Post: #1

Quote:The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces during October was 14.63°C (58.23°F). This is 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average and ties with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record. The record warmest October occurred in 2003 and the record coldest October occurred in 1912.This is the 332nd consecutive month (yes, that means 27 and a half years in a row! Op.ed.) with an above-average temperature. The last below-average month was February 1985. The last October with a below-average temperature was 1976. The Northern Hemisphere ranked as the seventh warmest October on record, while the Southern Hemisphere ranked as second warmest, behind 1997.

The average global temperature over land was 0.92°C (1.66°F) above average, making this the eighth warmest October on record. Several regions around the globe were much warmer than average, including northeastern and southwestern North America, most of South America, northern Africa, southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, and far eastern Russia. A heat wave brought record warmth to large areas of Brazil and Bolivia. Record heat was also present in southern India. It was cooler than average in parts of northern Siberia, Mongolia, and northern China along with much of central North America. Western Canada was much cooler than average.



http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/10
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/opinio...BAF19&_r=0

I gotta admit that these things are scary. Given the pace of temperature changes from "just" the emissions from the start of industrial era to today, what's going to happen with a yet greater and inevitable global rise in population and industry?

Post: #2

(11-22-2012 03:17 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Quote:The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces during October was 14.63°C (58.23°F). This is 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average and ties with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record. The record warmest October occurred in 2003 and the record coldest October occurred in 1912.This is the 332nd consecutive month (yes, that means 27 and a half years in a row! Op.ed.) with an above-average temperature. The last below-average month was February 1985. The last October with a below-average temperature was 1976. The Northern Hemisphere ranked as the seventh warmest October on record, while the Southern Hemisphere ranked as second warmest, behind 1997.

The average global temperature over land was 0.92°C (1.66°F) above average, making this the eighth warmest October on record. Several regions around the globe were much warmer than average, including northeastern and southwestern North America, most of South America, northern Africa, southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, and far eastern Russia. A heat wave brought record warmth to large areas of Brazil and Bolivia. Record heat was also present in southern India. It was cooler than average in parts of northern Siberia, Mongolia, and northern China along with much of central North America. Western Canada was much cooler than average.



http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/10
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/opinio...BAF19&_r=0

I gotta admit that these things are scary. Given the pace of temperature changes from "just" the emissions from the start of industrial era to today, what's going to happen with a yet greater and inevitable global rise in population and industry?

Temps are exactly where they were 16 years ago.

Where's the hockey stick you alarmists promised?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...ve-it.html

How were there Viking settlements in Greenland from 900-1350A.D?...oh wait the world temperature was much warmer then than it is now. Any yet somehow life didn't end.

http://sc25.com/index.php?id=61
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/...l-warming/

Post: #3

It's very hard to be serious about this. They're assuming a near-linear relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature. Other factors certainly don't get much attention, yet CO2 accounts for less than 0.04% of the atmosphere. You think something like CO2, with a weight of 0.04%, is going to singlehandedly change global temperatures when accounting for other factors like (off the top of my head):

Volcano eruptions
Sea temperatures, ocean currents
Sun activity
Other unknown factors

Al Gore and other politicians make a career out of fear-mongering, so the stupid mob (and they are stupid) will vote to hand over more money (ie. power) to them, so they can pay for more reports from more "scientists" who can only score funding if they say there's a big ass problem we need to worry about, give me more money to research it. You think anyone would fund a science paper the point of which was to say "nope, no problem - don't worry about - I'm obviously in a boring industry".

The amount of subsidy money that environmentalists are scoring is obscene, and it gives power-hungry politicians a good excuse to have more power. You like big-business conspiracies, this is it.

But this is what happens when atheists apparently "prevail". Christianity is squashed, but bitches still need some kind of feel-good masochistic ideology around which to develop their dull existence (since they aren't having babies anymore) - what better than climate hysteria? You can go absolutely beserk in an argument because it's all dogma, you have no idea what's really true, basically you just do and say what the high priest says, do not be critical. You punish yourself with higher taxes, less freedom and more regulation, because you're deluded into thinking you're a sinner who farts too much and needs to fix the climate with your own personal act of sacrifice, making the high priest happy and giving him more control, more power in the process.

As Westerners get dumber and dumber, they are unable to discern between real science and religion, and so everything just becomes faith-based dogmatisms and reiterations of the task-master's commandments.

Post: #4

I hate winters. I hope global warming comes true

Post: #5

I'm just astounded that this is even still subject to debate. Science stands firmly behind it. People who TEACH science for a living at the doctorate level(not keyboard jockeys like us) are virtually all in agreement that climate change caused by industrial behavior is a real phenomena. All your arguments, El Jefe have longed been debunked. I don't know what it is about conservatives that just holds on to this belief that man isn't effecting the climate like it's a religion.

