Climate Changes Shift Springtime in Europe 259
gollum123 writes to mention a BBC article on a study of Europe's changing climate. The study collated information from 17 nations and 125,000 studies involving 561 species. The results indicate that, at least in Europe, 'Spring' is coming earlier and earlier every year. From the article: "Spring was beginning on average six to eight days earlier than it did 30 years ago, the researchers said. In regions such as Spain, which saw the greatest increases in temperatures, the season began up to two weeks earlier. The findings were based on what was described as the world's largest study of changes in recurring natural events, such as when plants flowered. The team of researchers also found that the onset of autumn has been delayed by an average of three days over the same period."
30 years ago? (Score:5, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
The arguement usually goes that before 1970 we thought there was a new ice age coming, due to a global cooling trend. This is usually followed by the arguement that climate scientists don't know what they're talking about, and that man-made global warming is a myth. What this "talking point" ignores is that the so-called "new ice age" never had much scientific credibility; it is primarily remembered because it had a great deal of press coverage. Further, IIRC the global warming hypothesis goes back to at least 1968.
In every single
Note that the GP's point is valid, as there was an observed period of lower temperature 30 years ago (which is what sparked all the media speculation regarding a new ice age). However, I'm sure the scientists who did this study took that trend into account, and in any case the cooling trend was both brief and comparatively small.
The Earth did cool 1940 - 1970 (Score:4, Informative)
The Earth was cooler from 1940 to 1970 - this was due to diesel engines producing sulfate aerosols, which are highly reflective. Right now we gain about 4.0 watts/meter^2 due to CO2 and methane, but we lose about half of it due to the sulfate aerosols still in the stratosphere. The cleaner burning fuels we implemented in the 1970s resulted in lower amounts of that stuff in the atmosphere, hence the reversal of the cooling (dimming, actually) trend.
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Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahhhhhhhhhh, how ironic this could look in another 20 or 30 years.
KFG
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Perhaps "Global Climate Change" would have been better... or just "Global We're Fucked"
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Making it a very good analogy for the global warming hype..
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Re:Yes....well...... (Score:5, Informative)
Mars, just like earth, undergoes natural climate fluctuation. On Earth we have Milankovitch cycles [wikipedia.org], based on the eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit. Mars also has interesting orbital variations, and significantly greater orbital eccentricity than the earth. This results in similar, though differently timed, significant variations in climate. Mars also suffers from severe dust storms which can have a large impact on climate due t changes in atmospheric opacity. Combine that with the current solar variation [wikipedia.org], to which the IPCC attributes around 30% of the Earth's observed warming, and it isn't that surprising that Mars might be experiencing some climatic change currently.
The real difference between climate change on Mars and climate change on Earth is that the degree of change currently observed on Mars is entirely explainable in terms of observed natural effects, while the climate change on Earth is not. Anthropogenic effects, to the very bestof our knowledge, are required to explain the currently observed warming on Earth.
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Simply not true. The climate changes on Earth are entirely explicable as natural variation as the IPCC TAR made clear in 2001. The man-made hypothesis i
Re:Yes....well...... (Score:5, Informative)
It's interesting you say that - could you provide me a reference for where the IPCC TAR concludes that the changes are "entirely explicable" as natural forcings? When I read through the conclusion of the attribution chapter [grida.no] I don't see anything about natural forcings providing adequate explanations. On the contrary we have
The best I can grant you is: "Natural factors may have contributed to the early century warming." but the warming in the last several decades cannot adequately be attributed to natural factors alone.
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The attributions and the assumption of the unnaturalness of 20th Century warming was made because of the Mann Hockey Stick, a known scientific fabrication, recently condemned by an independe [house.gov]
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The House Committee asked these expert statisticians to look at the Hockey Stick, and the statisticians refused to be paid by the Committee and are not politically republican.
You're helping scientific fraudsters get away with an extremely expensive poltically inspired panic. "The 1
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The pollution the committee is responsible for protecting makes "extremely expensive" and "politically inspired" look like a kids game. No matter how many times I hear you deniers lie about it [google.com], that doesn't make it true, even though ">that's your standard for truth [slashdot.org].
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Nowhere did I write that "there is no global warming".
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Generally pretty good. They test their models by training on one historical dataset and running it on a different one. For the most part the models use purely observed data - this gives a smaller range to play with, but results in much smaller uncertainties in the resulting model.
Re:Yes....well...... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, there is that. Of course in mentioned that in the post you just replied to:
So the answer is that solar variation is likely having an effect, and our best current studies put that effect at up to 30% of current observed warming on earth. It's not like this is being ignored or anything - I'm not sure what your point is exactly.
