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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

#391
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't climate, it's weather. There are no proxies that record monthly water temperature. Only second order effects that are at best weakly correlated with water temperature.

> I'm not sure how you can make that claim with only 29 years of data without making some pretty big assumptions about the underlying distribution. Under what circumstances would 29 years be an insufficient mean to compare to the last few years? Precisely those circumstances in which the climate had changed. > This isn't climate, it's weather.

Under any sane statistical model. If we assume that this is a naturally occurring once in century El Nino under an equal probability model we'd expect not to see it before we have 70 years of records.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By choosing what data to show. There is a lot of data to choose from in climate science. How do you think we end up with such strong arguments on the issue? Cherry picking is as big a problem in climate science as anything else.

a lot of those thermometers have been operating for years or decades, in order to cherry pick each year again, you'd have to censor traces that were still used the year before, so at least such cherry picking should leave measurable traces can you identify cherry-picked "retired thermometers" from this dataset and earlier ones by the same source(s)?

I believe they were responding to your "confirmation bias, how?" question, rather than the narrative around thermometers. So from that lens, the confirmation bias is choosing to show temperature (objectively measured with assumed-reliable instruments / thermometers), but arguably choosing to hide other kinds/categories of data.

Fwiw, I am not backing them up, since I do not know what other data they might be referring to (and I am not very knowledgeable in topics within climate science).

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is ulez unpopular? As a rule most people with a ~10 year old car which runs fine at low cost are going to be frustrated at an extra tax on their vehicle. (It is not like the manufacture of a new electric car is green.) Ordinary People always were going to have to suffer to migrate off fossil fuels. Expecting them to like it is somewhat hopeful!

sure, but air quality is noticeably better in cities, so I can't let it stand that its just inherently unpopular. Some people like the benefits and enjoy them, those who don't like the downsides express that loudly. It's not just a talking point (see ded comment below), every time we try to publicly survey to implement traffic calming ideas in our city (UK) its a stalemate between in towners and out of towners. Usual…

You say "entering the city" but it literally applies to people who live there. My old car would have cost me every use even if all I did was move it to respect a temporary parking restriction. It isn't about dislike, it is financial hardship largely affecting those of more limited means (hint, old cars).

I am fine with ulez, but it is really important to be clear that people do suffer for it. Not out of towners. Real Londoners - especially with the extension to the outer boroughs.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of those thermometers have been operating for years or decades, in order to cherry pick each year again, you'd have to censor traces that were still used the year before, so at least such cherry picking should leave measurable traces can you identify cherry-picked "retired thermometers" from this dataset and earlier ones by the same source(s)?

I believe they were responding to your "confirmation bias, how?" question, rather than the narrative around thermometers. So from that lens, the confirmation bias is choosing to show temperature (objectively measured with assumed-reliable instruments / thermometers), but arguably choosing to hide other kinds/categories of data. Fwiw, I am not backing them up, since I do not know what other data they might be referrin…

You're surprised in the context of global warming that the physical quantity of temperature was selected? The temperature quantity itself was cherry-picked?

Does anyone besides you expect them to demonstrate global warming but please without mentioning temperature - that's obviously cherry-picked of course... /s

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#395
> What is developing is so far beyond any global climate event that has impacted modern industrial civilization that predicting much of what’s coming is educated guesswork. Turn the volume on the typical El Niño impacts up to eleven, then watch the collective infrastructure of modern industrial civilization crumble. Watch as flooding storms wash away roads and cities. Watch as trailing storms create new inland lakes, swamping farmland. Watch as fires raze forests and grasslands. Watch as heatwaves turn temperate regions into unsurvivable hellscapes. Watch as crops fail and dams burst. Watch as the shelves of your local grocery store gradually, then suddenly, go empty.

From: https://climatecasino.substack.com/p/some-monsters-are-real

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they were responding to your "confirmation bias, how?" question, rather than the narrative around thermometers. So from that lens, the confirmation bias is choosing to show temperature (objectively measured with assumed-reliable instruments / thermometers), but arguably choosing to hide other kinds/categories of data. Fwiw, I am not backing them up, since I do not know what other data they might be referrin…

You're surprised in the context of global warming that the physical quantity of temperature was selected? The temperature quantity itself was cherry-picked? Does anyone besides you expect them to demonstrate global warming but please without mentioning temperature - that's obviously cherry-picked of course... /s

1 - the area was cherry picked. 2 - only this year's data is highlighted in red - the data from last year wasn't highlighted. It's hard to know if this is a trend or it's just a weird year. 3 - the time horizon is cherry picked. Why mean on a given day rather than the mean for a week?

Imagine someone else cherry picks the line that is really low and highlights it. Or they pick a different area which shows cooling. Now you have some idiot claiming global cooling.

The thing about cherry picking is that it works so well. When someone pointed out the cherry picked data, you couldn't even come to the conclusion it was cherry picked. And you are on hacker news. Imagine the really really silly people.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#397
post #303
post #245

the problem with this kind of article is half of them push a doom angle and the other half talk about carbon footprint. both of them have the same effect making people give up or do useless lifestyle changes that do nothing for the environment. we should be pushing for backend changes that are invisible but actually make things better. that means massive subsidies to build out clean power and electrify everything. po…

Or -- hear me out on this one -- we could ban wind energy, raise costs for electric vehicles, and use government resources to promote increased use of coal and oil. That would have a bunch of advantages such as sounding familiar to leaders whose heyday was in the 1970s, of not making us feel bad about the state of the world, and occasionally giving financial kickbacks to government leaders. Or... if you don't like th…

I feel like you're not actually engaging with GP's point, Jonathan Swift.