(11-22-2012 03:56 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  It's very hard to be serious about this. They're assuming a near-linear relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-temp...lation.htm

Quote:Other factors certainly don't get much attention, yet CO2 accounts for less than 0.04% of the atmosphere. You think something like CO2, with a weight of 0.04%, is going to singlehandedly change global temperatures

http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm

Quote: when accounting for other factors like (off the top of my head):

Volcano eruptions

http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoe...arming.htm

Quote:Sea temperatures, ocean currents

http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-an...arming.htm

Quote:Sun activity

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-ac...arming.htm

Quote:Al Gore and other politicians make a career out of fear-mongering, so the stupid mob (and they are stupid) will vote to hand over more money (ie. power) to them, so they can pay for more reports from more "scientists" who can only score funding if they say there's a big ass problem we need to worry about, give me more money to research it. You think anyone would fund a science paper the point of which was to say "nope, no problem - don't worry about - I'm obviously in a boring industry".

This is rich. So if the scientists are merely doing their jobs and finding empirical data which points to a hypothesis that you don't like, then they are just fear-mongering and misleading a bunch of stupid people for their own financial gain. Of course no mention that oil companies and big businesses are often behind the studies that seek to debunk climate change. Hmm, wonder what their motive is?

Quote:But this is what happens when atheists apparently "prevail". Christianity is squashed, but bitches still need some kind of feel-good masochistic ideology around which to develop their dull existence (since they aren't having babies anymore) - what better than climate hysteria? You can go absolutely beserk in an argument because it's all dogma, you have no idea what's really true, basically you just do and say what the high priest says, do not be critical. You punish yourself with higher taxes, less freedom and more regulation, because you're deluded into thinking you're a sinner who farts too much and needs to fix the climate with your own personal act of sacrifice, making the high priest happy and giving him more control, more power in the process.

As Westerners get dumber and dumber, they are unable to discern between real science and religion, and so everything just becomes faith-based dogmatisms and reiterations of the task-master's commandments.

Oh Geez...dude, just put your biases aside and try to look at the issue objectively. It's clear that you have a disdain for climatologists and environmentalists. Where that emanates from, god only knows, I mean these guys aren't out gassing Jews or clubbing seals, they are trying ensure that we don't throw the planet's natural processes out of wack, which would be bad for ALL OF US, regardless of our political proclivities.


@Samseau, you live in Massachusetts, so I'm sure you welcome warmer temperatures. Problem is that same warming that will make Boston more tolerable in winter will cause problems in places that are warm already. Land that might have fed people in Africa will be face longer droughts. Cities at very low elevation like Bangkok, New Orleans, Venice, NYC, will start seeing more and more problem with storms surges causing life-threatening flooding. Try to think about this problem from a global perspective, not a local one.

Post: #6

Even if industrial emission does not cause climate change, in principle there is nothing wrong with reducing industrial waste products. Asthma, allergies, emphysema and cancers are associated with industrial air pollution - the worst that will happen if we stop emissions is that we will be healthier in a changing world, where we will need health all the more.

Post: #7

Really? A graph showing no increase in the last 16 years is somehow used to dispute the fact that temperatures have constantly hovered above the global 200-year average for the last 27 years? What part about them being above average for the last 27 years is in conflict with them not significantly changing for the last 16 years? What does that even have to do with the matter?
I think I'm going to go oldnemesis on you and say that you're just citing irrelevant data to cause panic (about those evil environmentalists who want to rob you).

As for volcanoes, sadly this study says that humans emit 135 times more CO2 than volcanoes. Furthermore, the link between ocean currents and CO2 in the atmosphere is circular, not just one-way from the ocean as you claim. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2...255476.htm

As far as Vikings go, the earth with 7 billion people is no longer in the position of the Vikings who could just emigrate wherever they want (say to arctic if everything melted).

It wasn't my intention, but this thread sure highlights the negative side of the manosphere - viewing everything in the world as a conspiracy just because it has conclusively disputed feminist claims, which arguably was a form of conspiracy.

Post: #8

OK, you linked to the same webpage 10 times. Congrats.

http://climaterealists.com/

I will pay you the compliment of looking at the stuff you wrote. The above link is my preferred source. I guess it's only fair to look at both and think for one self. At least we're both open to criticism.

I am however, on principle, always high sceptical of people who want me to hand over power to them by trying to scare me into thinking the world is ending.

Post: #9

Will global warming help me get laid more?

Post: #10

Good. Hot weather equals girls showing more skin

Post: #11

AGW is bullshit and nothing more than a socialist plan to take over the world! http://agenda21conspiracy.com/

Disclosure: I work for big oil

Post: #12

(11-22-2012 04:49 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  Even if industrial emission does not cause climate change, in principle there is nothing wrong with reducing industrial waste products. Asthma, allergies, emphysema and cancers are associated with industrial air pollution - the worst that will happen if we stop emissions is that we will be healthier in a changing world, where we will need health all the more.