Re:Yes....well...... (Score:4, Informative)
Not by the people actually studying this. The IPCC TAR devotes an entire section to solar forcing of climate and, as I said, concludes it has had a significant (up to 30%) impact on the recent observed warming here on earth. Variation in solar radiation is considered in pretty much all climate models. I can't exactly see how you can call that ignoring it. If you want more then try some [mps.mpg.de] papers by [mps.mpg.de] Solanki and others [mps.mpg.de].
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Are you actually trying to prove yourself wrong (or did I miss sarcasm here)? Tell me how a direct measurement in the start of spring from 1971 to 2000 would not be skewed by the fact that there was a cooling period in the 70s? If in generally the climate was cooler during the 70s, the start of spring would have been later and the start of autu
Wrong! (Score:3, Informative)
One of the paper's lead authors, Tim Sparks from the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), said the findings did not go as far as pointing the finger of blame at human-induced climate change. "We can't tell that from our study but experts have already shown that there is a discernable human influence on the current climate warming."
He explicitly says that his study cannot show that global warming was the cause.
Maybe you read it wrong but Tim Sparks explicitly states "the findings did not g
Re:30 years ago? (Score:5, Informative)
In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually.
So, as a rough estimate growing seasons are about the same as they were in the 1950s. The researchers only went back 30 years so they wouldn't have to deal with this "anomaly". That is known in some circles as "cooking the data".
This is what pisses me off about the GW thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Feynman said it best:
"It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another."
(http://www.physics.brocku.ca/etc/cargo_cult_scie
This cherry picking of data, downplaying and/or ignoring of contradictory results and such is just not acceptable. It may very well be that there's something to the idea that humans are causing global warming and that it's going to lead to bad things, but the way to prove that is not to use bad science.
Because of all this crap floating around on both sides, I personally have just said "fuck it" in relation to global warming. I'm not looking in to it anymore, I don't know who to believe. I neither believe nor disbelieve the theory. I'll continue to conserve as much as possible in my personal life (biking to work, for example, which I highly recommend) since I believe in conservation for it's own sake and since it makes economic sense (use less, have more). However I'm not going to get all worked up about it because I just can't figure out if there's anything to get all worked up about.
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there are no "two sides" (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't have to be "better". Because the potential downsides are so huge, it's sufficient for people who are concerned about global warming to demonstrate that it is a plausible possibility and that it has significant costs. That has clearly been done. Furthermore, we know that the costs of carbon emission reductions are small in comparison to the costs r
That's what religion does... (Score:2)
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There is a very large 'Global Warming' industry. There are plenty of people making a lot of money off of scaring other people.
There are also very large industries who make lots of money while denying global warming. The petroleum, coal, and power, industries may have much to loose if there are restrictions on greenhouse gases. Money isn't a one way street, er people don't only make money on one side of the street. I'd say let the freemarkets work but if someone's property gets flooded by rising sea le
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First, the GP was not talking about "better" in terms of correctness; he was talking about
Re:30 years ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
North America's climate was cooler from roughly 1950 through about 1975; but I don't know that it was a world-wide phenomenon (it could have been; I just don't know.). However "cooler" is a relative term - it wasn't "Little Ice Age" cool or anything like that. It was just cooler than the period before and after. You might notice that a lot of your local record low temps occured in the 1950s; at least if you live in the US.
There have been a lot of fluctuations like this, and will continue to be whether global warming continues or not (that's one thing that bugs me - the debate shouldn't be "it is warming" versus "it isn't warming". The ice core records taken in the past two decades have established that IT IS WARMING UP. The question really is, is this observed warming trend caused by man's activity [anthropogenic] or is it a natural fluctuation?).
That's one of the problems with the global warming discussion. As the climate continues to warm year after year it becomes more and more likely that this is anthropogenic rather than natural; but by the time we are 100% certain it'll be too late to do anything. Unfortunately this sort of uncertainty is common in science, which means politicians can use their mad spin skillz to argue it whatever way their constituency wants.
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'70's cooling trend - global dimming? (Score:2, Informative)
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Leela: Actually, it did. But thank God nuclear winter cancelled it out.
Really? (Score:2, Funny)
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Easy solutions... (Score:4, Funny)
No Way!!! (Score:2)
That's right in the middle of our summer holidays, usually heralding a trip to the beach with our new christmas presents, and lazy summer days. You can prise that week from my cold dead fingers! The first week in July would be much better.
