But since we've switched to murdering them with gases instead of solids, I'm sure they'll be fine!
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Global Warming doesn't exclude anything.
Nice theory (wait...hypothesis since you have no confirmed experiments) you have there. ANYTHING that happens is accounted for.
OH, but then there is that pesky Falsification thing that Science demands.
Well, maybe you can write a computer simulation and just skip over that part.
Re: I bet the friggin sharks (Score:5, Informative)
In the 1970s, the theory successfully predicted a reversal of a three decade aerosol-driven cooling tend before it happened. That was the result of sufficient computing power becoming available to run detailed models, which successfully excluded the continuation of cooling.
It's also worth noting that by the mid 90s scientists were predicting that "global warming" would also include extreme cold weather events as well as heat waves -- thus the preference for the term "climate change".
Finally, if you actually look at global temperature anomaly map [cci-reanalyzer.org], it's quite evident that the cold snap we're in is a highly localized phenomenon. Almost the ENTIRE PLANET is ANOMALOUSLY HOT, except for parts of North America and Greenland.
It's easy to say a theory has no consistent predictions when you use a straw man.
Re: I bet the friggin sharks (Score:5, Interesting)
Now you're telling me the impact is less than half a degree ON AVERAGE over a year? What disaster exactly do we have coming from all of this??
Here's an interesting exercise I worked out last year.
Take some amount of temperature change -- say half a degree. Work out how much energy per liter that is -- there are some HVAC sites with the information you need. You'll have to make some assumptions about the humidity and air pressure, which means that your results are likely going to be off by an order of magnitude, but that's fine for our purposes.
Now here's the good bit: multiply the change in energy per liter by the number liters in the troposphere. The answer you'll get is a half a degree equals a shit-ton of energy. As in it makes humanity's entire nuclear arsenal look like a damp squib.
Here's the thing: which scale is the ideal one for thinking about this in? The one liter scale or the troposphere-wide scale? The answer is neither. It's the effect of continent-wide pressure and temperature gradients we need to be worrying about. Even a half degree's worth of thermal energy/liter can on the meso-scale alter patterns of prevailing winds and precipitation, and those are very big things indeed.
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Re:Same Ol' Argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cold is Weather, Hot is Climate.
Temperature trends that continue for years are climate.
Temperature trends that last for a week are weather.
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Your logical fallacy is: tu quoque [yourlogicalfallacyis.com].
You avoided having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser - you answered criticism with criticism.
Pronounced too-kwo-kwee. Literally translating as 'you too' this fallacy is also known as the appeal to hypocrisy. It is commonly employed as an effective red herring because it takes the heat off someone having to defend their argument, and instead shifts the focus back on to the person making the criticism.
An easy way to spot this fallacy is when someone says
You people
Re:Same Ol' Argument...*still* proving itself true (Score:2)
So this is because each 'trend has been "adjusted"', you say?
Well, I suggest that if you dig back to the early days of climatology, you'll find that in fact a report issued 50 years ago regarding global climate has proven to be spot-on. And this is the original report, not an "adjusted" report. You can dig up a 50-year-old issue of the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences and check the (printed on paper, no White-Out applied) original.
https://sputniknews.com/society/201711131059037711-climate-change-report-e
Numerous predictions (Score:2)
I can make 6 different predictions about a dice falling. One of them will always be "spot on".
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Average temperatures for the globe are going up. That does not mean everywhere has their average temperature rising at the same rate. But the data clearly shows temps are higher on average. Thus, global warming. But today people tend to say "climate change" instead otherwise ignorant people will look at record snowfalls and such as "proof" that scientists are crazy.
It had been uncertain whether the extremes in recent years (hurricanes, etc) are due to human caused climate change or were within normal va
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The problem is this topic is so politicized - as is evidenced even in the commentary here - that any data comes with baggage.
It is politicized, but so what?
The solution to politicized scientific issues is to look at the consensus of the experts, plus any dissenting experts. In this case, pretty much every expert says one thing, and the dissenters are not climate experts. Seems mighty clear and apolitical to me.
Nothing disproves Global Warming (Score:2)
Nothing disproves it. Because it is not falsifiable [theconversation.com].
