Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

ncdc.noaa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 211 posts

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#121

Post by dhimes »

braythwayt wrote: post #86
zajd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find (and the comments on this story illustrate the point quite succinctly) that there are still many idiots who are willing to tow the "human driven climate change is a made up thing" Sad but true

I think “toes the line” is an expression literally meaning, “To advance to the start of a race.” From there, we get the idea of participating in something, and from there we get conforming to rules or standards. As in, “Raganwald has a potty mouth in person, but he toes the line and respects HN’s guidelines for civil discussion."

I understand that the term is nautical:

http://www.seatalk.info/cgi-bin/nautical-marine-sailing-dict...

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#122

Post by [deleted] »

freehunter wrote: post #71
elektromekatron wrote: post #29

I find it continually amazing how many people find NASA sending rockets into space all the time to be an expected and everyday part of modern life, but then don't trust them with a thermometer.

It's been a while since I've heard the mainstream climate deniers claim that the world isn't getting warmer. Most of them just claim that no matter what happens, it's not humanity's fault nor is it humanity's problem. --edit: jedberg beat me to it in another conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10092967

[deleted]

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#123

Post by Frondo »

patrickaljord wrote: post #109
jedberg wrote: post #37

Has anyone else noticed that the conservative rhetoric has quietly switched from "global warming doesn't exist so we don't have to do anything" to "global warming isn't caused by people so there is nothing we can do"?

I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat during summer as an argument for climate change is ok. A few months of extra cold or heat is not enough to prove or disprove climate change. Last…

The fossil fuel industry folks, and the politicians they fund, are the ones who politicize this issue. Please don't turn this into a "liberals said, conservatives said" thing. If there wasn't a ton of fossil fuel money on the line, there never would have been any public confusion or discussion about AGW--the science would simply have been acknowledged and we've have moved onto engineering solutions.

(As for the "conservatives prefer better environment for business.." you ought to look at how well the economy has done under liberal vs conservative leaders all throughout the 20th century to gain some insight into which political leanings are better for the economy, of which business is, of course, a major part.)

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#124

Post by inversionOf »

mikeash wrote: post #112
inversionOf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The surface of the Earth was molten some 4.5 billion years ago. The big bang was about 14 billion years ago. The start of the relative record is a mere 135 years ago. It is absurd to conflate the two, and it's a critical foundation for the statement. By simple random odds (which given that weather stations are few and far between, simple odds of micro-climates can shift temperature slightly), even with zero influence…

Comments like these are not appreciated not because they're wrong, exactly, but because they're useless and irrelevant. Imaging we have a coin that I claim is biased. (Just pretend that front-page story about how it's impossible to bias a coin didn't happen.) I've flipped it dozens or hundreds of times and nearly every time it comes up heads. After I've done this for a while, I start saying, check this out, I'm prett…

Comments like this (and predictable moderation of my comment) are what makes this whole discussion a religion. You profoundly and completely missed the entire context of my comment in your zeal to, you think, denounce anti-warming. It is tiring, pedestrian, and ignorant.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#125

Post by yongjik »

patrickaljord wrote: post #109
jedberg wrote: post #37

Has anyone else noticed that the conservative rhetoric has quietly switched from "global warming doesn't exist so we don't have to do anything" to "global warming isn't caused by people so there is nothing we can do"?

I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat during summer as an argument for climate change is ok. A few months of extra cold or heat is not enough to prove or disprove climate change. Last…

> Last year we had an unusual cold summer...

...which was still "0.5°F above the 20th century average" for the contiguous 48 US states[1]. From looking at the temperature graph[2], only about ten years between 1900-1980 was hotter than 2014.

The fact that this is perceived as an "unusual cold summer" should give you a pause.

As usual, there's a relevant xkcd for everyrthing: https://xkcd.com/1321/

[1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201413 : "In 2014, the contiguous United States (CONUS) average temperature was 52.6°F, 0.5°F above the 20th century average, and tied with 1977 as the 34th warmest year in the 120-year period of record."

[2] http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/weather-...

(BTW, seriously, who uses Fahrenheit in scientific discourse?)

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#126

Post by inversionOf »

fluidcruft wrote: post #118
inversionOf wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The surface of the Earth was molten some 4.5 billion years ago. The big bang was about 14 billion years ago. The start of the relative record is a mere 135 years ago. It is absurd to conflate the two, and it's a critical foundation for the statement. By simple random odds (which given that weather stations are few and far between, simple odds of micro-climates can shift temperature slightly), even with zero influence…

Global warming is obvious from the data. End of story. The AGW debate is about the extent to which this very real warming is caused by human activity. At best, all those effectoids you prattle off are only interesting as confounds for the models that are used to tease out causes for the warming. The overall warming itself is indisputable.

