"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."
Makes it a bit less scary. I think this is called burying the lede. ;-)
I wonder about the article title, too. How do they justify calling it "unprecedented" when they clearly state there's a precedent (melting events every 150 years on average)? Seems disingenuous at best.
Hard to say for sure with the information provided. While there is evidence that this has happened before, this degree of melting in such a short span of time is certainly "unprecedented" for as long as we've been observing, and it may well be a different kind of event than that which caused 1889's melting.
Still, the title is really misleading, even though it may be true in a very, very narrow sense. Tbh. I think someone just went overboard there.
The problem of course is that we just don't know. We have our models, but they are all built on assumptions that can change any day. Some say that long term predictions are much more reliable than short term ones (aka. the weather forecast), yet still we are constantly surprised by climate events. The article itself is quite nice, so why fear mongering title (and I'm not even speaking about the HN title, that one is just completely misleading).
Yes, the title certainly is misleading based on that final paragraphs. However considering we have numerous alarming data points across the globe in 2012 related to climate (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-te...) perhaps that context means events like this are viewed in a more pessimistic fashion.
The sentiment you express: that we don't know for sure, our models are not fool-proof etc is a very particular, unscientific line of reasoning pumped out to convince the layman that there is no real scientific consensus, which is simply false. There is scientific consensus, climate scientists never state that the test for scientific theories is 100% certainty, nor do they claim their models are completely accurate (every model is wrong to a degree, by definition!)
The climate scientists and meteorologists in my family have moved on from debating with people now, seeing it as about as valuable as arguing about gravity with someone.
What's the global warming equivalent of "the 9/11 attack allowed a group of right-wing ideologues to rapidly advance an agenda they'd been pushing and planning for years under the (very thin) guise of responding to 9/11"?
Maybe something like "the current global climate change caused by humankind is a convenient backdrop for a variety of eco-warriers to advance non-scientific and innumerate 'solutions' which are more about making people feel bad about themselves than about tackling the actual problems"?
In both cases the loudness of the wackos on both sides has drowned out the moderates and turned it into a political/religous debate.
> "the current global climate change caused by humankind is a convenient backdrop for a variety of eco-warriers to advance non-scientific and innumerate 'solutions' which are more about making people feel bad about themselves than about tackling the actual problems"?
What about those extreme and useless people precludes us from finding real solutions to a scientifically proven problem?
Forget the hippies. They'll never get anything real done. But if you find a way to produce cheap power, everything will benefit. Better sustainability is a win-win.
I'm not sure why we need a scapegoat to prevent us from doing good things for the world and possibly making a boatload of money doing so (not that that's the goal, but I imagine it's the primary concern for people with such criticisms). It's completely counter-intuitive to me why people would fight this.
"since 9/11 was a real terrorist attack, we MUST respond by invading this list of countries and enacting this list of restrictions on freedom"
is analogous to
"since global warming is really driven by carbon emissions, we MUST respond by subsidizing these industries, enacting these stealth taxes, and forcing consumers to engage in these behaviors"
On both sides, we've got the wacko conspiracy theorists. But we also have those who recognize the problem is real and want to push stupid solutions. That's another part of "drowning out the moderates".
Really, you linked to Mad Bill McKibbens Rolling Stone rant? The one that insists the laws of physics are changing? That guy is an embarassment as much as some of the nuttier 'there is no global warming' zealots are. Unhinged alarmism and 'big oil under the bed' is only good for preaching to the choir.
Two points:
- consensus isn't proof, it's just a bunch of people agreeing with each other. Scientifically, it means nothing. The list of disproven theories that once had wide consensus is deep and rich in examples. It's OK to talk about a consensus, it's not OK to use this as a line of argument that something is true.
- the IPCC models are woeful at predictions, the IPCC themselves have stated as much. It's not unscientific to express doubt about the models - it's unscientific to do the opposite.
The global warming movement isn't a conspiracy, but there are many interesting social phenomena that can be observed amongst it's ardent supporters.
Well yes, I thought the article captured a lot of interesting numbers. Much more useful if you skip the ad hominems (I don't care what you think of the author) and focus on critiquing the substance. What's wrong with the data? Happy to hear.
Scientific consensus - no one asserted that it represents proof. You are wrong to say that scientifically it means nothing. I think you mean to say what Wikipedia says: "Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method."
However from a societal point of view it is important, which is clearly highlighted by the attempts of the energy industry to promote the idea that there isn't a scientific consensus when there is one.