Their point is that unpopular climate policies are exactly what is pushing the general populace towards this sort of regressive climate policy you're describing. "Maybe we should make a change in political leadership" is not a productive contribution when the current leadership is the result of bad policy messaging. GP isn't opposing leadership change, they're explaining how to move towards it.

(As much as I'd like to believe that people will just gain an educated understanding of the issues and choose correctly, the unfortunate fact is that real-world politics doesn't work like that, and has to contend with the fact that populism is what wins elections)

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#398

With a headline like that the graph should be at the beginning. Usually you'd put it up front and then talk about the graph, not put it at the bottom and talk about how people aren't talking about it. Anyway, I scrolled down to the graph and skipped the text. We are currently 4 std deviations above the mean with respect to El Niño temperature. But there's also a historical line -4 std deviations from the mean. Was th…

The graph represents 44 years of statistics, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. But you can not determine how these stats relate to longer term time frames such as a 100 years or more. Obviously the article wants you to believe the absolute worst about how these modern indicators compare back even further than the data shows, but how much of that is confirmation bias, and how much is actual science?

It seems like you are ignoring the hundreds of other signals that tell a similar story to this graph?

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have quite a similar discussion here in Germany. Back in the day, everyone used fossil fuels to heat their homes. Back in those days, AC was frowned upon as inefficient, wasteful and decadent. Something only Americans did. The greens despised them for ecological reasons. The right despised them for moral reasons. Then the public came to know about climate change and it was decided that people should transition…

> because a heat pump is just an "evil" AC running in reverse I keep hearing that, and then I keep hearing people tell me that you can't just put an heat pump, run it in "reverse" and "pretend" to have AC. That seems to be a case where the theory is here, but in practice the applicances are just optimized for one part, or the other. (Also, heating is often done by heating water in radiators, and cooling by cooling th…

You can get an appliance that can do both, well and efficiently. Every modern AC has a reverting valve that changes the flow direction of liquid and gas, such that the liquifier and gasifier change places. For cooling, the liquifier is in the outdoor unit, for heating it is in the indoor unit. Common refrigerants (for new units, the choice is R32 or R290) have a temperature range that works for both functions. Depending on the refrigerant the efficiency will differ, but in both cases it will be above 250% to 350%. Meaning for every kWh of electricity, you get at least 2.5 to 3.5 kWh of heating. Or cooling.

The easiest and cheapest way to get such a device is to get an air-air AC unit. More than 90% do have a reverting valve and can heat and cool. All of them will be efficient in both functions. Just look at the SEER and COOP values or the A+/A++/A+++/A+++++++ ridiculousness/efficiency scales ;)

Those air-air heatpumps/AC units can do both because they basically have the same radiator on both sides, and the same condensation removal system. Sometimes the cooling is a little more efficient, sometimes the heating is. This basically depends on the refrigerant used and on the local climate you are using the unit in.

Condensate is the reason that at least in Germany, you sometimes cannot do both. The usual heatpump you buy around here is an air-water heatpump. Meaning the outdoor unit is coupled via outdoor air. The indoor unit distributes it's energy through water, usually in water radiators or in-floor heating. Problem with that is that those water radiators are not suited to be run with cold water for cooling, and those in-floor heating systems usually aren't as well. Why? Because water will condense on those cold surfaces during summer, run off into your flooring and cause rot there. If you paid attention to make your flooring condensate-proof or have even more cooling surfaces from in-wall or in-ceiling loops, you can also run cooling this way. But most people can't.

So yes, you could do both if you put in a single air-air heatpump / AC. In certain rare circumstances you might also do it with an air-water heatpump.

Oh, and there is the theoretical option to do air-air and air-water with the same single outdoor unit and multiple air-based indoor units and one or two water-based indoor units that create warm water for heating and piping. Look for multi-split systems. But for the usual small single-family homes, those aren't cost efficient. They are therefore usually only offered for commercial applications such as hotels. But they have nice advantages like using the heat produced from the AC to heat the water used for the showers and stuff.

Re: A graph that should be front-page news

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that could be: give away solar panels and two way heat pumps to low-income families, tax the profits of oil and gas companies, enforce right to repair, remove tariffs on chinese car makers if they create jobs in europe, fund train networks to get tickets cheaper than flying, invest in renewable energy to make electricity cheap. theres a lot of options. all of them will lead to some inflation and public debt but the…

> Some (e.g. right to repair, sadly) will achieve almost nothing at all. I'd be curious as to why you say that. I feel that, right now, you would be correct. But if we could move society to a new paradigm where right-to-repair were the default, then cheap non-OEM parts manufacturers would bloom and repairing something would become much cheaper than replacing. Imagine if every object sold had to come with a manual des…

> if we could move society to a new paradigm

That's the reason why. That's just too big of an "if".

Any premise that is predicated on an artificially-induced complete paradigm (counter to the interests of capital, no less) shift to bear significant fruit is pretty much a non-starter. You need incredible buy in for that (which right-to-repair is just too niche to have), and established interests will still push against it every step of the way.

Maybe the EU could do it, but even then I'm skeptical.

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