The heat is on: Global warming is the real deal

[TJHairball]

I think you get the gist of what I'm talking about...there's no need to be obstinate.

Ah, but I don't think I'm making myself entirely clear.

When a theory gains overwhelming support - or an element of it, e.g., time dilation as you approach lightspeed - 99% support among active scientists researching the field isn't too unusual, unlike 99% approval of a leader.

"Worked." Note that word.

Right, past tense.

It had been working; there was really no pressing reason to think it wouldn't still work, at least not that most people knew of... except perhaps a few hurricane and climate specialists aware that increasing surface sea temperatures mean more really nasty storms falling inland like that, but I think most of them hadn't thought about Nawlins itself.

Either you're being obstinate or you're simply thick. Let me spell it out, and that's the last I'll say on the matter because I think the point has been made:

Just because a resounding majority of scientists say something is so doesn't make it so. Eugenics, social philosophy that it is now, was an accepted scientific theory at the turn of the 20th century throughout western science. Through it, laws were enacted. Money was invested...on the order of millions (a lot of money in that time). Anyone who was someone either bought into eugenics as a scientific theory or they were considered "non-creditable." Sound familiar? The crazy thing was, after the effects of the US's exportation of organized eugenics to Germany resulted in the events of 1941-1945, eugenics was completely disavowed by the entire scientific establishment...not because it fell out of vogue, not because it was disproved, but because of the political ramifications involved in it. In short, the problem with everyone jumping on the bandwagon is that sooner or later the bandwagon will overload and turn over...and someone gets hurt.

And as we discussed, the big issues over this weren't over the validity of eugenics projects scientifically - that is, whether or not they could work - but the political and ethical problems.

While scientists aren't infallible... they're pretty damn good most of the time. Perhaps less so in the areas of social policy, but when you're dealing with the physical sciences, the scientific community's consensus is usually the best guess - and worth acting on. The lesson of the eugenics debacle is to always consider the ethical aspects of how you react to what scientists suggest.

Now it may not be distressing to you, but it sure as hell is to me, that when a) a sizable portion of any profession advocates something that consistently smells like junk science, and b) when dissenters are labelled "non-creditable" by proxy of saying "all credible scientists agree"...and allegedly educated individuals don't stop and think, then I detect crap.

I don't think all credible scientists agree... but most of them seem to be in agreement.

It's going to have to be a little more reliable before trillions of dollars are spent on something that also might be hooey.

Trillions? Even the highest estimates have trouble approaching that in anywhere near a timely fashion.

First, we're weighing the probability that the scientists are right times the cost of them being right (truly trillions in real estate losses, coastal maintainence programs, and increased storm damage, plus probably a few thousand more dead for the US alone in such storms, and trillions more for the rest of the world) vs the cost of curbing emissions. And for the US, a reduction in the dependence on MidEast oil and a jump start on the transition towards renewable fuels would be worthwhile (IMO) even without the climate threat.

Well, that's an impressive list of reviewers on that report. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean every single one, or even half of the reviewers agree with the results of that report. But I said something about peer reviews, so I opened the door.

So, why didn't the reviewers catch this little gem? The problem with the 2001 report is that the data is based on Michael Mann's hockey-stick graph. More specifically, the report used 112 proxy studies for the last 1000 years. Well, they sort of had to, didn't they?

Mann used a non-standard formula that would turn any set of data into a hockey stick graph.

So, in light of that would it be more accurate to say that the list of reviewers were a) incompetent or b) hand picked?

There is active debate going on about the "hockey stick." But that's not what the report I linked to was really dealing with in detail (although it uses it). Note that of the measurements and models for the past 150 years, the report concludes that humans are probably responsible for warming in the last 50 years (since 1950) and not really significantly previously. That's not really dependent on the hot dispute over the "little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period."

When it gets narrowed down for a 400% variation in predictions, then maybe I'll listen.

The current variability in prediction models is - according to what I see - ~410% for the 110 year scale.

So perhaps you should only trust predictions of what it'll be around 2080 if 400% is your mark. Just remember that there are key differences in the prediction of human behavior.

Now, let me throw this in: personally, yeah, I think we're getting warmer. Despite my differences with the measurement of this increase, I think we are...just based upon personal observation. The question is: are we causing it?

The big question there is the elimination of other possible causes. We have a very good idea of the radiative behavior of the Sun - a truly dominant factor, physicists have used Earth's average temperature to calculate how bright the Sun is - we have a good idea what major volcanic events are going on, and we're getting a better grasp of the oceans' and icecaps' thermal behavior every year. None of it seems to account for recent climate shifts, but we do see some pretty dramatic changes in atmospheric content due to known human behaviors.

