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July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

ncdc.noaa.gov

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Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#201

Post by lukeschlather »

jqm wrote: post #191
slgeorge wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your parent post you said: "Liberals want to heavily tax fossil and subsidize renewable energy. Problem with that is that taxing fossil make life and the economy harder in the meantime and subsidizing often goes to cronies which is bad for innovation" Something to consider here is that taxing oil production or similar carbon emissions creating isn't really a tax. It's actually just reflecting the real cost of the…

To that point, if it is indeed true that fossil fuels are heating the planet (most likely), it would be nearly impossible to "tax" (i.e. collect the real external costs of the activity) enough. What is the number you put on rising sea levels and altered weather patterns?

Economics is not zero-sum, so the nice thing is that if you change behavior the tax can avoid more damage than the cost of the tax. In the best case the tax is simply not collected and no damage occurs from the pollution.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#202

Post by mikeash »

mikeash wrote: post #184
inversionOf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that points set multiple daily records per year has no bearing whatsoever on the significance, or lack thereof, of a monthly, global record. Exactly the same principle applies. Look at the title of this submission. Stop and before you knee-jerk a response, contemplate that this isn't "it's hot, yo, and getting hotter". It is specifically that July was the hottest month "ever recorded", which someone quite ri…

The exact same principle applies, yes. But the quantities are way different. Variation at a point is high. Variation for a period of a single day is high. Samples are taken frequently. Thus new records will be set regularly. Variation for the entire globe is low. Variation for a period of an entire month is low. There are twelve samples per year. Thus new records would not be expected to be set frequently. Again, wha…

Thinking about this more, samples are actually taken at the same rate: yearly. The difference is how many different things you're tracking in each year.

For regional records, you're tracking 365 events per year. Each one is compared with that day on prior years.

For global records, you're tracking one event per year (since July will always be the warmest month).

Thus, if you'd expect to set a new record every 50 years, then you'd see on average one global record every 50 years, but you'd see about seven daily regional records every year.

Also consider that you should be seeing both record highs and record lows. Record lows continue at a good pace for regional daily records, but there hasn't been a global record low for well over a century.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#203

Post by lexcorvus »

marcusgarvey wrote: post #85

For those who believe that climate change is real, and a significant threat to our longevity on this planet, would you please view / read this and share your thoughts? http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=... I don't believe defeatism is helpful, but I got a very Prince "Party Like It's 1999" feeling after consuming this. What should we do? If we pull all the fossil fuels out of our economy tom…

There are three completely separate questions:

(a) Has the global mean temperature recently increased?

(b) Have human activities contributed to changes in climate?

(c) What are the likely effects (positive and negative) of a rise in global mean temperatures?

Only nutball cranks think (a) is false. This is our strawman: if you reject "climate change," you must be a crank. In addition, much debate centers on (b)—if climate change is "our fault," it should be up to us to fix it. But (b) is irrelevant except insofar as it affects our options if the answer to (c) turns out to be "We are facing a global catastrophe." If astronomers discovered an asteroid on collision course with Earth, no one would be persuaded to inaction by the argument that "the asteroid isn't our fault."

If you examine the political incentives producing the answers to (c), it's obvious that in the current climate (heh) negative consequences are favored over positive ones. In other words, an ambitious young climate scientist seeking to maximize her chances of tenure would be foolhardy to undertake a detailed investigation of the likely benefits of global warming.

What we're seeing in climate science is, I think, a close parallel of what happened in Russian biology under the Soviets—specifically, the work of Stalin's favorite biologist, Trofim Lysenko. Lysenko developed a theory of the heritability of acquired characteristics (complete with fabricated laboratory experiments), which had obvious adaptive value in a régime seeking to develop, via social engineering, the "new Soviet man." Similarly, predicting global catastrophe is adaptive in a régime where government-funded science must be solving Important Problems™, and where most members of the permanent government believe the majority of proposed anti–global warming measures (alternative energy, conservation, carbon taxes, etc.) are good ideas anyway.

So, do we really face global catastrophe as the result of climate change (human-induced or otherwise)? In an environment of Lysenkoist climate science, it's hard to say for sure. But you'll notice that the heritability of acquired characteristics didn't exactly pan out. And given that most climate simulations are currently "off model" [1]—i.e., their predictions don't match reality—we can reasonably guess the safe way to bet.

[1]: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5747

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#204

Post by edgyswingset »

downandout wrote: post #189
edgyswingset wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's widely accepted in the scientific that specific occurrences such as the ozone hole above Antarctica are created as a result of human activity in the past 50 years.

Please state your politically-neutral, credible, scientific source for this comment.

Please state yours!

