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A graph that should be front-page news

lyrebirddreaming.com

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Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#51
post #42

There are many thing people could do, eat less meat, smaller homes, electric cars, green energy, no flights etc. but the vast majority of people does exactly nothing.

Yes, I should recycle more. Meanwhile, it’s OK for politicians to invest in coal and build gas-powered datacenters, while the ultrabillionaires buy groceries in a private jet. Don’t worry about that, just recycle more! It is about time we stop blaming the individual at the bottom of the ladder for the problems of society. And let me preempt you: society isn’t made up of individuals, but it is much greater than the su…

Why does it have to be one or the other? 7+ billion small actions add up; power plants and datacenters are still at least partly about fulfilling consumer demand.

Or to put it another way - which of those things is under our control? If one can do something more, then why not? Because billionaires? The climate doesn't blame anyone, it just exists; being to blame or not, doesn't matter when we're all in the same boat together.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#52

Shouldn't the y-axis better be called "Standard DeviationS"? According to one comment on the site, the 3.5 means "3.5 times the SD", which makes much more sense to me. I initially tried to make sense of "SD being 3.5 on that day of the year", which seems to be a wrong interpretation.

I think you are right.

The title of the figure is ambiguous about what "SD" really means but I guess it is plotting the number of standard deviations of the 1991-2020 data measured from the mean of that data and plotted per day for the 1982-2026 data.

Here's the link that I read off the figure.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/json_2clim/oiss...

Going up the URL path I get redirected to here:

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2

That shows measured temperature and 2026 as very hot (surprise) and in fact is the hottest to date for June+July. The standard deviation of that data is not 3.5 C but something less than 1.0 C. It is plausible that current temperature is about 3.5 sigma from the selected mean.

It's worth recognizing that the analysis is applying a biased conclusion prior to making the plot. It singles out post 2020 data to compare to pre-2020 data. and then concluding the held out data is a significant deviation with a cause. It almost certainly is but this is not a proper way to analyze data (unless one is pushing an agenda, be that for good or bad).

I think the sst_daily plot stands on its own without crafting this SD plot to emphasize the point. Especially when the accompanying text doesn't even explain it. It's a disingenuous message.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#53
post #46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have ways to determine the past climate without having access to direct measurements.

But there is no way to confirm that those methods are accurate...

Yes there are. Scientists compare the measurements from both methods in the time when there's data from both. For example ice cores formed last decade should match direct temperature measurements from last decade. It's the same way the oldest rings from living trees are matched against the newest rings from tree fossils, and radiocarbon dating is checked against all of that.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#54

There are many thing people could do, eat less meat, smaller homes, electric cars, green energy, no flights etc. but the vast majority of people does exactly nothing.

Individual action is not the solution

It can be, but not in the usual way.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#56
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese and Indian CO2 emissions dwarf anything you mentioned. You can stop eating meat altogether and move to a small doghouse, it won’t make any global impact at all.

If the factory is in China but the product is consumed in the US who should the CO2 emissions be attributed to?

Irrelevant anyway, because USA consumption is on the decline and China consumption is on the rise.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#57
post #21

The Forest of Fontainebleau, just 50 km south of Paris, is burning, with Canada it's on the scene trying to contain it. Nearby highways and trains - some of the busiest of France - are cut. It is a temperate European forest, oak trees and beech. No AC is going to save European from that. In fact, it is American AC which is the main cause of it. They dumped all that energy and greenhouse gases and Europeans are the on…

AC?

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#58
This happened a couple of El Niño cycles ago, in the 2015-2016 one:

> The City of Cape Town began experiencing a drought in 2015, the first of three consecutive years of dry winters brought on possibly by the El Niño weather pattern and perhaps by climate change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis

It's quite possible that this one could worse.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese and Indian CO2 emissions dwarf anything you mentioned. You can stop eating meat altogether and move to a small doghouse, it won’t make any global impact at all.

This line of "hurrr but they are doing it too so why should I stop!" reasoning constitutes a logical fallacy that a motivated 9 year old is probably already able to reason themselves out of

This is not what I'm saying. Telling people to eat less meat or live in smaller houses is not only inefficient, but a counterproductive way to protect environment. This is environmental protection theatre, if not circus. It makes environmental protection measures look laughable and ridiculous. Unless something is done against the biggest pollutors, eating less meat (now think about how dangerous this advice looks without taking into account who it's addressed at - stupid parents can stop feeding their children meat and cause them lifelong health problems) won't prevent environmental problems. Sorry, I'm interested in participating or endorsing environmenal protection circus.
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