Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming • Hacker News Board

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#41

Post by briantakita » Tue, May 28, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

breakyerself wrote: post #38

briantakita wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the records being broken are low temperature records. They aren't actually records in the geological sense, just measurement records in modern times. The "year without a summer" was colder for example. The magnetosphere does not drive the climate. The magnetosphere protects Earth from space weather, which includes Cosmic radiation, Coronal holes, Coronal mass ejections, etc. Are you seriously claiming that the…

>"Except the records being broken are low temperature records. " The last 5 years are the warmest 5 years in recorded history. Possibly the warmest in 110,000 years. It's also exactly how warm scientists predicted it would be with the emissions scenario that played out. I don't know what stupid blog you get your info from, but you should stop. >"The magnetosphere protects Earth from space weather, which includes Cosm…

> There is no evidence that cosmic or solar rays have any effect on climate.

So your reason to justify this idiotic statement is the no true scotsman fallacy ("Not actual science"), appeal to authority, & ad hominem? Nice!

> The last 5 years are the warmest 5 years in recorded history. Possibly the warmest in 110,000 years. It's also exactly how warm scientists predicted it would be with the emissions scenario that played out. I don't know what stupid blog you get your info from, but you should stop.

That's funny. All you need to do is go outside & observe how late this year's spring was. How about the late snow keeping ski resorts open? Did you happen to notice that crops are being planted late this year? How wet it is this year? The cloud cover around earth? How about record snowfall in Europe & North America?

But hey, at least your sources have a temperature collection station in the middle of a black top parking lot in Tuscon, AZ. Not to mention how the average temperature has been "corrected" after the fact & the different datasets contradict each other. No manipulation of data here.

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#42

Post by briantakita » Tue, May 28, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

breakyerself wrote: post #37

instantwhat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, tomorrow, NASA, NOAA, and the UN IPCC held a joint press conference to announce surprising new evidence which indicated that anthropogenic effects on the climate were minimal, that we could not noticeably affect the climate, regardless of our emissions, and that the climate was essentially out of our control, what would your reaction be? Would that be good news or bad news? Why?

I suppose it would be nice to know we can worry less about how we impact things, but I don't see what the point is in wishful thinking.

Actually, global cooling & a wet spring means decreased crop yields around the world. This is a serious matter that we need to properly prepare for. Not be distracted by pseudoscience of "Anthropogenic Global Warming".

We are seeing an increase of Earthquakes & Volcanic Eruptions, driven by space weather. We need to prepare accordingly. The next few winters will continue to get colder.

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#43

Post by snowwrestler » Tue, May 28, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

lostmymind66 wrote: post #36

tasty_freeze wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperskepticism run wild. You, an outsider, doubt the science because you think that the people who have specialized in the field and have spent their careers collecting data are not as smart as you and have overlooked the quality of their data sets. I'll go farther and say nobody better understands the limits of their data sets than the people who work with them.

I think my problem with the whole thing is how politicized AGW has become. There are supporters saying 'temperature is not climate when it comes to disproving climate change, yet try to use the same argument when proving that it exists. Many supported laws for trying to reduce emissions are nothing more than wealth transfer schemes used by one group to take power from another. I also would like to know how so many ex…

> Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct. The scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged throughout the investigations.

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

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#44

Post by jpeloquin » Tue, May 28, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

mikekij wrote: post #17

apo wrote: post #12

The first graph ("External factors explain nearly all global temperature change") shows what appears to be temperature precisions of less than 0.1 degree C, yet reports no error bars. How is it that a graph like this is even acceptable, given the importance of the conclusions? How does this study account for the inevitably poorer precision and accuracy of measurements made over 100 years ago? How are systematic error…

I'm so glad to see you bring this up. In my graduate physics training, I was taught to be extremely cautious about statistical significance, error propagation, and error bars. I remain skeptical of our conclusions about AGW, not because I have a political view on the subject, but because I'm skeptical that our temperature measurements from 120 years ago have a precision of less than 1 degree C. But I (sincerely) assu…

Precision thermometry is an old science. Fahrenheit obtained a precision less than 1 °C using a mercury-in-glass thermometer in 1714. Platinum resistance thermometers were developed around 1900. These technologies are still used today.

Furthermore, accuracy greater than the precision of an individual measurement may be obtained by averaging multiple measurements.

All the tools needed to accurately track temperature existed 120 years ago. For what reasons do you believe that meteorologists did not use the tools available to them?

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#45

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 28, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

instantwhat wrote: post #35

breakyerself wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planets been breaking temperature records like hotcakes while solar irradiance has been declining for decades. There is zero evidence for magnetosphere driven climate change. What you've written is just some sciencey sounding BS that rationalizes an irrational position.

If, tomorrow, NASA, NOAA, and the UN IPCC held a joint press conference to announce surprising new evidence which indicated that anthropogenic effects on the climate were minimal, that we could not noticeably affect the climate, regardless of our emissions, and that the climate was essentially out of our control, what would your reaction be? Would that be good news or bad news? Why?