Obviously I take issue with the bits where you go on to talk about disproven theories and unreliability of models. You're veering off into that industry messaging which aims to convince a reader that the science we have is not solid enough to decide whether to act on emissions, which is completely false.
It's a recipe I hereby label the "global warming denialist's unscientific method":
1. Construct your own notion of how science works.
2. Dismiss climate science based on 1.
3. Convince yourself (and others) you hold a scientific position.
No, there is not. Of you have been sleeping for a few years, then. Many scientists have come out in the recent past to stand against the "global warming" theory.
It is nothing like gravity where we can clearly experiment and it's predictable. Climate change is no way certain nor predictable, and anyone who pretends otherwise is either a fool or an ignorant. Climate models are based on so much data (standard variation is HUGE) that you cannot even draw a line without being laughed at by a statistician.
I was coming up with a list of cites, but at this point it'd just fall on deaf ears. If you're genuinely uncommitted, just look at what's published by everything from climate journals to general interest journals, like Nature and Science. Sure, the consensus might be wrong, but it's incredibly obvious that there is one: experts are very largely of the opinion that anthropogenic carbon emissions are a major driver of climate change.
Of course, I have family whose post-doc research is in this, so I might just be part of the conspiracy!
Edited to add: well, just to get you started, check out NPG's specialist climate journal: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html . No article is trying to prove anything beyond their own limited theses, but it's very clear where experts are coming from.
"Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008."
This is coming from the GWPF itself : "It is good news that the authors recognise that there has been no global temperature increase since 1998. Even after the standstill appears time and again in peer-reviewed scientific studies, many commentators still deny its reality. We live in the warmest decade since thermometer records began about 150 years ago, but it hasn’t gotten any warmer for at least a decade."
So, temperature increase? Hum ? Global Warming ? Hum ?CO2 levels are exploding but no significant temperature increase from 1998 - 2008.
You are wrong. My dictionary defines consensus as "general agreement" and this is clearly the case when it comes to climate science.
No one in the climate science arena disagrees that the changes in CO2 levels are 1) created by burning fossil fuels 2) driving the observed warming effect and 3) that the observed warming trends are outside the levels of natural variability.
The IPCC Third Assessment Report [1] outlines this in much detail. This report has been signed-off on by dozens of international science academies, including the Science Council of Japan, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Other institutions endorsing the IPCC report include NASA's Goddard Institute, NOAA, the American Meteorological Society, the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, the American Geophysical Union, and the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
If this doesn't constitute "consensus" then I would like to hear what you WOULD consider sufficient. There are MANY debates in climate science, but they are generally about the HOW's not the IF's or WHY's.
CO2 is not the single driver. If it were, how do you explain we do not see significant temperature increase over the past few years while there is more and more CO2 in the atmosphere. You cant have it both ways.
And I repeat again, there is no consensus. Consensus in science is not like a democratic vote. The consensus in science is obtained when there is NO ONE debating anything anymore. Just like noone is casting doubt on Einstein s relativity theory in physics. Do we have that level of scientific certitude regarding climate? Hell no.
"June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe." (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-te...)
You clearly have an opinion on this topic, but everything you've asserted in this thread is simply wrong. Debate on these issues is always fine (even with a scientific consensus, it does not mean 'no further debate') but you do the opposing camp a disservice when you promote falsehoods.
The temperature has been rising for ~150 years or more.
Of course the most recent half of the trend is higher than the average. It's meant to sound scary when it's just a plain fact that a rising trend will have most of the later part of the trend higher than the entire average.
A probability of the last part of a series being higher than the average would only be interesting if the series was random. The temperature series isn't random - it has a trend upwards. So the probability business is just nonsense. It's just a ridiculous way of saying the temperature series has trended up for a long time. (Long in human lifetime measurements, but not geological lifetime)
Hence : in the last 327 months of my life, I'm taller than my lifetime average. Because it would be very unlikely that the opposite would be the case.
Temperatures have not been rising for 150 years or more. You need to check your facts.
Direct instrumental measurements only go back ~150 years, but another direct mechanism exists: borehole measurements [1]. This gives us a very good measurement of temperature over ~500 years. These show that at no time have temperature averages been as high as they are now.
We can go back even further, to the tune of 1000 years, through proxy data obtained via things like tree rings, coral growth, stalagmite layers, etc. This covers the so-called "Medieval Warm Period" and these data show the last century to be warmer than any other in the data set.
