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What's Really Warming the World?

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Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#121

Post by dnautics »

fexl wrote: post #30
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.

yeah, that correlation is totally the wrong way; the blue curve leads the red curve. Now, Look at the key:

Temperature change (blue) and carbon dioxide change (red)

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#122

Post by hackuser »

This repeats some buried comments but I think it's worthwhile: I'm not a climate scientist, but in my experience the absolute most reliable, most time-efficient way to learn about climate change is the IPCC reports. I wonder if there is anything written in any other field that compares:

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Specifically, if you are short on time, read the 'Summaries for Policymakers', written at the level and attention spans of non-technical politicians. They are quite readable and as I wrote in another post, if they can understand it, so can you. :) (The longer reports are fascinating, if you have an interest in science and want to get lost in something.)

As I understand it the reports are prepared by a global team of hundreds of scientists, and reviewed by thousands more.[1] (Seriously, has anything like that existed in any other field?) They are meant to cover the breath of climate science and the reports also are meticulous about the language of probabilities.

Spend a little time reading them and it will save you the time of reading 99% of what's written elsewhere, and you'll be much better informed.

---

EDIT:

[1] Review process: http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml (scroll down to "The AR5 Writing and Review Process") -- for example, one report had over 50,000 comments on two drafts from >600 experts.

---

EDIT 2: Website interface help.

Can you believe this needs to be written, and for HN readers? I had JavaScript off which makes the site usable (if not pretty). With JavaScript on, apparantly the UX concept is 'Easter eggs':

There are 4 images arranged horizontally at the top; these are report covers (with text too small to read even if you knew they were clickable). If you click a report cover then the section beneath it changes to display a description of and links to that report.

All that work making the reports accessible to the world, hamstrung by web design.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#123

Post by savanaly »

I don't deny man made climate change, but this argument seems to be weak. Just because two factors go up at the same time doesn't mean one caused the other. See http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations. It is necessary but not sufficient to show that greenhouse gases went up in concert with global temperatures.

Not that one expects them to lay our a sweeping, thorough case for man made climate change in such an article, which would be an unfair expectation. It seems more like a showcase for the bit of javascript razzle dazzle than anything else, as other commenters pointed out, surely no one involved with this article expected it to change anyone's mind one way or the other.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#124

Post by ageofwant »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #36

This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already deny it. Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man. People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient perception of reality. Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent dang…

The three modes of persuasion and rhetoric identified by Aristotle are ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos is an appeal to authority or credibility. Pathos is an appeal to emotions. Logos is an appeal to reason.

I think we overvalue logos.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#125

Post by batou »

mikeash wrote: post #81
batou wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. I'm saying that we should reduce emissions. What could possibly be bad about that? Its what I'm not saying that is important. I don't proclaim an answer nor an idealism, merely cautious scientific thought that suggests the methodology needs to be considered. In any other field the lack of rigorous proofs would be laughed off the table.

So you agree with the conclusion that we should cut emissions, but you object to... what? The wording?

I agree to the conclusion but not for the same reasons.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#126

Post by primroot »

fexl wrote: post #67
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...the Earth has had worse ecological disasters than the human species..." True, but they were a long time ago and the human species wasn't around to experience them. The rate of change of present warming, and its likely effects, are going to cause very severe difficulties for our (and many other) species.

Likely yes, but please be careful that the remedies do not cause more severe difficulties than the problem itself.

Implicit in this remark is the idea that all humans share roughly the same interests and concerns. As difficult conditions exacerbate conflicts the weight of interests is measured first in capital and then in violent prowess. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc2016e2-d320-11e4-9b0a-00144feab7...

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#127

Post by jcranmer »

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.

The anthropogenic component (this includes both industrial processes like Haber-Bosch and changes brought about by high-intensity farming) to most legs of the nitrogen cycle equals or exceeds that of the natural component. To argue that humanity is incapable of screwing with climate in any significant way when we are clearly overriding natural ecological cycles is pure inanity.

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#129

Post by jonknee »

Brakenshire wrote: post #111
curiousgeorgio wrote: post #105

Not trying to argue against manmade climate change here, but the conclusion is inconsistent with the stated point/headline. The main question is whether or not humans are the primary driving factor in the changes observed. Graphs show lack of correlation with various manmade causes and some natural causes, but then the conclusion is reached with the graph of "the influence of greenhouse gas emissions." In other words…

> it doesn't prove one way or another whether the cause of the rise in greenhouse gasses is manmade. Does anyone seriously doubt that rises in CO2 are not principally driven by human activity? I have never even seen that as a talking point.

Sure. Michelle Bachmann believes lots of crazy things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAaDVOd2sRQ

> And yet were being told that we have to reduce this natural substance and reduce the American standard of living to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth. Well were told the crux of this problem is human activity. Its humans that are creating more carbon dioxide!

> What part of human activity creates carbon dioxide? If carbon dioxide is a negligible gas and its only three percent of Earths atmosphere, what part is human activity?

Re: What's Really Warming the World?

#130

Post by bharath28 »

mangeletti wrote: post #112

The chart at http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501... (put together by The Royal Society) shows that most deforestation in Eastern Canada occurred over 400 years ago. This one http://mongabay-images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1203all-time-defo... shows a shift starting about 300 years ago from temperate forest removal to tropical forest removal. Together, they start to paint a picture of massive defor…

I didn't read the whole paper (where that graph came from), so my apologies if i am misstating anything. It appears that the paper is focused mostly on the forests in Eastern Canada. At first glance, I'd find the slope on that graph (last 500 years) very hard to believe if it were for all of planet earth.
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