At this point, any rational person understands the problem. Ok. We get it.
So how do we fix it? It seems like everyone is focusing on proving that it is caused by humans, but where is the solution?
What's Really Warming the World?
181–190 of 549 posts
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#182Cool visualization. It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits reality. The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it s…
I have absolutely no knowledge about this field, but from what I understand people who study the Sun wouldn't agree as much with the numbers about the suns temperature.
I will see if I can find the numbers.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#183Cool visualization. It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits reality. The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it s…
Cool visualization. I agree, but I have to say their imagination on what other things might be causing warming is not very robust. For just one example, there are at least two major effects of burning: 1. Release of chemicals into the atmosphere (ex: carbon dioxide) 2. Directly heating the atmosphere There are literally billions of air conditioners, heaters, cars, factories, etc that all generate heat. The effect of…
The primary yearly energy consumption is about 155,000 TWh and the volume of the ocean is around 1.33e9 km^3, so back of the envelop, the heat dissipated by energy consumption yearly is enough to raise the temperature of the ocean by 0.0001 C. Doesn't seem very substantial.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#184The 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…
While forests represent a sizable reservoir of fixed carbon, the amount of carbon they fix in any given year is actually not huge (trees grow slowly). It would not nearly be enough to offset our current rate of burning of fossil fuels, for instance.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#185This 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 attentio…
Many hacker news readers would prefer sources such as peer reviewed science journal articles where the authors claim proof one way or the other. The best way to evaluate science is to look at the raw data and the scientist's original paper.
This is a summary of research in those peer-reviewed journals, the summary being far better reviewed (by hundreds and thousands, as described) than the individual articles.
I don't know about other HN readers, but I don't have time or expertise to keep up on individual articles. I doubt many climate scientists have the expertise in all those different fields.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#186The 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…
> It doesn't even bring up the possibility of albedo playing a role in climate change?
Isn't that exactly what the "So If It's Not Nature, Is It Deforestation?" slide is about?
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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In the absence of any other context, saying "X has a conflict of interest because Y" implies "and therefore X is unlikely to be believed." Yes, presumably the UN does have a conflict of interest here. However, as Cholantesh points out, the size of the IPCC makes it unlikely that conflict is a major factor in affecting the interpretation of data (I am agnostic as to how likely the CoI is to affect the actual policy recommendations). Just pointing out the conflict, without any additional interpretation, is dodgy enough that it's reasonable to assume it's motivated by a conspiracy theory.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#188I am not negating the global warming issue here, but what I see is just a correlation of two time series, much like the correlation between "US Spending on science, space and technology" and "Suicides by hanging, strangulation or suffocation" [1]
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
... which would support my argument that the article misses the point. If the ratio of carbon isotopes is the damning evidence, then perhaps the article could have graphed it or at least mentioned it.
You're correct that the article failed to point out that the increase in CO2 was unambiguously man made. Now, is the temperature increase caused by the increase in CO2 - likely so since the correlation is so close. Have they exhaustively excluded other possible causes -- maybe, maybe not...?
Why does everyone ignore the UAH and RSS troposphere data? It's the best data (by far the most accurate) we have on atmospheric temperature, and it shows no warming since 1996.
http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html
I have a simple R script to find the trend if you want to see it yourself.
Re: What's Really Warming the World?
#190Well correlation is not causation. is it y=f(x) or y=x(f)? aka is is warmer because of the higher greenhouse gases or is there more greenhouse gases because of the warmer climate (that could have been caused by things like leaving an ice age and approaching a warm period in Earth's life) Just to clarify, i support green technology and I think this is definitely the way to go but I don't like the unjustified crusade u…
So, where would you think the greenhouse gases came from?
If you are talking about the CO2 portion of it and focusing on the artificial sources than here is the chart you are looking for:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources.html
Obviously you are missing out on natural sources for CO2, and the rest of the gases as well:
Water vapor (H2O)
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Ozone (O3)
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)