Not enough? Antarctic ice core analysis provides a record of the glacial-interglacial cycle over 100s of thousands of years. These data show that current average temperatures are higher than they've been over the last 100,000+ years. This is documented in Figure 2.22 of the IPCC Third Assessment Report [2].
The cranks who claim Einstein is wrong have no means to prove he is.
However, when a scientist argues against the lack of long term data to discuss global warming, and the inconsistencies of the theory, he is met with disapproval, insults, and shunning. There is a lack of scientific discussions because there is a huge political agenda behind it, and it is not a surprise to see most of 'climate scientists' funded by governments who approve of that theory and want to have this on their agenda.
Kind of hard to keep a straight face as a scientist when your funding depends on the theory itself. Of course youd be fighting to make sure it remains the 'mainstream' theory.
- disclaimer: student of environmental physics here -
Uhm, no. We can still do climate science without the problems, and there will be funds (maybe not as much, but that's ok). Climate is still something we want and need to understand, even if there is no problem at the moment (just imagine another ice age.. )
All the researchers here (Heidelberg) would be happy - euphoric! - to be able to disprove the theory. Just image, you'd be able to tell everyone it's gonna be ok.. but it's most probably not. And there are so many students and grad students working on the data - if there was a problem, can you really imagine that not a single student would be idealistic enough to speak up? (I totally would, but then I might be in already.)
You can download raw data if you want, and look at them yourself. Most projects actually have a data base, and if not just ask. If there is a problem in the way the data has been taken and evaluated, notice the authors. But a lot of people have looked over it already.As I said, everyone would be unbelievably happy if the problem didn't exist.
Look here for some oceanic data, for example:
http://woce.nodc.noaa.gov/wdiu/
Wouldn't that apply equally to almost all scientific research being conducted? Just about everybody has some result they're hoping for. This sounds more like bias on your part ("They could be exaggerating, and I'd like them to be, so I'll make the leap from mere possibility to certainty") than a fact-based analysis of the climate scientists' research.
"There is scientific consensus"... No, there is not.
Sorry, but there is[1].
You are welcome to debate whether those scientist are right, and welcome to debate if other, non-climate specialists are better qualified to offer their opinion, but trying to argue against there being a consensus is misguided.
It's funny but I see a parallel between your line of reasoning about global warming and the reasoning of those who believe in creation, and deny evolution.
There are scientists who advocate creation, not evolution and there is no easy way to "prove evolution" as an absolute fact.
People have their reasons for ignoring proofs of evolution and others have their reasons for ignoring proofs of global warming.
What degree of evolution? That things change? That this change is observable? Or that man evolved from apes. If the latter, a) why are there still apes, b) where is the missing link?
There is a whole list of "human missing links" on Wikipedia[1]. The best preserved are the Australopithecus afarensis set of skeletons[2].
It is thought that A. afarensis was more closely related to the genus Homo (which includes the modern human species Homo sapiens), whether as a direct ancestor or a close relative of an unknown ancestor, than any other known primate from the same time.
There is tons (literally) of evidence that evolution is real, from a wide range of independent, disparate sources.
Here's one: the fact that volcanic islands, which have land that has been historically only accessible to birds, have a number of bird species that have filled ecological niches normally filled by rodents.
Here's another: you can see in the fossil record progressive changes. Sure, there are missing links, but try coming up with an explanation that fits the islands fact (above) as well as this one. In addition, have it explain, in a way that permits further predictions, 10 other otherwise independent sources of evidence.
Only in an exceptionally mild way, and no worse than you should reasonably expect from posting absurdly uninformed critiques of basic science to a technology oriented online community. Besides, I meant it more for humour than offense, as I find it hard to resist such a good feed line.
Major scientific institutions don't get funding for saying "Things seem to be going ok right now", they get funding for saying "Things are screwed up, here's why, and we think we can fix it". I say this as someone who works at a major scientific institution.
We have an Institute for Creation Research [1]. There is plenty of funding for anti-climate change research. It's just not producing anything. That should give a hint as to where reality lies amidst interests.
I doubt that funding is even a tiny fraction of the research money from governments. And in addition it is money that might taint your reputation for future research funding rounds.
This is true in many areas of research. If you want funding there are certain opinions and buzzwords you should include when applying for funding.
Why yes, they do. Look at the LHC or major astronomic observatories - it's not like they fix a big existential problem for most people for the time being. Where do you work?
