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Phew. Now that Global Warming is over...

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Gertch

Admiral
Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.


The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.



"The 'hottest year on record' is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it." -- Mark Steyn, on the updated temperature data from NASA.


So does this corrected data really suggest that the problem isn't as dire as has been touted? Obviously there are other things happening (ice shelves breaking off, shorter freeze-overs in the Arctic) but could they just be normal fluctuations as has happened over the ages?
 
The short answer is no, because the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is so overwhelming. This might have given caution to our predictions in the mid-1990s when the science was less advanced, but it's been clear for a few years now that current human forcings now are about an order of magnitude more important than natural forcings and will only continue to grow in importance as our greenhouse gas outputs increase. Now, the problem likely isn't as dire as some of the more crazy environmental groups would say, but it's certainly become more apparent in the last year or two that it is extremely serious.

The main issue for this result is that is solely deals with the continental United States and not global temperature records. And it has been recognized for a long time that the 1930s especially were a hot period in the US (and globally to some extent). As the article says, it's only a 1-2% change in temperature records. So these minor changes in the order of "hottest years" is not that significant, especially as a clear upward trend in the late 20th century is still visible even in the corrected data.

-MEC
 
But the Earth has been colder than it is today and it's been hotter than it is today. And just in the last couple thousand years. And we also can't rule out the Sun being to blame. I know there is a lot of contention there but apparently the Earth isn't the only planet to have slight warming.
 
Gertch said:
But the Earth has been colder than it is today and it's been hotter than it is today. And just in the last couple thousand years. And we also can't rule out the Sun being to blame. I know there is a lot of contention there but apparently the Earth isn't the only planet to have slight warming.

Yes, the amount of solar variability can be quantified and it is possible to rule it out as the major cause of recent warming - that much has been clear for about 5 years. In 2005, the solar contribution to warming was about 0.15 Watts per square meter (relative to the preindustrial condition), compared to human forcing of 1.7 Watts per square meter. That human contribution continues to grow as greenhouse gas emissions increase and aerosol emissions decrease. Of course, solar variability has a minor effect now, but it had a more substantial effect in the past when human contributions were much lower (like any time pre-1950) and continues to be the primary driver on other planets (like Mars, although dust storms are also very important there).

The fact that it has been warmer and colder in the past is irrelevant. Sure, it was a lot warmer 45 million years ago during the Eocene - but we weren't around to be negatively affected so who cares? And as has been said many many times, it's not the actual temperature but the rate of change. Temperature is increasing so quickly that it will be very expensive for us to adapt our infrastructure and agriculture to it.

-MEC
 
SAVEPLANET.JPG


Honestly, I say we do whatever we can. Reduce dependencies on fossil fuels, control emissions and pollutants and whatever else we need to do. If we're doing it in vain we're just out some money I think billion-dollar profit corporations can afford it. It's better than not doing anything at all and wrecking the planet for centuries and ruining or ending the lives of billions.
 
Gertch said:
Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.


The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.



"The 'hottest year on record' is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it." -- Mark Steyn, on the updated temperature data from NASA.


So does this corrected data really suggest that the problem isn't as dire as has been touted? Obviously there are other things happening (ice shelves breaking off, shorter freeze-overs in the Arctic) but could they just be normal fluctuations as has happened over the ages?

Like I've always said...I'll leave it up to the scientists who actually study the bloomin' thing to give me the lowdown, and not some old washed-up ex-politician.

I've known this for ages...but the global warming fanatics won't listen. You bring up the FACT (now) that the planet was actually warmer in the 1930s than it is now, and they look at you with a befuddled look on their face.

What do you think caused the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s? And there weren't millions of SUVs driving all over the planet then either?

That said, read on...

Look folks, this is a SOLAR issue. Not a GLOBAL one. There is "global warming" going on all over the solar system. MARS is warming up, JUPITER is warming up, and so is the former planet PLUTO.

The universe, and thus the solar system, goes through cyclic, well cycles, where the star goes through variations in its burning stages.


What do you think caused all the Ice Ages? It's all CYCLIC. It ain't got nothing to do with us humans. As Earth was coming out of the last Ice Age, it warmed up an average of 10 degrees over normal in just a 10 year period. With this current "crisis", we're talking about a 1 degree warm-up over a 100 years. Ooooo, spooky... :vulcan:

And that's really the whole crux of the matter, isn't it? Are humans and our actviities the cause of this phenomenon? And at this point, I'd have to say a big, F'in NO! All the "going green" precautions we take ain't gonna amount to a hill of beans.
 