Interesting comment having positively nothing to do with my comment. That you fail to understand that speaks volumes. Of course, you're the one who conflates 135 years with 14 billion years, so not unexpected.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#127

Post by Blaaguuu »

Carrok wrote: post #39

It's interesting to me that if you say "today was hotter than any day on record" The answer given always seems to be global warming. However if you say "today was colder than any day on record" (also happens very frequently) the answer given is "That's weather, not climate." Edit: Apparently this is not interesting to HNers. Bring on the downvotes.

I'm not a professional in this field, but my understanding has always been that most climate models have predicted that while the general trend in global temperature will continue to go up - in most individual smaller climates the seasons will tend to be more extreme in both directions, i.e. colder winters and warmer summers - in most places averaging out to warmer years.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#128

Post by mikeash »

inversionOf wrote: post #124
mikeash wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like these are not appreciated not because they're wrong, exactly, but because they're useless and irrelevant. Imaging we have a coin that I claim is biased. (Just pretend that front-page story about how it's impossible to bias a coin didn't happen.) I've flipped it dozens or hundreds of times and nearly every time it comes up heads. After I've done this for a while, I start saying, check this out, I'm prett…

Comments like this (and predictable moderation of my comment) are what makes this whole discussion a religion. You profoundly and completely missed the entire context of my comment in your zeal to, you think, denounce anti-warming. It is tiring, pedestrian, and ignorant.

Maybe if you explained a little more, I could actually have a shot at understanding what you think the problem is.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#129

Post by lukeschlather »

patrickaljord wrote: post #109
jedberg wrote: post #37

Has anyone else noticed that the conservative rhetoric has quietly switched from "global warming doesn't exist so we don't have to do anything" to "global warming isn't caused by people so there is nothing we can do"?

I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change. Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat during summer as an argument for climate change is ok. A few months of extra cold or heat is not enough to prove or disprove climate change. Last…

> I don't think it's called global warming anymore, it's called climate change.

This is because warming is only one component of the problems we're facing as a result of pollution. See for example ocean acidification.

> Besides, I don't understand why it's ok for liberals to make fun of conservatives using "extreme snow" during winter as an argument against climate change but that liberals using exceptional heat during summer as an argument for climate change is ok.

The funny thing about snow is it actually can be a result of warming temperatures. At higher latitudes, warmer weather leads to more snow. So that's a starting point that higher temperatures don't necessarily mean less snow. But furthermore, if you have scientifically gathered data that says there's a trend towards warming, it's reasonable to look at heat waves and recognize them as part of a larger problem, since it's supported by data.

However, if you pull out anecdotes that contradict the data, you're trying to muddle the issue and make it look like the data is invalid, even though you have no basis for that conclusion.

> Conservatives prefer having better environment for businesses which will boost innovation. Maybe there's some middle ground in there.

This is a non-opinion. A mix of taxing polluters and subsidizing non-polluting industries is the solution. Having a better environment for businesses boosts profits, not innovation.

Taxing pollution forces businesses to find ways to profit without polluting. That's innovation.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#130

Post by mikeash »

criley2 wrote: post #119
rnovak wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, and this is my opinion only, but 2-3 day forcasts, at least in my area, are horribly inaccurate . In my state, it's a common joke that being a meteorologist is the only job you can have where you can be wrong 95% of the time, and still keep your job. Seriously, our forecasts are nearly always wrong. So.....saying we can make as accurate of forecasts for 200 years ago...that's not really saying much. Thi…

>To be honest, and this is my opinion only, but 2-3 day forcasts, at least in my area, are horribly inaccurate. In my state, it's a common joke that being a meteorologist is the only job you can have where you can be wrong 95% of the time, and still keep your job. Meteorologists lower the quality of the data they receive. People don't want bad news. People don't want to hear that it's going to rain on their weekend.…

Another big problem is that people don't understand uncertainty, and therefore forecasters don't express uncertainty.

For example, just look at whatever near-term forecast you have handy. What are the forecast high and low temperatures for the next few days? What are the error bars on those highs and lows?

Oh, you couldn't find error bars? Yeah.

Post reply on HN