Damn northern-hemisphere-centric views...
All I can think of... (Score:2, Funny)
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Springtime for Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Europe was having trouble.
What a sad, sad story.
Needed a new climate to restore.
Its former glory.
Where, oh, where was it?
Where could that man it?
We looked around and then we found.
The pollution for you and me.
LEAD TENOR SCIENTIST:
And now it's...
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
Glaciers receding at a faster pace
Look out, here comes the heatwave race!
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Rhineland's a fine land once more!
Springtime for Europe and Germany
Watch out, Europe
Al Gore going on tour!
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Indeed, Earth has gone from Global Snowball to the current temperatures and a slight downturn can send us right back.
The re
Do NOT be alarmed! (Score:5, Funny)
What about the other seasons? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Since the middle of July, it's been uncommonly cool (50s F? 60s and low 70s?) for the most part, punctuated by a few very hot and humid days (quickly followed by a downpour of several days and coolness). It's odd behavior - the weather and climate has definately changed - but it's hardly "global warming" - at least locally.
It has felt like fall for a while here.
Climate changes or light changes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming I am not mistaken in my recollection of AP Biology, plants flower based upon the longest period of darkness that they percieve. That is to say, when certain enzymes in plants are not exposed to IR light for a certain period of time (varying based upon the plant), processes including flowering occur.
So, this may not be based as much upon climate change as much as light change, which could easily be caused by increasing urbanization (city lights and such providing enough light to change these processes).
... or something else? (Score:3, Interesting)
Good point (and good elaboration of it). Now, TFA mentions that they observed "542 plants and 19 animal species". Which doesn't go against the issue that you raise, since changes in plants can lead directly to changes in animals dependent upon them. So, it might not be climate change but something else that affects plants. However, I am not sure I agree about light being the necessary culprit; whe
Don't believe everything you read (Score:5, Funny)
Past results are no guarantee of future returns. (Score:2)
Plus, white styrofoam chunks, shiny aluminum cans, and glass bottles should be spread around outside, to help reflect sunlight away from the earth.
And bird flu/SARS will solve any overpopulation problem.
Nature can take care of itself, by taking care of us.
Re:Past results are no guarantee of future returns (Score:2)
And on a more serious note, you do realize that bird flu and SARS are far less serious than the black death in the middle ages and the 1918 flu epidemic right? Disease organisms that kill their host die themselves in the proccess, so there is a strong evolutionary pressure against fatal epidemics. If we were all going to die of some horrible plague, we'd have done so already. Plagues can cause great human suffering, but aren't likely to cause extinctio
More research needs to be done (Score:2, Insightful)
What does (Score:2, Funny)
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If there is one
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Doom Awaits Us All! (Score:2)
Nature emits more CO2 than humans... (Score:2, Interesting)
The funny part... (Score:2, Interesting)
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BTW as for Kyoto the only countries in europe that have a chance of actually meeting it are UK and Germany, UK because they are spending alot on nuclear and plants and Germany because datawise they get to count old East German plants that got closed down as thier start point. However the chance of both of them actually meeting it are none.
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Sorry, no. In western countries, CO2 output is roughly equivilant to the population count. In developing countries, it's even higher.
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Sheesh, where do you get your beliefs? On the contrary, rich countries have roughly ten times higher [wri.org] CO2 emission per capita than developing countries. And the US is indeed [nef.org.uk] among the world's worst polluters per capita [grida.no].
Not true... (Score:2)
I don't know where you have heard that, but it's definitely not true. Granted, by 2003 the EU15 only managed to achieve 1.7% out of the pledged 8% by 2010, but major economies like Germany are on their way (18.5% out of 21%) or already have met their goal like the UK (13.3
difference in winter start? (Score:2)
Just to hazard a guess: it was about the same period of time earlier then than now.
global warming shift springtime (Score:2)
Hope Springs Eternal (Score:2)
Start from scratch (Score:2)
1. There is a complex system involving equilibrium in which for a relatively long time period the proportion of X in a gas suffused throughout the system has been Y. That gas plays an active role in interaction with many other parts of the system.
2. Over a relatively short period the proportion of X is increased towards 2 * Y.
Would you venture then, having a general background knowledge of complex systems in equilibrium, that the doubling of Y would:
A. Dissrupt the
Re:someone's going to blame 'greenhouse gasses' (Score:4, Informative)
I'm reading the article article you linked to, and it seems to support the greenhouse gas theory. For instance, in section 5 (split over pages 2 and 3):
I can't find any mentions of volcanism. Please point them out or provide a better source.
