Average Global Temperatures since 1850 • Hacker News Board

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#41

Post by southern_cross » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #28

helenakyso wrote: post #17

Any ideas of What, WE, the individuals can do to make politician and countries change?

Make sure your assets are shielded from the consequences. I'm a strong believer in voting with legs. For example - it's insane how the Miami real estate prices ignore what's going on (they even have a cheerful name - "sunny day floods"): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MIXRNSA Just sell it already! There's nothing good waiting for Miami, the city will die. Rent if you really want to stay till it blows up. As far a…

The flooding that is (was?) occurring in Miami was largely the result of a poorly designed rain-drain system, one which was installed with little to no back-flow prevention. This new system, which was put in place into allow rainwater to flow into the ocean more easily and so prevent flash flooding, unfortunately also allowed the ocean to easily flow back into the streets when conditions were right and so caused tidal flooding instead.

This was all covered in detail in the press at the time the problem first started occurring, and of course it made everyone involved look really bad. But then someone came up with "climate change" as the cause instead, so now the guilty parties had something to hide behind. The press had a field day with it, too, using it as "proof" of dangerously rising sea levels.

The attempted solution here (which is why I said "was?") was to install drainage pumps much like the type you find in New Orleans, because apparently going back and adding the proper back-flow prevention devices was going to be too involved and too expensive. But, of course, just as soon as those pumps were activated people started complaining about how they were polluting the ocean. In fact, they probably aren't putting anything into the ocean that wasn't already going there eventually anyway; they just made the situation more obvious.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#42

Post by MrGilbert » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

Looking at the raw data, I wonder how accurate it is for the early days? Was it possible back in 1880, to measure temperature up to the third digit in accuracy?

I'm not questioning the data per se, as you can tell from looking at 2000 up to today that the median is rising.

I'm just a bit surprised by the accuracy in the late 19th century. I expected less.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#43

Post by agent008t » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #39

tomohawk wrote: post #25

Only going back to 1850 is exactly the kind of thing someone would do if they wanted to cherry pick their data to suit a case. You have to go back much further. It is known that at that time we were coming out of a period of much cooler temperatures. See for example the year without a summer (1816). There are periods of human history where it was warmer than it is now. For example, during the Viking expansion, and du…

What data would convince you that anthropogenic climate change was real?

What is your own estimate of probability that anthropogenic climate change is real? That is, anthropogenic factors are the most significant contributor to climate change and mitigating them will allow to significantly affect the rate of climate change (to the point where it would make a significant difference to humans).

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#44

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

helenakyso wrote: post #17

Any ideas of What, WE, the individuals can do to make politician and countries change?

You have to be loud and get in the faces of your politicians. Be a single-issue climate voter, go protest, sit-in at legislators offices, jam up their phone lines.

https://rebellion.earth/

https://www.sunrisemovement.org/

Really, it's stupid, but if the politicians can ignore you, they will. You have to make it so they can't ignore you.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#45

Post by ForHackernews » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

PhilWright wrote: post #3

helenakyso wrote: post #2

The increasing of the global temperature is really dangerous and humanity seems to do nothing. It is like a human body if its temperature changes a few Celsius degree from its normal temperature, it is the fever. If the person has a fever and it increases a few degrees, it might mean the death of the person. We are killing The Planet, it is a Climate Crisis.

It is obviously not the case that 'humanity seems to do nothing'. The United Nations have the IPCC working on the issue and their reports influence national policy in many countries. There are the Kyoto and Paris agreements that are based on the details from the IPCC reports. Is the world doing enough? No, I don't think countries are doing enough, but to say humanity seems to do nothing is patently ridiculous.

We are doing nothing: https://climateactiontracker.org/

National responses range from "critically insufficient" all the way to merely "insufficient".

You are tragically misinformed if you think some responsible people somewhere are taking action.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#46

Post by reallydontask » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:38 AM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #31

reallydontask wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the longer one goes back in time the less data there is and I would hazard a guess that prior to 1600 there is no direct data at all.

We do have history though Check out the Roman Climatic Optimum, for example.

The point I was trying to make is that history is not direct data and thus not anywhere near as reliable.