Despite the best claims, we don't know. And here's why we don't know: we don't know enough about how our ecosystem works. We don't know enough to start effecting changes in our own industry and civilization. Fuck, we might accelerate the process.

Remember this: prediction is another word for educated guess.

It's possibly true that we could make things worse by reducing emissions...

...but probably only if we were already headed for a dramatic climate shift. See, usually impacts are in some form of monotone proportion to the effect, so a reduction in human emissions represents a reduction in the deviation from what would have happened if we weren't there.

I.e., only if Mother Nature was about to ass-rape our civilization could it help us to increase emissions.

 

[Starship Coyote]

Ah, but I don't think I'm making myself entirely clear.

When a theory gains overwhelming support - or an element of it, e.g., time dilation as you approach lightspeed - 99% support among active scientists researching the field isn't too unusual, unlike 99% approval of a leader.

The difference being: investing money, effort, material, and human lives not to mention human quality in a theory that has holes in it our theoretical 99% consensus won't address isn't good policy. Time dilation, for example, is still theory, and while it can be physically tested to some extent, we're a long ways from putting money or lives on the line in order to see if it's for real or not.

Right, past tense.

It had been working; there was really no pressing reason to think it wouldn't still work, at least not that most people knew of... except perhaps a few hurricane and climate specialists aware that increasing surface sea temperatures mean more really nasty storms falling inland like that, but I think most of them hadn't thought about Nawlins itself.And as we discussed, the big issues over this weren't over the validity of eugenics projects scientifically - that is, whether or not they could work - but the political and ethical problems.

Should read "that increasing surface sea temperatures might mean more really nasty storms falling inland like that." Additionally, NOLA isn't inland.

While scientists aren't infallible... they're pretty damn good most of the time. Perhaps less so in the areas of social policy, but when you're dealing with the physical sciences, the scientific community's consensus is usually the best guess - and worth acting on.

On this we somewhat agree. Fallibility isn't the issue with me...scientists are people and people make mistakes. However, my bone of contention is scientists seeing what they want to see in the data and not being skeptical about their own conclusions. You have to do that...you have to hand it over to someone else and say "am I really seeing this?"

The lesson of the eugenics debacle is to always consider the ethical aspects of how you react to what scientists suggest.

The lesson I drew was that just because a bunch of guys with a large slice of the alphabet say it's so doesn't mean it's so. Now, over a long period of time...yeah, well, we're coming to that...

I don't think all credible scientists agree... but most of them seem to be in agreement.

Well, that's the deal, isn't it? We don't know whether they're in agreement or not, do we? We get news reports that basically say "all credible scientists are in agreement" but in agreement about what? How far? How much are they on the same page in this? Are they all in agreement that the temps are rising? How about if civilization is causing it? How about can humankind actually do something about it? There's too many factors to consider for the average Chicken Little to be pulling an appeal to authority to back up his beliefs.

Trillions? Even the highest estimates have trouble approaching that in anywhere near a timely fashion.

On this, I apologize. I should have typed billions. I didn't mean trillions.

However, your link discusses impact on US economy I believe. For the nations that are following the Kyoto Accords, as of 9:50pm CST on this date, the cost to them stands at roughly 167,222,133,147 US$ while potentially impacting the global temperature by 0.001734160 degrees C.

First, we're weighing the probability that the scientists are right times the cost of them being right (truly trillions in real estate losses, coastal maintainence programs, and increased storm damage, plus probably a few thousand more dead for the US alone in such storms, and trillions more for the rest of the world) vs the cost of curbing emissions. And for the US, a reduction in the dependence on MidEast oil and a jump start on the transition towards renewable fuels would be worthwhile (IMO) even without the climate threat.

Would sound reasonable, if predictions bear out. Bottomline: we don't know and the evidence isn't sound enough in comparison to the validity of the studies done. I don't think one post would allow me to expound on that issue enough.

There is active debate going on about the "hockey stick." But that's not what the report I linked to was really dealing with in detail (although it uses it).

That's the IPCC 2001 report...I know what it is. It uses Mann's graph, IIRC without looking. More on that report below.