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So much for my high regard for 5 digit slashdot userID posters.
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
We do not, of course, know for certain what is causing the observed changes. The best evidence we currently have, however, indicates that human actions play a significant role in the current warming. Attribution is a tricky question, so considerable study has taken place. There is quite a lot of data stacking up in favour of human factors being a primary cause. Take some time and read through the IPCC summary of climate attribution studies [grida.no] and bear in mind that this was as of 2001 - we know even more now. We're not talking about simplistic correlation based guesses, were talking about serious quantative analysis by a number of different methods, in a large number of different studies. None of that, of course, rules out other possibilities entirely - but we currently know of no natural phenomena that can successfully describe the current degree of change, and there is considerable evidence and explanatory power provided by anthropogenic changes. By all means keep an open mind, but face up to the fact that, to the best of our not inconsiderable knowledge on the matter, anthropogenic changes are the primary factor in current climatic change.
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Yes. Now we know that the centerpiece of that summary, the "Mann Hockey Stick", turned out to be a scientific fraud.
Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:5, Informative)
Which is to say, you didn't read it. Honestly, have a look at chapter 12 (Attribution) of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. You'll find just a single mention, buried in the qualitative section, of Mann's study, listed amongst 5 other different palaeological climate reconstructions by different authors, and only to note that "the 20th century warming is highly unusual." You can see those reconstructions (plus several others) charted together [wikipedia.org] if you're curious. Mann's studies, let alone the "Hockey Stick", far from being "the centerpiece", get scant mention. Instead the attribution factor considers many studies using indices and time series methods, pattern correlation methods, and optimal fingerprint methods. This table [grida.no] provides a summary of the attribution studies considered, along with the method, the uncertainty, the timescale considered etc. You might care to note that Mann is not involved in any of the studies considered.
Of course calling Mann's work a "scientific fraud" is rather unfounded too. You may note, in the chart linked above, that there are many other historical temperature reconstructions, done indepdently by different people, that arrive at a similar result to Mann. There is also the recent National Academy of Sciences report [nationalacademies.org] on the subject which concluded, with high confidence, that the earth was the warmest it had been in 400 years, and that while there was less confidence in reconstructions going further back, they still point to the earth undergoing unusual recent warming. On the other hand you have the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce [house.gov], and an economist [uoguelph.ca] and someone from the mining industry [exxonsecrets.org] claiming it is all bunk. At least McIntyre and McKitrick wrote some semi-respectable papers, though there is considerable dispute about their methodology [realclimate.org] (at least as much, if not far more, than there is about Mann's).
Let's cast all of that dispute aside however, and assume that Mann was full of crap - that still makes no difference whatsoever to the content of the attribution chapter of the IPCC report I linked to, and which you so very clearly didn't bother to read. I don't mind people having differing opinions, but when they are based on apparently willful ignorance I am a little appalled.
Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Informative)
You said the SUMMARY not the chapter. The centerpiece of the SUMMARY was the thoroughly discredited "Mann Hockey Stick" a piece of shit so bad that not even Mann bothered to defend it when he testified in Congress recently. It was Mann's study that was touted as the "Smoking Gun" of man-made climate change and it was Mann's study that was reproduced five or six times in the Summary for Policymakers.
Actually the Mann Hockey Stick gets scant attention now because it's been revealed to be a fraud, which was shoved down the throats of scientists, politicians and the public. The other studies in that spaghetti graph are siblings of the Hockey Stick, using the same flawed proxies over and over again, as the Wegman report [house.gov] made clear. Steve McIntyre [climateaudit.org] has shown that ALL of those studies fail statistical verification tests just like the Hockey Stick.
Hockey Stick Denialism means rewriting history, and Wikipedia is the perfect medium to do it.
As Wegman noted, all of those studies used the same flawed proxies, and some used Mann's flawed PC1 as a proxy in itself, even though it had already been shown to be a product of bad data in 2003 and bad statistics in 2005. There's even a nice table in Wegman showing how they are all related. Wegman testified that Mann's study was a piece of "bad mathematics" and was meaningless.
The Mann Hockey Stick was a deliberate fabrication of the climatic record. It removed the Little ice Age and Medieval Warm Period as global phenomena and even last year Mann confirmed [sciam.com] that the Hockey Stick did not have those events. It should be obvious that writing "Medieval Warm Period" and "Little Ice Age" across the top of a set of graphs that doesn't show them is not exactly evidence, but we're dealing with Denialism here.