This is not to say that direct data from 2 centuries back is necessarily reliable but it's a step in the right direction

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#47

Post by fnordsensei » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:42 AM UTC

stinos wrote: post #38

tomohawk wrote: post #25

Only going back to 1850 is exactly the kind of thing someone would do if they wanted to cherry pick their data to suit a case. You have to go back much further. It is known that at that time we were coming out of a period of much cooler temperatures. See for example the year without a summer (1816). There are periods of human history where it was warmer than it is now. For example, during the Viking expansion, and du…

See for example the year without a summer (1816). As far as cherry-picking goes to suit a case, this also sounds like a pristine example. Even worse then what you are countering, since it is only one single year. There are periods of human history where it was warmer than it is now. Well, yes, but what does that prove? The buildings were made with logs from trees that do not exist there today because it is cooler now…

I'm guessing it's some variation of "we know of climate change in the past that was not caused by humans, therefore no climate change is caused by humans".

For the record, we do know of at least one instance of positive climate change in the past caused by humans. Genghis Khan famously went on a huge murderous rampage (some estimate that he directly and indirectly caused the death of ~10% of the world population), causing massive forest regrowth in previously populated areas, which in turn scrubbed CO2 out of the atmosphere.

https://carnegiescience.edu/news/war-plague-no-match-defores...

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#48

Post by arethuza » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:42 AM UTC

disordinary wrote: post #40

helenakyso wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I think that by the time the government start making changes, it will be too late, as it is too late now. Like humanity must have a dramatic change - from top to bottom. The system is against the world We live in a finite world consuming like it is infinite Every action counts, but it will be hard and it must be super reinforced by law

Well, depending on where you are you can also vote for the local green party. If you're in a proportional election system then that the bigger the green voting block is the better. If you're in a country with a first-past-the-post electoral system like the US, UK, or Australia then things are much tougher and you should also be campaigning for electoral reform to make your country more democratic.

The UK had a referendum on introducing a different voting system and there was no change as the general view seemed to be that "first past the post" gave strong governments.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#49

Post by Ygg2 » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:42 AM UTC

BigJono wrote: post #34

roenxi wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People on HN hate it when you say we have to change our whole society to deal with this problem. We obviously don't have to change our whole society to deal with that problem. 1) I've been told that renewable are now grid competitive in cost and the power system is switching over to them naturally. 2) At any point we could go nuclear - even the most pessimistic anti-nuclear activist would have to admit that the ris…

You'd be surprised how much anti-nuclear activists would disagree with your second point. I'm sure I know a couple that would rather watch the world burn than vote for someone that will build a single reactor. I think once an issue like that becomes a left/right black/white thing all logic just goes straight out the window. You can't even say the word nuclear without hearing a cacophony of statements about the price…

When you break it down, for California (a relatively sunny place) it would take more than $3.63 trillion dollars to be 100% renewable.

[1]https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?t=709

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#50

Post by southern_cross » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 9:44 AM UTC

MrGilbert wrote: post #42

Looking at the raw data, I wonder how accurate it is for the early days? Was it possible back in 1880, to measure temperature up to the third digit in accuracy? I'm not questioning the data per se, as you can tell from looking at 2000 up to today that the median is rising. I'm just a bit surprised by the accuracy in the late 19th century. I expected less.

> Was it possible back in 1880, to measure temperature up to the third digit in accuracy?

No, not even close. You were probably lucky to get one-degree accuracy, if that.

This is one of the first red flags that I noted when I started paying closer attention to climate-related stuff about 15 or 20 years ago. I did a little digging, and it turns out that there is a mathematical theorem (I forget the name of it) that allows you to do things like this (derive a higher level of accuracy than the data would otherwise allow) if you know for a fact that the associated errors pretty much all cancel out. But you have to know this, from prior sampling or whatever; you can't just assume it. But that's what these folks are doing - waving their hands and just assuming that the errors mostly cancel out.

To add insult to injury, for other portions of the data they state that they have the right to make routine, automated adjustments because of systematic errors in the data. But you can't have it both ways - assuming that the errors mostly cancel out on the one hand, while on the other hand claiming you have the right to make adjustments because, you know, those errors don't actually cancel each other out after all.

> I'm not questioning the data per se

You should be! Most of the "data" here is either of remarkably low quality, or just pretty much made up.