And therefor not science — Trump is a heretic.
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If we have weather at a frequency well outside the normal 2 standard deviations. Then that is most likely due to Climate Change.
Climate is a complex system, however we grew up to expect a range of patterns in different areas. If these patterns seem to be outside the normal for an extended period of time, then there is a climate change.
Temperature affects pressure, and due-point. So while a few degree world temperature change would not normally feel any different, it does push systems thousands of miles o
Re:Same Ol' Argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, it is dew point, not 'due point'. Second, climate is weather trends over decades. One weather event that is outside of the norm, regardless of how many standard deviations, is not climate. It might become a data point that in time can point to a change in overall climate, but you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
Re:Same Ol' Argument... (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile in Europe we have been having much too warm temperatures for this time of year. Last week it was 15C (59 F) in central Europe where I live, which is practically spring temperature today it was 8C (46F) when it should be around the freezing point.
It's not the first time that Northern America receives all the dose of winter cold from from Europe. A couple of years ago we had the same situation - record lows in the US, much too high temperatures across Europe and Eurasia.
Nevertheless, global warming is a scientifically proven fact regardless what happens in Northern America, which is only a relatively small area of our globe. The oceans which cover two-thirds of our planet are warming, this is fact. The polar ice caps are melting, also fact. The glaciers are retreating, another fact.
Please just check this website of one very credible, US agency for the details if you still feel like denying it because Trump says so:
https://climate.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
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Re:Same Ol' Argument... (Score:5, Informative)
Is math hard?
Here's four sets of 9 values.
Each subsequent one has a higher average, and also lower low and higher high.
5 6 7 5 6 7 5 6 7 : low=5; high=7; avg=6
4 6 8 6 6 7 5 6 7 : low=4; high=8; avg=6.1
3 6 9 6 6 8 6 6 7 : low=3; high=9; avg=6.3
2 6 10 6 6 8 6 7 8 : low=2; high=10; avg=6.5
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No, you can't look at just cold temperatures in New England and use that to balance out what happens in the rest of the world. The average temperatures across the entire planet for each year have been going up. New England is not the entire planet. Even if the average temperature for the year in New England does not go up, that is still a very tiny portion of the planet.
Re:Same Ol' Argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
New England is not the entire planet.
I strongly disagree with your assertion. I've lived in New England for nearly 40 years, so I should know.
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Not necessarily.
If you go from (-10, 20, 20, 20, 35) to (-12, 25, 25, 25, 40), your highest and average values have both gone up---and your lowest has gone down. There are, in fact, infinitely many datasets where this can occur.
Do you have any further oversimplifications?
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https://slashdot.org/story/18/... [slashdot.org]
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Someone has never taken a basic stats course. Or took it and failed horribly.
See my previous reply to you for a counterexample.
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Also remember that an average global temperature rise of 1 degrees for several years is highly worrisome, and 2 degrees would be major. Those seem like such small numbers because the short term averages vary so much in comparison. The oceans are like big buffers of energy, or capacitors, they totally dwarf the affect of a short term weather event on the north east US coast and balance out the averages over time. If those ocean temperatures go up even slightly it can mean serious effects everywhere.
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It's not just the hot summers it's the very mild weather in the winters that brings the overall average up.
The story is about 3 sharks and they haven't determined the cause of death yet they will know more after the autopsy. Everyone is guessing the cold but they may have got into some unreported chemical spill.
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I'm sure you're just a troll, Russian, uneducated, or all of the above and this response is a waste of time. For those modding you up, the claim is the mean temperature goes up, the standard deviation goes up, hurricane strength goes up (not so much frequency), region climates will change, and temperature volatility goes up.
If science is right, we will have dramatic shifts in temperature, we will have record cold recorded, and the average temperature will be warmer. We will also observe dramatic shifts i
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I don't think you're familiar enough with what science actually says to be anti-science.
20 to 200 years (Score:2)
That's great news. I remember when the life span of CO2 being bandied about was 1000 years. Nice to see that we are finally getting answers to some of these really difficult questions. Now if we can just nail down the heat trapping effects of CO2, we'll know if there is anything to get excited about.
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