What they effectively was re-establish the Little Ice Age, which Mann had said didn't exist and downgraded the rest of his crap to "plausible" which my dictionary [dictionary.com] defines as
1. having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable: a plausible excuse; a plausible plot.
2. well-spoken and apparently, but often deceptively, worthy of confidence or trust: a plausible commentator.
That the Mann Hockey Stick was deliberately fabricated and knowingly false was the discovery of
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You manage to quote two people (two - out of a couple of thousand people who actually study this stuff), yet completely fail to acknowledge the subsequent discussion of McIntyre and McKitrick's critique.
As both the NAS Panel and the Wegman report noted, none of that subsequent discussion had any relevance as to whether Mann's study was a scientific crock of shit, which it was.
Furthermore, you present these as independent, when they are actually working for fields with a very heav
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Sigh. I said to read "the IPCC summary of climate attribution studies" which was a link to chapter 12, the attribution chapter of the IPCC TAR, which was a summary of around 13 different attribution studies (not a single one of which was by Mann). The hint was to click on the link and to
Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Earlier on, you write,
"Take some time and read through the IPCC summary of climate attribution studies [grida.no] and bear in mind that this was as of 2001 - we know even more now.".
Are you implying that more (reliable and relevant) data has been collected over the past five years or that computer climate modeling has gotten more sophisticated and impressive to the layman?
For someone who asks everyone else to "keep an open mind", you already seem to have made yours up.
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I'm simply saying that, since 2001, more data has been collected and further studies and papers have been published on the subject of attribution of climate change. Obviously all those studies are not going to be listed in an IPCC report from 2001. I'm not exactly sure what you're driving at here? Are you implying tha
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I was hoping you could provide whatever evidence you've read to support your point of view. I was figuring maybe you would point to Solanki's solar variation studies, which are the best I've seen for evidence of natural factors being the primary cause of current warming, or preferably something better than that that I simply hadn't seen yet. I'm not at all averse to having my opinion swayed, I would just like a reason to do so.
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Based on my experiences in high energy physics (seeing how rare it is for theorists to come up with good effective models before there is an awful lot of experimental data in front of them), I'd have to say it probably makes more
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Yes they do include uncertainties, in fact I've seen entire papers devoted to nothing but refining the accuracy of the uncertainty estimates. As
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You're confusing the philosophical problem of proving an absolute negative with the standard research practice of testing for the null hypothesis (i.e., that the data in question is random, or does not support the current hypothesis). The latter is part of any science study dealing with data sets. Not only that, but data sets can be tested for randomness and trends. Absence of trends is fairly easi
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I think most scientists tend to agree that there is certainly some warming going on because of us humans. There is disagreement as to how much. The bigger thing in my mind is "so what?" This is where the grant-hungry doomsdayers come in. The earth almost certainly contained higher CO2 concentrations and had higher temperatures in the past due to volcanic activity. Life survived then just fine.
The easy pickings for t
Re:Is it us or is it mother nature? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense.
If the climate change is minor and tolerable, we don't need to do much of anything, even if it's man-made.
If the climate change is going to be catastrophic, we should do something serious about it, even if it is natural.
Whether it's natural or not, has little bearing on whether humans (society) will be able to survive it.
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Well, there's basically two things we can do about global warming: Alter the climate artificially, or adapt to the changing climate. If this warming is anthropegenic, that tells us that we already have technology capable of making drastic climate changes, and that investing in more technology that can cause helpful (rather than harmful) changes is a good idea. If this turns out to be com
I don't agree (Score:2)
This I disagree with. I doesn't matter whether we know that the temperature change is (partially) man-made. Let's assume that the probability that human behaviour can't influence the climate chance towards a more positive outcome is 80%. That means the probability that we can make a difference is 20%. Isn't 20% enough to at least try?
The simple fact is that whether we have proof
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but then, we didn't have much of a winter. it was barely cold enough for heavy jackets, probably not dipping below 20F but a time or two, with little snow.
and the summer has been pretty mild in general, too - very, very cool, with a very unusually high amount of rainfall.
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The winter was also early, and in some districts unusually cold. For about a week in June, the weather report was listing quite a lot of places in
Re:Thats odd (Score:4, Informative)
What you're referring to is thermohaline inversion - the process by which the North Atlantic current is thought to stop once enough sweet water is released into the ocean from melting ice in Greenland and the North Pole. It has not yet occurred. But there are signs that the current in question is slowing down, which is the start of the process. Cooling of the Western European countries (specifically Great Britain) will only occur once the current actually stops. Before that, effects will be negligible.