What's Really Warming the World? • Hacker News Board

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#21

Post by mikeash » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

Sapient wrote: post #2

It would be a really nice visualisation of the factors if it worked properly. It was impossible to read and navigate for me.

On my MacBook Pro using Chrome, it was even worse. Impossible to read at least tells me that something is wrong, but using the trackpad to scroll through the options in a natural flicking way actually skips over multiple entries at a time with only the barest flicker to indicate that it happened. I got almost to the end before I realized I had only seen about one third of the information they were trying to present.

I have nothing against clever visualizations like this, but god damn it web designers, stop co-opting standard UI interactions to make it happen. There is no reason to hijack window scrolling here. None. All you accomplished by doing this was make it harder to figure out how to read the thing, and break it badly for a lot of people. What's wrong with buttons? You can even look for swipes on touchscreen devices. That's pretty standard! But quit stealing the scrollers!

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#22

Post by flavor8 » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

nixy wrote: post #8

In climate 130 years is not a long time. I wish these articles showed graphs with historical data that go back thousands of years so that I could see how, in a historical context, greenhouse emissions are affecting the world. I've only ever seen data from the 1900's, and it looks pretty hockey stick, but would be interesting to see fluctuations with the ice age(s) and local highs included. Edit: historical data is of…

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-...

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#23

Post by yequalsx » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #16

rimunroe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, it turns out that climate scientists have actually thought about the history the system they study. They've probably even collectively thought about it more than a person writing an article for the Economist!

Scientists make mistakes as often as Economist writers do. I don't revere scientists i'm sorry.

You don't need to revere them. However, you should expect that an expert in a given field has almost certainly considered and answered any question a non-expert can think up within 10 minutes of contemplation on the said field. If you can come up with a question that starts with, "Have they considered the possibility that .....?" the answer is almost certainly going to be yes. This is more so when talking about a large collection of experts. For instance, with the collections of all experts in climate science.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#24

Post by warcode » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

So what they are saying is that we should be pumping large amounts of Aerosols into the atmosphere?

I think we need less confirmations that there is a problem and more solutions to the problem.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#25

Post by ljd » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #4

i read an article a while back on the economist which suggested that if you look at a longer span (much longer than 1880) you will find that this is a natural cycle that the Earth/Sun go through. We just happen to be at that point in the cycle. i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way. An interactive colourful plot doesn't convince me.

No one is convinced by an "interactive colourful plot" it's the underlining data that it represents.

If data doesn't educate your actions you may find tech to be a hard industry to navigate.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#26

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #20

CO2 is not strictly human emissions and to imply so is so dishonest is ridiculous. of course any gross simplification of the environment as done in this presentation is explicitly to deliver a message decided before the numbers were assembled. the primary co2 process is ocean to atmosphere exchange, the earth to atmosphere, and then to mammals respiratory activity. So then you get down to how much CO2 is man pumping…

[deleted]

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#27

Post by moubarak » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #11

moubarak wrote: post #4

i read an article a while back on the economist which suggested that if you look at a longer span (much longer than 1880) you will find that this is a natural cycle that the Earth/Sun go through. We just happen to be at that point in the cycle. i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way. An interactive colourful plot doesn't convince me.

There is no known natural cycle in which the rate of change in global temperature matches what's been happening in the past few decades. Current and even projected temperatures are well within the range of what happens naturally, but it's happening much faster than it ever has before. This has worrying implications for the ability of ecosystems to adapt, and more importantly for us humans, for the ability of civiliza…

I'm a non-secular person that's why. I certainly don't have the numbers, i read them here and there. But i base it on knowledge coming from scriptures. Scientists are hardworking people, but i don't take their numbers as faith.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#28

Post by mikeash » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #16

rimunroe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, it turns out that climate scientists have actually thought about the history the system they study. They've probably even collectively thought about it more than a person writing an article for the Economist!

Scientists make mistakes as often as Economist writers do. I don't revere scientists i'm sorry.

Nobody is asking you to revere scientists, merely not to revere Economist writers.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#29

Post by flavor8 » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

moubarak wrote: post #4

i read an article a while back on the economist which suggested that if you look at a longer span (much longer than 1880) you will find that this is a natural cycle that the Earth/Sun go through. We just happen to be at that point in the cycle. i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way. An interactive colourful plot doesn't convince me.

> i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any way

On what basis, exactly? Would you be convinced if climate scientists critiqued your unit testing approach?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#30

Post by fexl » Wed, Jun 24, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

nixy wrote: post #8

In climate 130 years is not a long time. I wish these articles showed graphs with historical data that go back thousands of years so that I could see how, in a historical context, greenhouse emissions are affecting the world. I've only ever seen data from the 1900's, and it looks pretty hockey stick, but would be interesting to see fluctuations with the ice age(s) and local highs included. Edit: historical data is of…

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-cha...

There you can see a strong correlation between CO2 levels and temperature going back nearly half a million years. Teasing out cause and effect is the interesting task.