Global warming is a combination of both natural events and man made causes. We can do nothing about nature, but we can do something about man's part in this.
 
Johnny Rico said:
Gertch said:
Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.


The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.



"The 'hottest year on record' is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it." -- Mark Steyn, on the updated temperature data from NASA.


So does this corrected data really suggest that the problem isn't as dire as has been touted? Obviously there are other things happening (ice shelves breaking off, shorter freeze-overs in the Arctic) but could they just be normal fluctuations as has happened over the ages?

Like I've always said...I'll leave it up to the scientists who actually study the bloomin' thing to give me the lowdown, and not some old washed-up ex-politician.

So if you listen to the scientists, why does everything in the rest of your post contradict scientific results? Perhaps you should listen to Al Gore more, because he actually does a good job of summarizing the scientific evidence for global warming.

I've known this for ages...but the global warming fanatics won't listen. You bring up the FACT (now) that the planet was actually warmer in the 1930s than it is now, and they look at you with a befuddled look on their face.

What do you think caused the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930s? And there weren't millions of SUVs driving all over the planet then either?

The planet was not warmer then, although temperatures in the United States were about the same as today. Also, the dust bowl was caused by a drought, not a heat wave. According to this study, cooler than normal north Pacific water temperatures combined with warmer north Atlantic temperatures shifted weather patterns to greatly reduce rainfall.

That said, read on...

Look folks, this is a SOLAR issue. Not a GLOBAL one. There is "global warming" going on all over the solar system. MARS is warming up, JUPITER is warming up, and so is the former planet PLUTO.

The universe, and thus the solar system, goes through cyclic, well cycles, where the star goes through variations in its burning stages.

Yes, but solar variability cannot explain current warming. The science is clear - human activities have become increasingly important drivers of warming and are now 10 times as important as solar factors. If you just take natural factors into consideration, there should have been essentially no temperature increase in the past 40 years.

As for your other evidence, Pluto is warming because of its extremely elongate orbit. Just like it is warmest in the mid-afternoon on Earth, Pluto is in the "mid-afternoon" of its orbit now. There is no global warming on Jupiter - rather regions have warmed up because of changes in latitudinal heat transport. There is evidence for warming on Mars, but the actual temperature increase is minimal (and likely due to the small solar variation that has contributed about 10% to the warming here). The most dramatic changes (in the southern ice caps, for example) are more a factor of dust storms, which can exert a tremendous influence on Mars's climate.

What do you think caused all the Ice Ages? It's all CYCLIC. It ain't got nothing to do with us humans. As Earth was coming out of the last Ice Age, it warmed up an average of 10 degrees over normal in just a 10 year period. With this current "crisis", we're talking about a 1 degree warm-up over a 100 years. Ooooo, spooky... :vulcan:

And that's really the whole crux of the matter, isn't it? Are humans and our actviities the cause of this phenomenon? And at this point, I'd have to say a big, F'in NO! All the "going green" precautions we take ain't gonna amount to a hill of beans.

There is no evidence that global temperatures increased 10 degrees in 10 years during deglaciation. There can be rapid regional climate changes in northern Europe or eastern North America due to oceanographic changes in the North Atlantic, but those are regional changes and not global in scale. In fact, the current rate of warming is unprecedented in the last several hundred thousand years. Also, the predicted temperature increase over the next 100 years is anywhere from 3-7 degrees celsius, not 1 degree. No one disputes that cyclic temperatures changes, and are continuing to occur, but those natural factors are only a small part of the current warming trend.

-MEC
 
PlixTixiplik said:
As for your other evidence, Pluto is warming because of its extremely elongate orbit. Just like it is warmest in the mid-afternoon on Earth, Pluto is in the "mid-afternoon" of its orbit now.
:wtf:
"Mid-afternoon" has to do with the rotation of the Earth, not the orbit.

Pluto is currently closer to the sun then usual, just outside the orbit of Neptune. There's no analogy with the Earth's orbit, because Earth's orbit is much more circular.

Normally what you say is accurate. :lol:
 
It's not the same orbital process, but it is an analogous situation. Because Pluto was closest to the sun in 1989 it received the most heating - just like a given spot on Earth receives the most heating at local noon. However, Pluto is continuing to warm because it is still getting more solar insolation than it re-radiates, just like a given spot on Earth continues to warm up through the mid-afternoon because it's still continuing to receive more solar insolation.