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#205

Post by fluidcruft »

mikeash wrote: post #202
mikeash wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same principle applies, yes. But the quantities are way different. Variation at a point is high. Variation for a period of a single day is high. Samples are taken frequently. Thus new records will be set regularly. Variation for the entire globe is low. Variation for a period of an entire month is low. There are twelve samples per year. Thus new records would not be expected to be set frequently. Again, wha…

Thinking about this more, samples are actually taken at the same rate: yearly. The difference is how many different things you're tracking in each year. For regional records, you're tracking 365 events per year. Each one is compared with that day on prior years. For global records, you're tracking one event per year (since July will always be the warmest month). Thus, if you'd expect to set a new record every 50 year…

Records don't occur linearly for a stationary variable. That is you don't expect "an average record every 50 years". The longer you observe the signal the more more extreme the expected outlier.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#206

Post by kilotaras »

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…

Because you compare it to a couple of previous summers. On average it goes steadily upwards.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1321/

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#207

Post by Pyxl101 »

OniBait wrote: post #148
verandaguy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your source on this? As someone who doesn't normally follow these kinds of reports, does NOAA have a history of falsifying data? Further, what's your source on your last statement, that global temperatures are dropping?

I suspect it is from Tony Heller (aka Stephen Goddard). Looks like he has a blog post about it here [1]. (note: Heller is nuts so it is hard to take what he says at face value, but it would appear he has a valid point on all the temperature adjustments going on). The NOAA does adjust the data (and continues to do so) based on various factors like time of observation (TOBS), urban heat island effect (UHI). As well as…

Rather than trying to fill in data that we don't have, are there models based on only the data that we actually have?

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#208

Post by m_fayer »

lotharbot wrote: post #175
m_fayer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that limiting human behavior is a scary concept makes no sense to me. We limit human behavior all the time because resources are finite and because the immediate interests of the individual may be detrimental to wider society. It's called rule of law.

In living memory, "rule of law" has included the holocaust, gulags, forced sterilization of the handicapped, forced abortion, police brutality directed against minorities, and various other forms of tyranny and injustice. Many times those things are described by the government as "in the best interests of the people". Those are the associations some people have with the line "limiting human behavior". Of course that'…

While I understand the impulse, IMO these people have learned the wrong lesson. The correct takeaway is not some anarchic version of "maximalist liberty above all else," but rather "correct" rule of law.

In many of the examples you list, there is either an absence of liberal constitutional authority, or corruption of it. The path to the holocaust was paved by the dismantlement of liberal democracy and democratic safeguards. Slavery and subsequent civil rights abuses in the US were made possible by either punching holes in the legal order (3/5 compromise, Jim Crow, etc), ignoring it entirely, or perpetrating the abuses in secret.

To me, then, tyranny and injustice can be forestalled not by tearing down the power of the state and creating chaotic power vacuums, but by vigorously defending transparency, an independent judiciary, an independent press, and all the other legs on which the liberal order stands.

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#209

Post by mikeash »

fluidcruft wrote: post #205
mikeash wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about this more, samples are actually taken at the same rate: yearly. The difference is how many different things you're tracking in each year. For regional records, you're tracking 365 events per year. Each one is compared with that day on prior years. For global records, you're tracking one event per year (since July will always be the warmest month). Thus, if you'd expect to set a new record every 50 year…

Records don't occur linearly for a stationary variable. That is you don't expect "an average record every 50 years". The longer you observe the signal the more more extreme the expected outlier.

Sure, that's just a simplification to illustrate the principle. Whatever the expected recurrance for records is, you'll get a lot more of them when you're testing 365 (really 730, since you have both highs and lows) separate values each year than when you're just testing one (realy two).

Re: July 2015 was warmest month ever recorded

#210

Post by lotharbot »

m_fayer wrote: post #208
lotharbot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In living memory, "rule of law" has included the holocaust, gulags, forced sterilization of the handicapped, forced abortion, police brutality directed against minorities, and various other forms of tyranny and injustice. Many times those things are described by the government as "in the best interests of the people". Those are the associations some people have with the line "limiting human behavior". Of course that'…

While I understand the impulse, IMO these people have learned the wrong lesson. The correct takeaway is not some anarchic version of "maximalist liberty above all else," but rather "correct" rule of law. In many of the examples you list, there is either an absence of liberal constitutional authority, or corruption of it. The path to the holocaust was paved by the dismantlement of liberal democracy and democratic safe…

I completely agree.

However, the point still remains that "handing over more power to the government" is a thing people have legitimate reason to fear. Particularly in an era where there's so much concern over the judiciary (from Roe v Wade to Citizens United, everyone has something they think SCOTUS screwed up badly) and the independent press (not asking the tough questions pre-Iraq war, seemingly giving Obama a pass on various scandals) and government transparency (Snowden leaks, Guantanamo, Benghazi).

So the things that we need in order to trust the government with more power aren't as strong as many people feel they should be. Simultaneously, the government has a track record of trying to change peoples' behavior in both above-board and behind-the-scenes ways, through everything from tax policy (mortgage interest deduction to encourage home ownership) to astroturfing (infiltration of various dissident groups, including those devoted to non-violence) to draconian drug laws (leading to disproportionate imprisonment of black men) and requiring people to purchase certain forms of health insurance.

It's against this backdrop that "the government wants to limit our behavior" is often evaluated. Even in areas where it actually makes a lot of sense -- like pricing externalities into carbon emissions via taxes -- it's worth asking whether the government is reaching farther than they should in order to accomplish something more than what's been publicly stated.

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