There is seemingly a scientific consensus among scientists in fields relevant to climatology.
If we ignore all of those however, then I would agree that there isn't a scientific consensus in the general populous on climate change, especially among people who haven't bothered to look into the actual science of it particularly.
Also, more data does not equal worse statistics, at least on average anyway.
...or the fact that's it's increasingly looking as if cosmic rays cause cloud formation thereby controlling climate change. The climate is a chaotic system and by it's very definition you can't predict or model said system.
No real scientist would ever write what you just did. Is this like Einstein's cosmological constant, expansion of the universe, or any number of other supposed knowns that have been proven wrong.
This is a perfect example of the pseudo-scientific sentiment that has been cultivated in the non-scientific community.
Assert confidently that real science knows that it is impossible to model anything accurately, and that climate change concerns are guesses that will magically be proven wrong at a later date. Also, pretend that science is about 100% certainty (which it is not) and then judge climate change theories based on that figure.
Yet in the face of this reality people like yourself have no qualms dismissing the science based on their own notions of science and are entirely able to convince themselves that they hold a scientific position.
I think the process is as follows:
1. Construct your own notion of how science works.
2. Dismiss climate science based on 1.
3. Convince yourself you hold a scientific position.
...or the fact that's it's increasingly looking as if cosmic rays cause cloud formation thereby controlling climate change.
No it isn't.
A recent study showed that cosmic rays can, in some circumstances trigger liquid drop formation. However, it did not show that this happened often enough for clouds to be formed, let alone often enough for it to have any effect on the climate.
I toned down the original article title to 'unusual weather event: 97% of Greenland ice sheet surface melts in 4 days' but one of the HN editors rewrote it.
"Satellite imaging in 1889 was severely lacking, so the imagery is unprecendented." But I guess we will never see that line in an alarmist global warming report.
Way to go, HN! There's nothing quite like quibbling about semantics and praising the latest OSX while the planet burns. If we saw the same kind of Chomskyan linguistics applied to OSX Mountain Lion as we apply to climate science, we wouldn't know whether HiDPI was actually included or falsely advertised.
They didn't say melting over the Summit was unprecedented. They said the 97% melt was unprecedented in the thirty years we've been able to measure ice melts.
The last 328 consecutive months of above average global temperatures have also been unprecedented. The odds of that occurring by random chance is less than one in 3.7 x 10^99.
Page 5 in particular shows the insignificance of the current warming period, using publicly available ice core data.
His whole presentation on CAGW is worth reading, as it adds a huge amount of context and data that you'll never get from the alarmists. When you see the data in this light, you can't help but question the current CAGW orthodoxy.
You might find solace in rehashed and widely disproven arguments from a source who is reputable in the field of aerospace.
The fact that most scientists and most aerospace engineers disagree with him should be a strong indication that this issue demands more than merely tired, old arguments retold by a different name. You need a smoking gun-- proof that recent climate events are either not record-breaking or not anthropogenic. Allegations of "Climategate" is not sufficient nor is a non-reviewed journal article because it is not open to the scientific method.
The shotgun approach to disprove both climate change and its anthropogenic roots shows desperation, not evidence. It hardly presents a rational, scientific argument to say that climate change doesn't exist, but IF it does, it isn't anthropogenic.
Regional or point temperatures are not sufficient to prove or disprove climate change. The Medieval Warm Period is only significant in a small area of Europe and certainly not like the charts Rutan shows. Only a global average temperature proves climate forcing. Most research shows data that does not agree with Burt Rutan's charts on page 5 or any other page.
Funny, the first article you quote is written by one of the prime ClimateGate perpetrators.
And saying "allegations of ClimateGate is not sufficient" is not sufficient in the face of clear evidence of tampering and suppression of data that conflicts with their preconceived notions.
The real problem is that climate scientists are dependent on public funding for their research, and the most direct way to get more funding is to make a case for just how urgent their research truly is, at the expense of the truth.
Claiming "most scientists" disagree with him is just another attempt to stifle dissent. There are plenty of reputable scientists who disagree with the current orthodoxy.
You're only proving my point. "ClimateGate" was the framing of real data intended to show a stronger trend. It wasn't a smoking gun. ClimateGate showed a human lapse of ethics which occurs EVERY SINGLE DAY on the opposite side of the debate. The mere fact that the Heartland Institute cannot decide whether to prove climate change does not occur or merely whether climate change is not anthropogenic presents an omnipresent ethical lapse. They do not even attempt to explain the inherent contradictions of their logically-challenged shotgun approach.