I can accept this, but this is not what we are being sold.

Post: #13

In this debate, it's all relative to what data the writer is looking at.

For instance, in the NYT article, Nick Kristof links to a website that proclaims, “If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That’s beyond astonishing.” Reading that article and Kristof's article and looking at the charts posted, you would think they're right. However, if you go to the NOAA website, and look at the national US trends over the past year and not the global trends, the NOAA tells a different story. “The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during October was 53.9°F, just 0.3°F below the long-term average, ending a 16-month streak of above-average temperatures for the lower 48 that began in June 2011. And, “Below-average temperatures stretched from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico during October, with 19 states having monthly temperatures below their 20th century averages. The Southwest and the Northeast were the only two areas of the country with above average temperatures.” So depending on where you lived, you either had colder weather or warmer weather. And the USA has only a 16-month streak of above-avg national average temperatures, not as long as a time period since 1985.

If you read any of the references on the NOAA website about the temperature data collection, there is disagreement among the scientists as to what set of data is actually accurate. There are 31 different sets of data sets available. With modern day computing and the help of Google, the data is being screened and compiled. However, if you read any of these references, it leads me to believe that the collection of this data is highly suspect. For instance, for ocean temperatures, it was stated that “Before 1942 most measurements were from ships that used buckets to bring samples of seawater onto the deck, where temperature measurements were made. Afterward it became more common to measure the temperature of the engine-intake seawater.” It mentions that this method was highly unreliable. Regarding data from before 1950, one paper warned that there are data gaps in almost all the data sets because data collection was suspended during the two world wars. All the papers state that going back to 1900, there is good coverage of temperature stations in North America, Europe, Australia and parts of Asia. But there is almost little to no coverage in South America, Africa and Greenland. That is a large portion of the world with little to no background information so depending on the data set used, the collection will use an algorithm to calculate the temperature. There is one disclaimer in one paper that states, “Differences between simple averages of the data and averages of the analysis are sometimes about as large as 95% indicating that the magnitude of the estimated errors may be justified.”

Modern day temperature data collection has only really taken off since 1985, when the US Govt started funding more climate research (by providing more temperature stations worldwide for military purposes and tracking weather conditions by satellites).

So is the Earth getting warmer or colder? If you read a lot of the NOAA scientists in charge of the data collection, they don't seem to know either. One paper stated that they excluded any data from the arctic and antarctic region because it would corrupt the data (since the North Pole is getting warmer and ice is melting, while the South Pole is getting colder and ice is increasing).

My opinion, I don't think they really know what's going on. I say this because the trend now is Global Warming, but I remember growing up, the trend was Global Cooling (See The Ice Age Cometh? By Michael D. Lemonick Monday, Jan. 31, 1994 in Time Magazine.)

Post: #14

Another thing that I think gets conveniently overlooked is that we were coming out of the Little Ice Age when weather records were first being kept. During the height of the Egyptian Empire, the Earth's Average Temperature was considerably warmer. If you look at the graph on the first link, you would think that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate. However, when you look at the second graph, not only has there been more rapid warming in the past, we are still cooler than in the past.

Environmentalists are the most egotistical bunch of people. You aren't going to save the world. The only thing we are destroying is ourselves. The Earth will be fine.

Post: #15

The science on both sides is suspect but I don't like how the feather in the cap of GW heads CO2 is way to far down the food chain to really make significant differences.

Also I am not a fan of the looming "solution" to "fix" Climate Change. Carbon Credits are through and through ponzi scheme and will simply become another bubble for Financiers to rape and pillage the people off of. The only things to exploit for money are the Environment, Water, and Life its self (Fertility licences/taxes). If divine desires to save the planet where behind this I would support it but as we sit and squabble behind the spotty science of both sides we fail to neglect the seething capitalist desires of it all.

This is all about money. Nobody on the elite level of Academia, Policy, or Finance gives two fucks if you or the little man in Peru dies, they do want you and the little man from Peru's money though. Trust.

Post: #16

(11-22-2012 04:49 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  Even if industrial emission does not cause climate change, in principle there is nothing wrong with reducing industrial waste products. Asthma, allergies, emphysema and cancers are associated with industrial air pollution - the worst that will happen if we stop emissions is that we will be healthier in a changing world, where we will need health all the more.

My problem comes from the knee-jerk reactions that the mainstream global warming alarmists have. If the science shows that man is at least partially responsible for global warming trends, then we should look for ways to limit the damage we may be causing. The problem arises when greedy scumbags like Al Gore support legislation like cap and trade which would triple energy prices and wipe out the middle class, all while having a very minimal affect on climate change.

I actually hope they pass cap and trade. Nothing would make these fucking morons rethink their blind support for the cause of the month club like $12 a gallon gas prices.

