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Global Warming (Climate Change)
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Author:  Darkroland [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:40 am ]
Post subject:  Global Warming (Climate Change)
I have the feeling this might get moved to Hellfire, but since I don't go there, I thought I'd start it here where the normals can see it.

Is anyone else starting to get really annoyed by people looking out their window at the snow storm and posting/tweeting/texting something like "6 inches of snow, global warming my ***! Al Gore is an idiot!"

Editing now that I'm awake:

More specific, regardless of your thoughts on global warming, the ten warmest years on record (according to the U.N. metorological organization) have all occurred since 1998, so it's definitely getting warmer. My point was that people ignore long term data in looking out their window, regardless of the cause of the warming. :)
Author:  Kaffis Mark V [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:44 am ]
Post subject: 
It amuses me that you consider Global Warming a scientific endeavor. And that's all I'm going to say, lest the thread get moved.
Author:  Aizle [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:52 am ]
Post subject: 
I couldn't agree more Darkroland.
Author:  Ienan [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
It happens in reverse with people who support HIGW (or the changed for political convenience name of human-induced global climate change). People are actually claiming the heavy snow is the reason for global climate change.

Of course if you actually look at the scientific data, there is plenty of evidence that shows this is a natural phenomenom as well as evidence that shows it may not be. But it certainly isn't definitive either way. In fact, there's evidence that may lead to the conclusion that a cooling period is starting, which is why HIGW advocates changed the name of global warming to climate change. And if you think scientists aren't swayed by their political interests and will skew the data and/or interpret the data to fit their own viewpoints, then let me show you a theory about mercurial compounds in vaccines causing higher autism rates.
Author:  Mookhow [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:50 am ]
Post subject: 
Regardless of their stance on global warming, people are stupid.
Author:  Darkroland [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re:
Mookhow wrote:
Regardless of their stance on global warming, people are stupid.


THIS! This is the meaning I was attempting to convey with my post. Thank you Moo.
Author:  Corolinth [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Any time the subject of global warming or global climate change comes up, I feel it's important to familiarize the audience with this concept:

Image
Author:  Mookhow [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:32 pm ]
Post subject: 
Sine wave?
Author:  Aethien [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:29 pm ]
Post subject: 
Deviations from the norm or something, I suspect.

Nonetheless, the sever weather we've been having (globally) is part of the pattern for climate change - more extremes, not necessarily always higher temps. It's funny, but it occurred to me that three big weather events - the big rainstorm in Southern California in December, and now this big snowstorm in the U.S., and the hurricane in Australia - have all been described as "once in a lifetime/century" events. That's kind of an interesting coincidence.
Author:  NephyrS [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:40 pm ]
Post subject: 
The Science News Cycle

But yes, I see this all the time and it irritates me. You also see it with people claiming that some new discovery (scientific) is for more generalizable than it really is.

For instance, a study shows that in X case, Y is true... All people read is that Y is true, very few actually care about what conditions were in place to make X. Take the "replication of a synthetic cell" that was published a while back... It sparked off all kinds of nuts on all sides of the line talking about creating synthetic life. No one really read that the "X case" was that the DNA was injected into a fully formed and functional cell that had previously been evacuated of genetic material. Basically, we could "reprogram" life, but not create it... Something we've been able to do for quite some time.

It's quite frustrating when people want to generalize data from either specific conditions or anecdotal observation.
Author:  Ienan [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Darkroland wrote:
More specific, regardless of your thoughts on global warming, the ten warmest years on record (according to the U.N. metorological organization) have all occurred since 1998, so it's definitely getting warmer. My point was that people ignore long term data in looking out their window, regardless of the cause of the warming.

Cut and dried right? Do you know how they calculate the average temperatures? I do. There are many potential errors with the way it's calculated. I'm not saying it's invalid. I'm saying it needs to be questioned and re-questioned much more than scientists currently are doing. And if you look at the World Meteorological Organization, they are intent on coming to a certain conclusion to push a political agenda of less emissions. We can't even say if it's getting warmer for certain, let alone coming to a conclusion if it's significant or human induced. Science takes time and recorded temperatures have only been in place for about 150 years. We can only infer what temperatures were like many hundreds and thousands of years ago based on forensic projections.