Climate denialists complaining about selective presentation of data is exactly like the National Rifle Association complaining about Fast and Furious. The only problem with the Fast and Furious investigation was that it actually TRACKED guns sold to the eventual criminals who committed murders. If the NRA had their way, guns would be sold every day at gun shows to straw buyers without background checks where they eventually would be used to kill federal agents and innocent civilians. In that sense, they work for manufacturers and against responsible owners. The only difference is without federal investigations, the NRA would still be able to continue claiming with impunity that gun show purchases are never traced to crimes.
I'm not sure if that makes it any less scary. I wonder what reactions are going to stem from this event? You know, to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
EDIT: Explain the down-votes. Things don't just happen without something else feeling it. Just like how the Maori ate all the Moas and the Haast Eagle died because it had no more food.
They also say in the article that this is not unexpected based on previous events. So I guess it is happening about every 150 years to get a meaningful average. Otherwise they are just averaging a bunch of differences in dates.
So to get an idea of how normal this is, don't we look at how many times this has happened before, and what the deviation from the 150 years is to get a better idea of what is happening?
Note that were are talking about some degree of melting occurring over 97% of the surface of the ice sheet, not that 97% of the area previously covered in ice has melted, which is how I read the title.
From the article: "Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its 2-mile-thick (3.2-kilometer) center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface"
A NASA link with a graph without any reference/legend whatsoever (it's easy to manipulate data by playing with colors and putting a threshold in white and another in red, but if we dont know exactly what is means it's just like snake oil marketing), this is very disappointing for a agency that is supposed to produce science. This is tabloid level.
'In the image, the areas classified as "probable melt" (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as "melt" (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting.'
While I do feel that the use of the word "unprecedented" was not warranted (and should be criticized), the rest of the article is fine.
areas classified as "probable melt" (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as "melt" (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting
and who it was produced by;
Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory and Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI and Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory
So, on balance, I'd say they are almost definitely not just making this stuff up, which would actually be tabloid level, and they instead are actually producing actual science.
I mean, what do you think NASA are doing, given they actually have satellites and stuff? Ignoring the massive amounts of collected data and instead making up graphs to trick republicans into installing solar panels or what? I don't get it.
This scares me. I know it's only the surface that thawed, but what happens when more than the surface melts next time around? How long can people keep denying the Earth is warming before lower-level coastal regions start to flood?
The article also states that this happens every 150 years or so and did so 150 years ago. Like winter comes every 12 months. Now it would be wonderful to understand the mechanism, we've only been watching via satellite for 30 years, so in another 150 years we'll have captured a full cycle on satellite and we will know a lot more. It would have been a much more reasonable article to say:
"For the first time NASA has captured a once in 150 year event on satellite images. ..." but you still might click the link but you wouldn't feel threatened.
Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average
It's not a 150 year cycle, it's a random event with a low probability. AKA 0.66% per year ~ 10 events per 1500 years but 3 of them could have fallen within 10 years of each other.
You've reading way to much into the "150 year cycle".
Core samples aren't accurate to the day so we really don't know if this exact event is what's happened in the past. What it really sounds like is that we know there are similar melting events that happen every century and a half or so. But unlike Winter coming every 12 months we have little idea why these events might occur or whether that's all there is and we can pack it in for another 120+ years.
So I get downvoted for saying that this kind of thing scares me. I clicked the link and read the article, if you read the article correctly yourself then you would realise that this isn't an event that happens precisely every 150 years. There's nothing stopping this event happening again next year... Ever heard the weather experts say something along the lines of, "This is a 75 year weather event" or "100 year weather event" it just means the odds of it happening again are slim, not impossible but slim.
The HN community has really deteriorated as of late. People down voting comments for no warranted reason, this site is starting to become Digg...
It seems to me that there really are very few people who actually deny the earth is warming. There may be a very vocal minority in your circles but I don't see it in my travels. The only real question is how much of the warming is caused by humans and how much is part of a natural cycle. You did read the article right? This is part of a cycle. Perhaps there is some human influence on this cycle but how would the researchers know? Maybe in another 150 years when the ice sheet has already reformed and then begun to melt again repeating the cycle? Level heads are needed; not panic and politics.
