Average Global Temperatures since 1850 • Hacker News Board

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#71

Post by cafebabbe » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:12 AM UTC

lanevorockz wrote: post #61

Please, let's not go back to a debunked theory. Global Warming models did not work and we phased them out a long time ago. The real term for the past decade on climate science is Climate Change and Extreme Environment. There is a lot more data on this graph if you cross fossil data and ice sheet research. Science is the only thing that everyone can agree with. I feel that it is our job to be accurate and not just do…

Ah yes, denialism latest fancy mask.

"ok ok it's actually happening, but it's something more complicated, you're still wrong"

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#72

Post by agent008t » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:21 AM UTC

southern_cross wrote: post #64

serpix wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so are you implying someone is methodically rigging up the data to show an anomaly for shits and giggles?

That's exactly what they've been doing! Or, perhaps more correctly, they've let their "algorithms" run amok without doing any quality control on the final results, thereby turning modest warming into "scary" warming. Whether this was intentional or not is debatable (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor ), but it certainly looked that way to me at the time. About ten years ago, after some remarkably incorr…

There is also some conflict of interest. Academics studying climate change have a big incentive to show that ACC is real - it increases their importance, potential for funding, relevancy, political power, etc.

At this point, the issue is also way too political.

I would love to see a group of researchers, ideally originally from a different discipline (studying complex systems, so finance perhaps?), with pro-economic-activity, pro-capitalist leaning beliefs (this will give them a higher hurdle for being convinced by data), apriori skeptical of the level of certainty that ACC is real, self-funded, looking at the models and come up with some probabilities of various outcomes for the future.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#73

Post by mathgeek » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:21 AM UTC

alecmg wrote: post #62

lubonay wrote: post #8

I think humans are generally bad at prevention of and good at reaction to catastrophes. The next 50 years are going to be interesting... let's hope we leave the world in a manageable state for future generations.

Adapting to catastrophes has literally evolved for millions of years. Species that couldn't adapt to change - died. The ones that survived didn't survive because they successfully prevented a catastrophe.

Would you say there has been any other species we know of that was able to cause, perceive, predict, prevent, and react to catastrophes before? We seem to be unique in that we can prevent and react to catastrophes, even ignoring that we can also cause them.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#74

Post by scottlocklin » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:28 AM UTC

pfisch wrote: post #65

southern_cross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tida…

New Orleans is itself in a rapidly deteriorating state. I lived there for over 30 years, and it has gotten progressively worse and worse over time. There are now frequent periods where you have to boil your water before you can use it, and it floods in a hard rain which didn't really happen 10 years ago. I guess what I am saying is I don't believe you, and most of New Orleans going into the ocean as well. New Orleans…

You do realize New Orleans has always been under water, right? The reason it flooded is because the local government didn't bother managing the levees and floodwalls properly.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#75

Post by agent008t » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:30 AM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #70

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…

The truth is that the past doesn't matter. If the current warm up is aggravated [0] by human activity, and pretty much everyone agrees it is, we should do something about it. Saying "it was warmer/colder before" makes it sound as it is a non issue. And tbh even if, and that's a big "if", pollution isn't directly linked to climate change everything reducing the air/water/food poising we're inflicting to ourselves is g…

As far as I understand there is a very big difference between reducing carbon emissions and reducing air/water/food pollution/contamination.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#76

Post by Retric » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:39 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.

Averaging a months worth of data across a large area with large temperature swings and, as long as you avoid systemic error, having more digits makes little difference. Try it yourself in excel, Average 76.124, 97.317, 79.662, across 1,000 numbers and compare it to rounding to 0, 1, or 2 digits then averaging and the difference is minimal.

Granted their are two relevant kinds of systemic error. If temperatures where more likely to be 0.1 than 0.9 then rounding would introduce bias. But, as our temperature system is arbitrary that seems unlikely.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#77

Post by maxheadroom » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:40 AM UTC

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #23

helenakyso wrote: post #17

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

Stop buying stuff without thought. I know that a lot of people feel helpless because it's the big corporations that are emitting, but companies only emit CO2 if consumers pay them to do so. Buying everything consciously, whether its food, appliances, housing, or a ticket to some performance, will make the world better.

I would also like to add that some countries could contribute more by offering public transit infrastructure (like, at all - looking at you "deep south of the United States", where cities don't have any transit systems, whatsoever) and encouraging/subsidising/what-have-you of far more rail use than plane use.

Essentially, you're never going to drive car use down (and, thereby, fossil fuel use), if there are no viable alternatives than using a car and the poorest areas can't afford to "catch-up" to the electic vehicle trend[s].

Yes, the effect might be miniscule, compared to the output of CO^2 by businesses, but every little bit helps - when deforestation continues in the Amazon (e.g.: "the world's lungs") and we're not planting enough trees (anywhere) to counter-act that.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#78

Post by pfisch » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

scottlocklin wrote: post #74

pfisch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Orleans is itself in a rapidly deteriorating state. I lived there for over 30 years, and it has gotten progressively worse and worse over time. There are now frequent periods where you have to boil your water before you can use it, and it floods in a hard rain which didn't really happen 10 years ago. I guess what I am saying is I don't believe you, and most of New Orleans going into the ocean as well. New Orleans…

You do realize New Orleans has always been under water, right? The reason it flooded is because the local government didn't bother managing the levees and floodwalls properly.

Which time are you talking about when it flooded? It flooded on mother's day this year during just a hard rain because all the pumps are failing because the cities infrastructure is falling apart.

New Orleans has been losing its natural protection of the wet lands and barrier islands for decades, exacerbated by the oil companies digging trenches in the wetlands to speed up their demise.

Louisiana has been losing land for a long time, and it is concealed in maps by the local government.

In the last 80 years louisiana has lost 1900 square miles of land to the ocean.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/boot-no-more-a-wetter-map-...

The problem isn't only mismanagement. That is just one of many problems that are causing failing infrastructure throughout the city.

What the poster above said about Miami is probably somewhat true, in that mismanagement is one of the issues of why Miami is flooding as well. But it isn't the only problem and it isn't even the main issue these cities are facing.

It will only become more expensive to maintain these flood protections in the future, and create more opportunities for greater corruption as well.

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#79

Post by phaemon » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #49

BigJono wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No it wouldn't. The assumptions made in that video are ridiculous.

You don't need to have storage for all your solar; you turn other sources off when you have excess supply. Or you can switch them off simply by covering them. Batteries are not the only form of storage. Hydro exists and is in use already. You are allowed to import electricity. There are other renewables besides solar and wind. etc etc etc...

Re: Average Global Temperatures since 1850

#80

Post by gameswithgo » Thu, Jun 27, 2019, 11:46 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.

If you look at the more detailed source materials of various surface temperature reconstructions, you will see error bars, and that they are bigger as you go back in time, for instance, NASA's data, 2nd chart on this page (click on "Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change"), the grey error is the error range, and is thicker as you go back in time:

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/

it doesn't take a very large number of sensing stations to get a reasonable global mean, surprisingly. You get pretty much the same result as the serious efforts if you just pick ~300 random weather stations.