Aethien wrote:
Nonetheless, the sever weather we've been having (globally) is part of the pattern for climate change - more extremes, not necessarily always higher temps. It's funny, but it occurred to me that three big weather events - the big rainstorm in Southern California in December, and now this big snowstorm in the U.S., and the hurricane in Australia - have all been described as "once in a lifetime/century" events. That's kind of an interesting coincidence.

I don't think it's coincidence. I think it's hyperbole. The Northeast hasn't even received it's worst snowfall total in the past 15 years nor has any one storm been worse. Southern California got hit with more rain than usual, but it's not out of the ordinary. And the disaster cyclone in Australia is a Katrina-level storm. Certainly nasty, but not out of the realm of possible or even probable. Remember, we're only pulling from historical data from the past 150 years or so. That's not a lot of data points in the grand scheme of things, considering how long the Earth has existed and the many warming and cooling periods that have occurred.
Author:  Shelgeyr [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Corolinth wrote:
Any time the subject of global warming or global climate change comes up, I feel it's important to familiarize the audience with this concept:
Oh man, I glanced at your avatar immediately after reading this sentence...
Author:  Kaffis Mark V [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re:
Mookhow wrote:
Sine wave?

Periodic function, is my guess.
Author:  Lonedar [ Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:12 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alls I know is that on the one hand Greenland used to be greenier and on the other hand many glaciers appear to be receding. I'm so confused.
Author:  Raltar [ Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:25 am ]
Post subject: 
I honestly don't believe we have enough data to say that it is human induced. I mean, how long have we been accurately measuring this sort of thing? I can't imagine it's been very long.
Author:  Midgen [ Sat Feb 05, 2011 3:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re:
Raltar wrote:
I honestly don't believe we have enough data to say that it is human induced. I mean, how long have we been accurately measuring this sort of thing? I can't imagine it's been very long.



..to say that *what* is human induced? Exactly?

The fact that the weather changes?
Author:  Raltar [ Sat Feb 05, 2011 3:48 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Re:
Midgen wrote:
Raltar wrote:
I honestly don't believe we have enough data to say that it is human induced. I mean, how long have we been accurately measuring this sort of thing? I can't imagine it's been very long.



..to say that *what* is human induced? Exactly?

The fact that the weather changes?


Exactly.
Author:  Corolinth [ Sun Feb 06, 2011 4:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
"Six inches of snow - global warming my ***!" is no different from, "The average temperature has gone up 0.3K over the past ten years!" Both statements use the same spurious logic to reach a flawed conclusion.

As was pointed out, we have a hundred and fifty years of temperature data. The last fifty of those years were more precise by orders of magnitude than the first fifty. A hundred and fifty years ago today, J.C. Maxwell's unified equations for electricity and magnetism had not yet been published. Radio had not yet been invented. Transatlantic telegraphy had not yet been successful.

Now let's talk about the word about the word average. Take a look at this table. As you can see, there are fourteen different definitions for the word average. Even if we assume average to be some sort of mean, there are nine of those. Which one is being used? Which one is best for this purpose? Let's say I use a quadratic mean. What period am I integrating over? If I use a weighted mean, how do I weight the values? Can you see how it could be both problematic and appropriate to use a truncated mean?

Back to that temperature data. Where are these observatories that I'm recording temperatures at? Are they near populated areas (heat islands)? How many of them are at the poles? When I go back to average my data, how do I account for the fact that the poles are the coldest places on Earth while still using the data obtained there? How am I recording temperatures for the 70.8% of the Earth's surface that's covered in water?

Earth's temperature and climate are both periodic. That means they change in cycles. One of these cycles is well known to us, that is to say: the seasons. There are other cycles, however. The Earth's magnetic poles flip every so often. Precession of the Earth's orbit causes our seasons to flip. We have had multiple ice ages. Some of these things have a period much greater than a hundred and fifty years. We don't have nearly enough data to show that any kind of observable fluctuations in our climate are not part of a naturally occurring cycle.
Author:  Talya [ Sun Feb 06, 2011 7:58 pm ]
Post subject: 
2010 has been the coldest winter on record in both North America and Europe during the last 50 years.