Note that of the measurements and models for the past 150 years, the report concludes that humans are probably responsible for warming in the last 50 years (since 1950) and not really significantly previously.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how they came to that conclusion either...other than devolving into chemistry which, admittedly, is not my best subject. However, I went to the GISS website and looked around for some data and found this graph:

Now look closely...it shows annual temps and 5-year means from 1880 to recently for both northern and southern latitudes. Notice several things:

1. Average temps for the southern lats stays higher than for the northern lats until 1920. Then things switch.

2. But that's also the time that temps really start rising in the north as well. The US for example is an industrial nation but not overly so until WWII and after. Britain and Germany, OTOH are. And yet, the temps are not that bad.

3. Even after WWII, when the US industry takes off, the average temps from roughly 1945 until well into the 1970s start falling! That's that ice age scare from the 1970s I was talking about earlier...and furthermore, that's the period of time in which US industry polluted the most! It's in the late 70s, after the EPA has persuaded Congress to enact anti-pollution laws governing our industry...after a series of clean air laws...etc. that the rise in temp really starts.

That's not really dependent on the hot dispute over the "little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period."The current variability in prediction models is - according to what I see - ~410% for the 110 year scale.

I typo'd and thus you may have been misled. I meant that I'll buy into it when the variance is a lot less than 400%. That's too much.

So perhaps you should only trust predictions of what it'll be around 2080 if 400% is your mark. Just remember that there are key differences in the prediction of human behavior.The big question there is the elimination of other possible causes. We have a very good idea of the radiative behavior of the Sun - a truly dominant factor, physicists have used Earth's average temperature to calculate how bright the Sun is - we have a good idea what major volcanic events are going on, and we're getting a better grasp of the oceans' and icecaps' thermal behavior every year. None of it seems to account for recent climate shifts, but we do see some pretty dramatic changes in atmospheric content due to known human behaviors.It's possibly true that we could make things worse by reducing emissions...

...but probably only if we were already headed for a dramatic climate shift. See, usually impacts are in some form of monotone proportion to the effect, so a reduction in human emissions represents a reduction in the deviation from what would have happened if we weren't there.

I.e., only if Mother Nature was about to ass-rape our civilization could it help us to increase emissions.

Then why isn't good ol' fashioned collected historical data being used correctly? Why are people raising hell about Glacier National Park ijn Montana melting away? It's lost its ice three times in the last 11,000 years. Kilaminjaro's icecap has been melting since the early 1800s, not due to pollutants, but due to the clearing of land around it. Incidentally, the ice in Antarctica is thickening, not melting, and the Ross Iceshelf has been eroding for the past 6000 years. In fact, talking about glaciers, we have data for only 79 of the roughly 160,000 glaciers in the world! These things are not indicative of climate changes we may or may not have caused...they're natural occurances.

My eyes are shot.

 

[TJHairball]

The difference being: investing money, effort, material, and human lives not to mention human quality in a theory that has holes in it our theoretical 99% consensus won't address isn't good policy. Time dilation, for example, is still theory, and while it can be physically tested to some extent, we're a long ways from putting money or lives on the line in order to see if it's for real or not.

But if we had any good reason to, we would. In a heartbeat.

Unless industry's pocketbooks looked to be at risk, in which case there would probably be whining - but not too much, because physicists are much harder to argue with than climatologists, and anything dramatic enough to put time dilation to the test as a practical concern is likely to be a matter of life or death rather than convenience.

Should read "that increasing surface sea temperatures might mean more really nasty storms falling inland like that." Additionally, NOLA isn't inland.

Far inward would be what I meant to say.

Anyway, the SST-hurricane season correlation is very firm. Amazingly so considering we only have a few decades of data for it.

On this we somewhat agree. Fallibility isn't the issue with me...scientists are people and people make mistakes. However, my bone of contention is scientists seeing what they want to see in the data and not being skeptical about their own conclusions. You have to do that...you have to hand it over to someone else and say "am I really seeing this?"

I think this is being done; you don't. That's where we disagree.

Well, that's the deal, isn't it? We don't know whether they're in agreement or not, do we? We get news reports that basically say "all credible scientists are in agreement" but in agreement about what? How far? How much are they on the same page in this? Are they all in agreement that the temps are rising? How about if civilization is causing it? How about can humankind actually do something about it? There's too many factors to consider for the average Chicken Little to be pulling an appeal to authority to back up his beliefs.

So far as I've read, they pretty much agree on the following:

• Temperatures are right now rising rapidly.
• It is mostly, or entirely, our fault.
• Unless something changes, average temperatures will increase by a few degrees over the next century or so.