So, it happens on average every 150 years and that isn't a cycle in your book. That's fine for someone like yourself but for me I feel that we then need to redefine things like solar cycles and seasons which only happen on average as well. All in all, what the article describes sounds like a cycle to me.
The seasons happen for a known, cyclical reason. If it turns out that there's a first cause behind the ice melt, then it would be proper to refer to it as a cycle.
Many coastal cities do flood, right now, but this is mainly due to more people living on the coast in areas with lax engineering codes. Panic probably won't come until building sea walls any higher becomes too expensive in areas where sea walls and other tide restricters are required. I'd wait until a few man-made islands go under water to be sure.
Based on the Greenland ice shelts melting, calculations show you're pretty good for another 28,000 years.
That doesn't take into account any change in the ocean temperature from the melted ice, and any cold changes that might create.
The current historical rate of sea level rise is about 2-3mm per century. So if you're in a coast city there's probably a couple of centuries to go. Given the rate at which man-made islands can be created (or existing land masses extended) if necessary (Dubai, Hong Kong, Manhattan) I'd say there are much bigger problems to worry about.
What's really interesting about the whole things is how the ice flow depends on temperature - ice can be in several states which will react differently under pressure. Warmer ice will flow faster, thus more ice will flow onto the sea an melt, and the ice sheet on the land will get thinner if it gets warmer.
"an American aerospace engineer." "a BS degree in aeronautical engineering." Not anybody who is professionally involved with climate and climate effects in any way.
"Some claim that there are 31,000 U.S. scientists and over 850 peer-reviewed papers that challenge the consensus that humans are causing climate change. Skeptical Science gave these claims the greatest benefit of the doubt and came up with this interesting factoid:
31,000 scientists represents 0.1% of US scientists that hold a BS degree or higher
850 papers represents 0.1% of the peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change"
>I believe there is climate change, there always is. The idea that we are the sole cause or that we have the power to stop it, seems a little absurd.
There are a lot of us, and we've been pumping a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere for a long time. Things like the ozone hole or the long-term deforestation of Europe show that humanity is very capable of making substantial changes to the global climate.
We've created a lot of problems, yes. We need more energy, more food, more clean water. We need to clean up our soils, we need to plant some new forests.
The focus on cutting CO2 emissions seems misplaced.
Have you any idea what the effects of a 10m rise in global sea levels would be? There are plenty of problems for humanity to deal with, but few more important or urgent than that.
It's fascinating to see how supposedly objective institutions are invested in selling environmentalist panic. The greens have certainly won the PR battle.
Considering was called Greenland by the Vikings who also named Nova Scotia "Vinland" because grape vines grew there, would it be more likely to you that some alarmist scientists would defends their jobs and salaries by giving overperssimistic claims, and that the rest would have to follow the game or become irrelevant in the publish-or-perish world?
Just like a lemon market, except driven by fear?
I remember reading somewhere (Richard Feymann maybe?) about the initial mass or charge of some particle, an electron maybe, being far away from the truth and leading to a suppression of the publication of any "dissident" results - including a much better estimate that followed.
The scientific process took care of that by publishing revised estimates, just slightly lower and lower, until the number reached the initially conflicting estimation, but this took some time.
I do not claim to have any opinion on climate change - except to notice that a side is giving alarmist claims, which can not be disproved, or when they can and are, which are adjusted by an ad-hoc theory. From global freezing in the 70s to global warming, and now "climate change". And that the other side is giving different results and seems to be more cautious in its process, because it is facing an uphill battle like anyone who would have published a significantly lower mass.
That does not win merit points with what I know about epistemology.
Unlike oil company executives, zero climate scientist salaries depend on global warming being true. That's just not how or why academic researchers get paid. They push the "agenda" because that's the model the data supports.
> zero climate scientist salaries depend on global warming being true. That's just not how or why academic researchers get paid. They push the "agenda" because that's the model the data supports.
The ClimateGate e-mails show otherwise. They show the warmist mafia conspiring to spike publication of contrary research.
If you can't get published, you don't get very far in academia.
And then there's the whole "I won't share my data because they'll use it to try to prove me wrong" thing.
The only conspiracy I do see in that write-up consists of sensationalist self-proclaimed experts, scientifically illiterate pundits and talking heads providing an illusion of controversy where none exists so that people like you tune in to their message and generate ad revenues and fat bonus pay-checks.