[deleted]

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#46

Post by photojosh » Tue, May 28, 2019, 10:15 PM UTC

lostmymind66 wrote: post #36

tasty_freeze wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperskepticism run wild. You, an outsider, doubt the science because you think that the people who have specialized in the field and have spent their careers collecting data are not as smart as you and have overlooked the quality of their data sets. I'll go farther and say nobody better understands the limits of their data sets than the people who work with them.

I think my problem with the whole thing is how politicized AGW has become. There are supporters saying 'temperature is not climate when it comes to disproving climate change, yet try to use the same argument when proving that it exists. Many supported laws for trying to reduce emissions are nothing more than wealth transfer schemes used by one group to take power from another. I also would like to know how so many ex…

> There are supporters saying 'temperature is not climate when it comes to disproving climate change, yet try to use the same argument when proving that it exists.

Everywhere I've seen both these arguments used, the attempted-disprovers are using something like "worst snowstorm ever in X location means it can't be getting warmer", whereas the supporters are talking about the average temperature of the whole planet, and how the increase in energy in the system is causing extreme weather, both hot and cold.

tl;dr– local temperature vs average temperature: not the same argument.

If you have counter-examples, I'd welcome them.

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#47

Post by taneq » Wed, May 29, 2019, 12:42 AM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #9

taneq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still seems ass-about to me. The study doesn't show that natural cycles don't do much, it shows that in our models the external forcing they added is sufficient to cause the observed results. We already know there's more going on than our models account for (consider the post-9/11 discovery of global dimming from airliner exhausts, as one example). There are probably a heap of effects pushing the measured temperat…

>(Note that I'm not saying natural cycles ARE responsible for the bulk of observed warming - just that this research doesn't seem to prove they're NOT.) Well it can't, can it? All it can do is provide evidence one way or another. Now if you think that there is a problem in the model they are using, could you point to it and explain the specific issue? I assume that it is somewhat updated since 9/11 and I also suspect…

OK, OK, I was using laymans' terms. If you want to get picky about can't-prove-a-negatives then read it as "this research doesn't seem to provide much evidence that they're NOT."

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#48

Post by taneq » Wed, May 29, 2019, 12:47 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #11

taneq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still seems ass-about to me. The study doesn't show that natural cycles don't do much, it shows that in our models the external forcing they added is sufficient to cause the observed results. We already know there's more going on than our models account for (consider the post-9/11 discovery of global dimming from airliner exhausts, as one example). There are probably a heap of effects pushing the measured temperat…

It's worth noting that the 9/11 U.S. insolation study showed a human-created mitigating factor , not a causal factor. That is, it showed that high-altitude contrails create clouds high enough to raise the average albedo and reflect solar energy that otherwise would reach the surface. This is, to some extent, "hiding" a portion of the true warming one would expect from the current mix of the atmosphere and solar activ…

I wasn't trying to show that there are specifically natural factors as yet undescribed, just that there was a significant factor that we didn't know about until recently. This indicates that we could easily have missed others (natural or otherwise), and so any argument which assumes that our climate models are complete is flawed from the start.

> what we're really worried about is long-term warming, and this paper is not about that

Well, it sort of is, because it's saying that the argument against long term warming is that our short term observations are being caused by some cyclic behaviour rather than human CO2 emissions. We can't just carve off "long term warming" as a separate already-agreed thing (at least, not using the results in this paper).

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#49

Post by inflatableDodo » Wed, May 29, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #48

snowwrestler wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the 9/11 U.S. insolation study showed a human-created mitigating factor , not a causal factor. That is, it showed that high-altitude contrails create clouds high enough to raise the average albedo and reflect solar energy that otherwise would reach the surface. This is, to some extent, "hiding" a portion of the true warming one would expect from the current mix of the atmosphere and solar activ…

I wasn't trying to show that there are specifically natural factors as yet undescribed, just that there was a significant factor that we didn't know about until recently. This indicates that we could easily have missed others (natural or otherwise), and so any argument which assumes that our climate models are complete is flawed from the start. > what we're really worried about is long-term warming, and this paper is…

>any argument which assumes that our climate models are complete is flawed from the start.

Could you point me to such an argument? As I don't believe that anyone has made it here.

Re: Why natural cycles only play small role in rate of global warming

#50

Post by radford-neal » Wed, May 29, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

Roark66 wrote: post #3

The headline of this post is bullshit. The author of the article doesn't prove "natural cycles" play small role. He claims that the data he analyses points to the conclusion one specific 60-70 year old cycle of oceanic origin has far less impact on climate than commonly accepted. He talks about one mechanism, there are plenty of other natural mechanisms that affect the climate in various ways. Quoting the article: >T…

From my initial glance at the post and paper, they seem to be claiming that the factors they do look at account for almost all the variation. If this is a correct attribution, then there can't be big role for any other factors, known or unknown.

Now, it's easy to fool oneself in this sort of modelling exercise - by fitting lots of parameters to the data, one can seem to account for lots of variation, without actually capturing the true relationship. I haven't looked at the paper in detail yet, so I can't say whether or not they avoided this pitfall.