Lots of soundbites either side can use. Neither prove a damn thing. Nobody has actually shown any truly scientific evidence either way...nor has anyone shown what the negative AND positive (yes, positive) effects could be if global warming is real.

Meh. Even if it is true, we're 18 thousand years into an average 15 thousand year warm period in between ice ages (the normal state of the Earth is an ice age...they tend to last 100,000+ years with brief warm intervals in between.) We'll hit our next ice age before global warming hurts us that bad. Hopefully, Global Warming is real enough that we can forestall the next one.
Author:  Lex Luthor [ Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
We're putting CO2 into the air which used to be in the air. It's called the carbon cycle. I doubt it'll make the environment catastrophically fall apart.

I'd bet that sea levels will rise somewhat, but I doubt any developed cities will ever be flooded. It's too slow of a process and everyone has a lot of time to prepare. It could even reduce unemployment.
Author:  Hopwin [ Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Ienan wrote:
Do you know how they calculate the average temperatures? I do.

How? I thought to be an "average" it has to be (A+B+C...)/N.

Edit: I see Coro's post on the different averages now. But am still curious about how they calculate "average" temperature as I am ignorant on the subject.

Aizle wrote:
I couldn't agree more Darkroland.

+1

Mookhow wrote:
Regardless of their stance on global warming, people are stupid.

+1
Author:  Ienan [ Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Hopwin wrote:
Ienan wrote:
Do you know how they calculate the average temperatures? I do.

How? I thought to be an "average" it has to be (A+B+C...)/N.

They basically use your formula and counted it from many sites around the world and then they use confidence intervals and what amounts to the student t-test to determine the probability. But Coro brings up a lot of the reasons why it could be invalid. Are we using traditional arithmetic mean? Or something else? Are temperatures from 150 years ago nearly as accurate? (Hint: They aren't; there were fewer sites to pull data from. And what methods were they using back then?) Are we accounting for water temperatures? What depths? How do they distinguish natural weather changes from human-induced since 150 years is a pretty piss poor data set when you have about 5 billion years of Earth temperature data before that.
Author:  Arathain Kelvar [ Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Ienan wrote:
150 years is a pretty piss poor data set when you have about 5 billion years of Earth temperature data before that.


I don't disagree. But, what can you do about this? What would you consider "good data"? 500 years? 1,000? 1,000,000? If there were a problem, would you propose waiting to solve it until you have "good" data?

Sometimes you have to work with the data you have, and make your best judgement.
Author:  Ienan [ Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Ienan wrote:
150 years is a pretty piss poor data set when you have about 5 billion years of Earth temperature data before that.


I don't disagree. But, what can you do about this? What would you consider "good data"? 500 years? 1,000? 1,000,000? If there were a problem, would you propose waiting to solve it until you have "good" data?

Sometimes you have to work with the data you have, and make your best judgement.

The scientist in me would tell you not to make a judgement then... It's just like with religion. The faithful man says, "I believe." The athiest says, "There is no God." The agnostic (scientist) says, "I do not yet have enough evidence to believe either way, thus I will make no judgement if God exists or doesn't."

But I certainly wouldn't do what they do, which is to use "predictive models" which skew your projections the way you want them. Or look to forensic evidence from the past based on records and such, which is just as highly flawed because it can be skewed to what you want to believe.
Author:  Lex Luthor [ Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Global Warming (Climate Change)
Ienan wrote:
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Ienan wrote:
150 years is a pretty piss poor data set when you have about 5 billion years of Earth temperature data before that.


I don't disagree. But, what can you do about this? What would you consider "good data"? 500 years? 1,000? 1,000,000? If there were a problem, would you propose waiting to solve it until you have "good" data?

Sometimes you have to work with the data you have, and make your best judgement.

The scientist in me would tell you not to make a judgement then... It's just like with religion. The faithful man says, "I believe." The athiest says, "There is no God." The agnostic (scientist) says, "I do not yet have enough evidence to believe either way, thus I will make no judgement if God exists or doesn't."

But I certainly wouldn't do what they do, which is to use "predictive models" which skew your projections the way you want them. Or look to forensic evidence from the past based on records and such, which is just as highly flawed because it can be skewed to what you want to believe.


Actually the real scientist says "There is no evidence that God exists, so he probably doesn't." The mediocre or C-grade scientist might say what you said.
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