Post: #17

I definitely agree that cap-and-trade is an awful solution. If something is to be done, it has to be a small, flat carbon tax funneled into energy efficiency and alternative energy, not yet another system for global financial giants to squeeze out massive profits from.

Post: #18

(11-22-2012 12:30 PM)teh_skeeze Wrote:  Another thing that I think gets conveniently overlooked is that we were coming out of the Little Ice Age when weather records were first being kept. During the height of the Egyptian Empire, the Earth's Average Temperature was considerably warmer. If you look at the graph on the first link, you would think that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate. However, when you look at the second graph, not only has there been more rapid warming in the past, we are still cooler than in the past.

Environmentalists are the most egotistical bunch of people. You aren't going to save the world. The only thing we are destroying is ourselves. The Earth will be fine.

The globe's climate indeed changes drastically over scales of tens of thousands of years. Yes, Europe will once again be buried under a mile or two of ice at some point in the distant future long after we're dead. That we have no control over(for now). What we also see is climate change on a much shorter time scale than can be explainable by earth's natural processes(which slowly occur over eons, not decades). It's pretty much a case-closed argument to all but the most ideological people on the right that man is causing this short-term climate change by industry and pollution. And we need to understand how this is going to effect our future. There are some places where crops are grown now that will not be able to grow them in the future. And of course there are also some places that may gain more arable land because of climate change. But we don't know all the ways yet it will effect us. That's why we need to continue research. But one thing we can't do is deny that the matter even exist in the first place.

Post: #19

Selective publishing / focus towards what's politically correct (one thing is raw data, another thing is the conclusions you draw based on it and how you rationalize it) is huge except in "pure" fields such as math/physics/computer science.

The generous funding for hydrogen storage related projects (up to very recently) is an example. Just having the public be aware of the research area is a huge deal, as it justifies spending in the area. Global warming is an excellent cash cow.

Who pays for research? The tax payer. Who decides how much different research areas/projects/individual principal investigators get? People connected to those elected by the tax payer, through some government organization. How the money is spent is politically colored.

The extreme example is the Sovjet union. There funding for research would only be granted if it "supported Marxist theory", and every PhD thesis needed to have an introduction explaining how the findings fit in with Marxism/Leninism/Stalinism. Thus, the major scientific contributions by the Sovjet union was in.. math and physics.

This is NOT to say that humanity does not face huge issues related to pollution and overuse of natural resources (e.g. beyond repair). But global warming should not be #1. If your goal is to maximize human health and happiness, then overfishing, the destruction of rainforest habitat, local city pollution, and desertification in Africa are way more serious things. But global warming is more sexy. Just having the world "global" in your problem makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and united.

Post: #20

(11-22-2012 04:02 AM)Samseau Wrote:  I hate winters. I hope global warming comes true

Actually, climate change (I hate the term global warming-will explain why in a bit) could result in harsher winters for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Why? Thermohaline Circulation, or the potential lack thereof.

There is potential for rising global temperatures to disrupt the warm-to-cold water cycle (thermohaline circulation) that distributes warm water from the tropics to the north. This cycle is what keeps the northern hemisphere as warm as it currently is-if it is disrupted (and it could very well be-nobody is sure), these parts of the world could eventually see cooling and rising ice levels.

I'm not quite a skeptic when it comes to the climate change discussion. I do think that climate change is happening. My issues are as follows:

1. The term "global warming" isn't entirely accurate. The climate is changing, but it could change in such a way as to produce warming effects in some regions and muted effects in others, while having virtually no effect on some portions of the planet. We don't know exactly who and where will be subject to which one of these effects, but we do know that they'll likely vary. The term "global warming" implies mere warming, and this is too simplistic. "Climate change" paints a more complete picture, because the impacts can and will likely go well beyond mere temperature increases.

2. There is consensus on the fact that man is having an impact on climate. There is no consensus on precisely how much of an impact human activity is having, nor is there is a consensus on precisely how human activity is driving climate change (ex: there is still a lot we do not know about the interaction between certain elements in the climate change puzzle).

Because of this, we can't say with certainty that some of the extensive initiatives being proposed to combat climate change will actually combat climate change. However, as Thomas the Rhymer wisely pointed out, there are other benefits to green initiatives that go beyond the fight against climate change and may make some of them worthwhile (though pacesetter is correct to note that we're not being sold on these other benefits properly).

We're still learning, and there are wide gaps in our knowledge. shanefalco did a good job pointing some of these out in his post above-there is much uncertainty surrounding climate change, but entirely too many behave with absolute conviction on one side or the other (skeptic or proponent) with this topic.

Post: #21

Aw geeze. I hope this place isn't turning into a Reddit politics forum. Every other website is full of that shit- this place is supposed to be better than that.