On this, I apologize. I should have typed billions. I didn't mean trillions.

However, your link discusses impact on US economy I believe. For the nations that are following the Kyoto Accords, as of 9:50pm CST on this date, the cost to them stands at roughly 167,222,133,147 US$ while potentially impacting the global temperature by 0.001734160 degrees C.

Without China, India, and the US reducing emissions, I will be surprised to see any noticable change. I'm not sure Kyoto really will have much effect itself.

Even with the US, China, and India reducing emissions, it'll be hard to tell any shift in less than a couple decades. The idea of restricting emissions is to try and avoid a runaway buildup... and, IIRC, projected to slow, rather than stop, current warming trends.

Would sound reasonable, if predictions bear out. Bottomline: we don't know and the evidence isn't sound enough in comparison to the validity of the studies done. I don't think one post would allow me to expound on that issue enough.

Bottom line for me is that we now (particularly thanks to the past 10 years of dramatic increases in computer modeling technology) have a very firm case to know there is a link there.

Exactly how much of an effect it is, and how we can fix things at this point in a realistic manner - that is uncertain to a degree. Curbing emissions seems a logical step to take, but we may not be able to avoid a warming phase without actually scrubbing a certain amount of already-emitted greenhouse gases.

That's the IPCC 2001 report...I know what it is. It uses Mann's graph, IIRC without looking. More on that report below.

Uses it, but does not centrally rely upon it for the basic conclusion of 50 years.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how they came to that conclusion either...other than devolving into chemistry which, admittedly, is not my best subject. However, I went to the GISS website and looked around for some data and found this graph:

Now look closely...it shows annual temps and 5-year means from 1880 to recently for both northern and southern latitudes. Notice several things:

1. Average temps for the southern lats stays higher than for the northern lats until 1920. Then things switch.

2. But that's also the time that temps really start rising in the north as well. The US for example is an industrial nation but not overly so until WWII and after. Britain and Germany, OTOH are. And yet, the temps are not that bad.

3. Even after WWII, when the US industry takes off, the average temps from roughly 1945 until well into the 1970s start falling! That's that ice age scare from the 1970s I was talking about earlier...and furthermore, that's the period of time in which US industry polluted the most! It's in the late 70s, after the EPA has persuaded Congress to enact anti-pollution laws governing our industry...after a series of clean air laws...etc. that the rise in temp really starts.

"Start falling."

There are a couple things here. First, effects can be delayed; second, there's lots of "noise" in that data. Weather is very chaotic.

For this reason, they broke their "recorded history" into three basic periods, over which they could see overall trends. 1850-1900, 1900-1950, and 1950-2000. So when they say from 1950-2000... they're not necessarily meaning the years exactly, simply the period.

(I've seen the data used to support the model for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. It's every bit as noisy looking. You look at it, and the first reaction is "They claim what?" Analyzing the data statistically, though, there's a significant correlation that's not so easy to be sure of visually.)

I typo'd and thus you may have been misled. I meant that I'll buy into it when the variance is a lot less than 400%. That's too much.

It's a lot, but so's a century.

We're looking at a variance on the order of 1% on a chaotic system. 400% MOE in terms of the magnitude of increase isn't actually too bad. I'm pretty sure it'll get much better in another five years, but there are too many unpredictable potential confounds (such as volcanic activity or an unanticipate minor fluctuation in solar irradiance) over that period to refine precision of predicted temperature past a certain degree. (Possibly a full 1-2 degrees variance will have to remain in any reasonably accurate model.)

Then why isn't good ol' fashioned collected historical data being used correctly? Why are people raising hell about Glacier National Park ijn Montana melting away? It's lost its ice three times in the last 11,000 years. Kilaminjaro's icecap has been melting since the early 1800s, not due to pollutants, but due to the clearing of land around it. Incidentally, the ice in Antarctica is thickening, not melting, and the Ross Iceshelf has been eroding for the past 6000 years. In fact, talking about glaciers, we have data for only 79 of the roughly 160,000 glaciers in the world! These things are not indicative of climate changes we may or may not have caused...they're natural occurances.

My eyes are shot.

Lost its ice 3 times in the last 11,000 years? IIRC, there have been a few catastrophic climate shifts in that length of time. (And IIRC, if we catch a pole shift or something, we may catch one that's not our fault. See what I said about emissions possibly helping us if Mother Nature is about to ass-rape civilization.)

If historical data isn't being used, what are they using when they put stuff down in 1850-1950 as measured temperatures?