Honestly which do you believe is more likely - a vast global conspiracy of climatologists are swindling the public, people who have to publish models and/or data to support their claims, with all it taking is one honest scientist to expose them as frauds (withholding data as you point out does happen, but this affects the support their claims receive)... or a bunch of charismatic talking heads with zero science education or interest are hyping things up because they know, as an absolute and incontrovertible fact, that doing so generates revenue, votes, etc. from the conspiracy crowd?
I doubt all scientists are honest, but the proportion of scientists that are honest vs. the proportion of talking heads that are honest makes it pretty obvious where to look for a real conspiracy. It takes one scientist to expose a fraud definitively, but no amount of evidence seems to persuade a talking head to shut up as long as there's enough conspiracy theorists paying their salary and their master's profits.
Just out of curiousity, guy: can you actually describe the "ad-hoc theory"? How it works, what are the big factors, what are the spots that working climate scientists want to shore up?
Just to make sure you've given it some thought and aren't just repeating things you've heard off of blogs and Fox News.
They are very much ad hoc. At worst they could be considered glorified curve-fitting solutions with a large number of free parameters, like epicycles. At best they are an incredibly incomplete and flawed way to model the global climate.
Consider, many very fundamental aspects of climate modeling are typically just approximated using an empirically derived "fudge factor". For example, the interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and the transfer of heat between them, that's not derived from an extensive analysis from first principles, it's typically merely parameterized. The same goes for clouds which have poorly understood effects in climate science (combining both cooling and insulating aspects). And it's even true for the impact of CO2 concentrations as well.
The idea that we have a robust, from first principles understanding of climate science is patently ridiculous. Now, that doesn't discount the possibility that we understand climate well enough to make strong, well founded predictions about it. We should always be extremely careful to understand the limitations and assumptions of our models, because failing to do so is a recipe for being surprised when the real world deviates with your imperfect simulation of it.
That nicely fits leftist preconceptions, but it's 100% bullshit. The biggest anti-climate change organization I know of (and the worst quality), Heartland, gets about $4 million/year from corporations. On the other hand, climate change research funding from the US governmeny alone runs about $2 billion/year, which is partially dependent on keeping up the panic and alarm.
The most influential Climate Change skeptic, Steve McIntyre, lives on savings, a pension, an blog tips.
Your worldview is so factually wrong, it could hardly be worse.
This is not about politics, this is about science, and the science is clearly telling us we are having a significant impact on the earth's climate, and we must act with increasing urgency. The assertion that this is a leftist preconception is nonsense. People across the political spectrum understand the science - there are climate scientists who are part of the 95% scientific consensus who are also to the right politically.
The scientific consensus on global warming is beyond dispute, but like the Tobacco wars of yesteryear, industry will not go down without a well-funded fight (which is exactly what that illustration captures).
You imply in your rebuttal that climate change scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to increase funding. As I said further up the thread, it's as absurd as the '9/11 was an inside job' conspiracy favoured by what you would call 'leftists'.
Lets call the 'global warming conspiracy' what it is: a half-baked fringe conspiracy theory favoured by people who believe the 'skeptic' points endlessly promoted by industry (and continually debunked by actual scientists).
> "science is clearly telling us ... we must act with increasing urgency"
Forgive me for this meta-detour, but:
Science tells us that the climate is changing in ways that most of humanity would consider harmful. Science tells us that carbon emissions are one of the major drivers of those changes. Science tells us what we can expect to happen if we take certain courses of action. But science doesn't tell us what we "must" do or what course of action we "must" take; science only tells us "is".
"Must" is necessarily a matter of ethics, philosophy, politics, or religion. Science doesn't tell us what course of action is better or worse, only what the expected outcomes are. Things-other-than-science are how we determine what we mean by "better" or "worse" (for an extreme example, consider that some people want humanity to go extinct; their idea of "better" and my idea of "better" do not remotely resemble each other.)
You're certainly correct, but brevity of the writer and intelligence of the reader means I don't have to be explicit about every point, just as if I were to write that a cockpit altitude alarm is telling a pilot he must act with increasing urgency to pull a plane up from a perilous dive.
I could be explicit, and say that the alarm itself is just a combination of electrical circuitry and detectors that change behaviour due to input thresholds, and that the alarm does not particularly care whether the plane crashes or not, but I trust that the reader understands what I'm saying when I say the alarm is telling the pilot he must pull up.
