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2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

washingtonpost.com

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Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#171

Post by brc »

galactical wrote: post #138

What's a good book for someone who wants to know more about climate change? I recently bought the most scientific, written by scientists book I could find on Amazon, and the gist of the book is that any amount of warming that is happening is due to geologic cycles and not human activity. The consensus here seems to be that it is due to human activity, so if that's the case can you point me to a good explanation of wh…

You see references to the IPCC here. Safely ignore those. The ipcc is a political organisation - it's in the title. It was setup specifically to find evidence for a set theory, not to study the problem.

Plus the models that the IPCC uses to forecast disaster have been proven to have zero predictive power.

I would continue to read books written by scientists on both sides of the argument, and ignore anything said by a politically connected person or group.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#172

Post by guscost »

wang_li wrote: post #152
guscost wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. I responded to your claim previously[0]: > In that 200 years a whole lot more uranium will become available for economical extraction, exactly the same as what happened with oil and natural gas. Do you have reason to believe this will not happen? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10623187

> Do you have reason to believe this will not happen? What's kind of amazing is that people don't believe that we will develop a solar powered technique to extract carbon the from the atmosphere and create liquid fuels.

Like an artificial plant? If it is possible to engineer something that works better (and there is no reason to believe it is impossible) that would be a huge event.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#173

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

epistasis wrote: post #133
illegalsmile wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful that will be anytime soon and we'll most likely always need some sort of baseline power system that's not a from a renewable source.

That ignores the price curve of batteries. Right now, wholesale prices for lithium ion batteries are $150/kWh of capacity, which translates roughly to $0.15/kWh of stored energy. This is less than the price swing in spot prices for energy currently, so we'll start seeing this market expand drastically. And as electric car batteries lose capacity and need to be replaced, those batteries will still have plenty of stora…

Not to mention other energy storage options - of which there are many.

If renewables had had a small percentage of the money thrown at nukes in subsidies and sponsorship, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#174

Post by DasIch »

Udik wrote: post #115
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an anecdote, when every ice mass on the planet is melting/has melted? When 400 century old ice in Siberia is all gone in a matter of a few years? When the million-year-old Antarctic ice shelf is undergoing runaway melting because of seawater rushing in underneath because the margins have melted away? The planet is undergoing irreversible change as we speak. The only 'imaginary' thinking is the denial that conti…

No, it's not, as long as you measure it and give precise figures. And we do it. I just tend not to trust somebody's personal assessment of the situation based on the fact that he thinks it's warmer than in the past: it might be local weather patterns, El Nino, simple suggestion.

It's not somebody's personal assessment. It's the scientific consensus of almost all scientists. Climate change is not in question, it's not a possibilty under discussion it's as close to scientific fact as gravity and evolution.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#175

Post by InclinedPlane »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #50
InclinedPlane wrote: post #31

Ah yes, an El Nino "this proves global warming" versus a La Nina "weather is not climate" year. I hate that this is the narrative. Can people just ... stop doing this? Maybe? If you try to use the "record breaking heat, it was warm this one year" argument to argue for acceptance of theories of climate change you are only going to be hoist by your own petard a few years later when natural weather cycles result in reco…

It's not that it was warm "this one year," it's another data point in the pattern of record-breakingly warm years over the past few decades. Checkout the animation in this Bloomberg report if you want a better idea.[1] [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-01-20/2015-was-t...

It's still fundamentally the wrong argument to make if you're trying to convince the public. As I mentioned, all of that precious work goes right out the window the very first year there's a record breaking cold snap (because there will be). And then you'll end up spending all your time trying to break people out of the logic you set them up for. Getting complex science across to the public is a difficult bargain but if you short cut it you're just going to pay the price later.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#176

Post by codecamper »

What if all these guesses & models are WAY OFF?? What happens when the average temperature change is 10C, not 2C?

A family member works at Nasa & he says that their model is written in Fortran.

And those models do not really take into account feedback loops. (like Siberia thaws & releases giga giga tons of methane.. Greenland disintegrates instead of melting slowly)

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#177

Post by api »

fmihaila wrote: post #145
api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO the problem with stopping this and many other forms of environmental degradation is that it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven so to speak. Poverty is worse than all but the most severe natural disasters. Infant mortality in many poor countries is probably a lot higher than it is in Miami during a hurricane . Poverty is worse than pollution or storms. Even if the sea level rises it would be better to…

Desperate people living in poverty are not those most responsible for climate change. The developed countries, most prominently the US (in absolute terms), contributed most to the problem and have the economic power to start addressing it. The reason Canada (to take another example) hasn't done more to prevent climate change has more to do with greed and misallocation of resources than with poverty eradication. The c…

Desperate people living in poverty will be just as responsible as those living in developed countries as soon as they can work their way out of poverty.

Those in developed countries are never going to go back to the standard of living found in poor ones, or at least not without fighting it to the death.

I agree with the rest and I wasn't implying that we can't have both. But there do seem to be a lot of people who take a moralistic tone about this or who push solutions that amount to the same.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#178

Post by InclinedPlane »

corndoge wrote: post #85
InclinedPlane wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total CO2 emissions by countries, 2014: US 5.3 Gt China 10.5 Gt India 2.3 Gt Yeah, China and India are totally relevant to global CO2 emissions. The global climate doesn't give a damn about how many people are responsible for a given quantity of emissions, it's completely and utterly uncaring.

Please provide a source to validate your numbers.

http://bfy.tw/3pkg

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#179

Post by dang »

vectorjohn wrote: post #46
ps4fanboy wrote: post #32

Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…

Lots of people keep saying this, but I really don't think it's true. Solar and wind work fine at scale. There is nothing un-scalable about them. What they don't do is work at night, and in that case nuclear is a fine option. Although batteries that can run a house overnight aren't that expensive.

> Just keep repeating it, but it isn't true.

Please edit uncivil language like this out of your comments when posting here. Without that (well, that and the uppercase yelling), this comment would be a fine one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#180

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

brc wrote: post #148
jupiter90000 wrote: post #40

Is anyone aware if there is reliable data prior to say 1880? [1] Is there any possibility that large scale climate trends could be outside of the observed window of time available? For instance, some large scale natural state-shifting appears to occur on the order of hundreds of years (reference is about earthquakes, but maybe relevant?) [2]. Based on everything I've heard/read/etc about this, it seems unlikely that…

Yes, the central England temperature series (CET). Now run by the met office, it goes back to 1659. There is no scientific doubt about the roman and medieval warm periods being as warm or warmer than today. The anthropological evidence of this is abundant, and it shows up in most proxies as well. The most likely case is that the natural variations swamp whatever changes humans make. Based on evidence, it's unlikely t…

Amply and persistently debunked. See e.g.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seven-answers-to-c...

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