In the case of a cockpit altitude alarm, "pull up from a perilous dive" may not be the appropriate response; "lower your nose and throttle up to build airspeed and get out of a perilous stall" may instead be called for. Additionally, pilots will universally agree that it is worth taking certain actions in order to avoid crashing. Thus, the use of shorthand in that situation is fairly reasonable.
When it comes to declaring what science tells us we "must" do, the picture is far less clear. One reason to be explicit about the difference between "is" and "must" is that even intelligent readers and writers sometimes hold mistaken beliefs here. Another reason is that, even among those in total agreement about the science and in total agreement about certain predictions, there is still disagreement about whether various tradeoffs are "worth" the cost. At that point, science is simply the wrong tool to tell us what we "must" do.
It's been pointed out to you that there is no 'well funded fight', except that plenty of government money is available to people who are looking for the 'right' answers.
You can argue on whatever other point you might like, but the fact is they mythical 'big oil' funding has been debunked many times over. Even the oil companies themselves fund more activities by strongly alarmist climate change people than they do for scientists who are skeptical of the catastrophic man-made climate change theories.
This scratching around for evidence is so manic it led to Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute committing identify theft and fraud to try and conjure up some evil plan from the Heartland institute. As it was the money he found wouldn't cover the canapes bill at an UNEP conference.
As pointed out, one of the most influential people in proxy temperature reconstructions is Steve McIntyre, who is retired and self funded, and does it out of a desire to make sure things are correct.
It's time to drop the 'half baked fringe conspiracy theory' that 'big oil' are somehow funding some sort of disinformation campaign.
It's also time to drop the '95% of climate scientists' meme, because it is the result of an unscientific online poll with a dismal response rate - the '95%' was 75 out of 77 scientists who self-identified as climate scientists taken from a poll of 10,250, of which there was 3,000 responses.
> climate change scientists are engaged in a conspiracy to increase funding
Conspiracy is the wrong word, but I don't know a single person who relies on funding to be interested in having it decreased. The simple truth is that funding should be blind, so that the researcher has no idea of who is paying for it. This applies to all disciplines, not just climate related.
In one corner, we have lawyers, lobbyists, and political groups whose sole mission is to cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt over claims of anthropogenic climate change. Every day they prevent action on CO2 emissions is another X $million made.
In the other corner we have people whose entire professional life is predicated on being right and carefully and systematically proving each other wrong. People who have repeatedly explained the basic physical mechanism by which CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, and shown that (and how) it accumulates in the atmosphere.
You seem to prefer trusting the lawyers, lobbyists, and political groups over the people whose entire culture is based in reasoned argument, systematic research, precision, accuracy, and integrity. I don't know why any reasonable person would do this.
"except that plenty of government money is available to people who are looking for the 'right' answers."
From the outset, you've flagged that you subscribe to the 'global warming conspiracy'. That a global conspiracy of scientists are co-ordinating a disinformation campaign to justify and increase funding. I mean, seriously, it's just absurd.
Although I think that sentence of yours brings the absurdity to new heights. Because why on earth would a government want scientists to give 'right' answers which have massive economic and social implications, and not in a good way? Your mental model of this issue really does not seem well thought out.
Your refutation of the scientific consensus on this topic is bizarre (you seem to think that the consensus is based on an 'unscientific online poll'!) Here's what the consensus actually looks like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...
I certainly agree with you that funding on any research should be blind, but the practicality of that in many situations means it's an idealistic position.
Alternatively one might conclude that websites from across the spectrum use linkbaity headlines to drive traffic. Even my daily newspaper screams it's headline at me in all caps, the horror!
Oops. I wonder if this pattern of heat domes will continue for the rest of the summer and what their frequency is. By the end of the year it might no longer be as unusual.
Per TFA, this isn't actually all that unusual. Core samples suggest it happens about every 150 years or so, with the last occurrence in the late 19th Century. Indeed, one of the scientists in the article says, "this event is right on time."
Still, I wish they'd provide a bit more information. Do we know what kind of event likely caused 1889's melting? Would it, similarly, have happened in such short a span of time, or due to a similar weather event? It's still hard to dismiss as "normal" when there are so many unanswered questions.
On it's own, it is just freak weather, which is why I was wondering about the probability of a clump of them, given the description of the weather cycle that triggered this. Lora Koenig, the scientist you quoted, was also saying that repetitions of this in the next few years would be worrisome.
"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."
Makes it a bit less scary. I think this is called burying the lede. ;-)