So by that analogy to the amount of heating a given spot on Earth receives during daytime heating, Pluto is in the "mid-afternoon" of its orbit.

-MEC
 
Actually, it was at perihelion in 1989. But it's still warming for the same reasons that any given spot on Earth warms even after noon.

-MEC
 
I haven't bought gas in 61 days, it's been since July 8th since my vehicle has been on the road. My feet have been on the road though.

I bought a smaller house, cutting the sq footage from 3100 to 1200. That means less water and electric consumption. It qualifies for the "Good Sense" home program which is because it needs less electrical generating power. I have those goofy looking fluorescent light bulbs. Even my out door lights are solar powered and run off batteries at night.

The point?

The point is when I see "We need to"..

I start patting my pockets down to check for the mouse.

Global warming is caused, in part, by "We The People".

It's "We The People" who will reduce the impact, not laws and not business..
 
PlixTixiplik said:
The fact that it has been warmer and colder in the past is irrelevant. Sure, it was a lot warmer 45 million years ago during the Eocene - but we weren't around to be negatively affected so who cares?
It's not irrelevant. The extensive history of warming and cooling are a fact and needs to be included in any serious thought, just as any guesstimates about the amount that Man may be putting out.
Temperature is increasing so quickly that it will be very expensive for us to adapt our infrastructure and agriculture to it.

-MEC
At least it's not increasing as quickly as we thought a month ago. I don't see the big deal if we have to plant crops in Greenland, again. Hopefully that wont make Gore fly more or Cate Blanchett to start washing her hair again while jetting between her two mansions.

But what I really want to see is how 2007 turns out. I haven't actually seen any data but it seems much cooler and absence of any Atlantic hurricanes seems to bear that out.
 
If the "extensive history of warming and cooling" is so vital to your consideration of the issue, why are you so curious about shifts as small as from year to year? If 2007 turns out to be cooler, but 2010 is back to extreme temperatures and category 5 hurricanes every other month, what will that convince you of?
 
This cartoon is as flawed as "Jesus--what if it's true?" bumper stickers.

How do you figure?

If we do things and change our lifestyles to try and protect the enviroment and it is all in vain the worst thing we're out is money (namely billion-dollar profit organizations are out money) if we DON'T try and save the enviroment the worst thing we're out is a planet!!

I'd rather we err on the side of caution, personaly.

I'm not saying I believe in Global Warming but my rational mind tells me just can't dump megatons of carbon, carbonmonoixide and other dirty compound into the air and not expect it to have some effect on things. Would it be really that bad if we stopped using fossil fuels and switched to something potentialy less harmful?

Oh, that's right, the CEO of Exxon needs his $100m a year salary and his $300m retirement plan. So we can't dare ask them to dump some money into research and development of non-fossil fuel and systems.

Sorry, my bad Mr. CEO.
 
Earl said:
It's "We The People" who will reduce the impact, not laws and not business..
Legislation and governance can, however, encourage "We the people" to reduce their impact on the environment.

In cities with excellent public transit systems and high gasoline taxes, people drive less. In cities where the city picks up your recycling every week, people recycle more.

PlixTixiplik said:
It's not the same orbital process, but it is an analogous situation. Because Pluto was closest to the sun in 1989 it received the most heating - just like a given spot on Earth receives the most heating at local noon. However, Pluto is continuing to warm because it is still getting more solar insolation than it re-radiates, just like a given spot on Earth continues to warm up through the mid-afternoon because it's still continuing to receive more solar insolation.

So by that analogy to the amount of heating a given spot on Earth receives during daytime heating, Pluto is in the "mid-afternoon" of its orbit.

-MEC
I suppose if you think about it that way...

ETA: Climate lags the sun a bit. In the northern hemisphere, the coldest part of the winter (January) is after the winter solstice (in December), and the hottest part of the summer (August) is after the summer solstice (July). Same could be true for Pluto.

Same with the hottest part of the day - early afternoon, not 12:00:00 on the dot.
 
PlixTixiplik said:
Johnny Rico said:
Gertch said:
Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.


The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.



"The 'hottest year on record' is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone's ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn't have a word to say about it." -- Mark Steyn, on the updated temperature data from NASA.


So does this corrected data really suggest that the problem isn't as dire as has been touted? Obviously there are other things happening (ice shelves breaking off, shorter freeze-overs in the Arctic) but could they just be normal fluctuations as has happened over the ages?

Like I've always said...I'll leave it up to the scientists who actually study the bloomin' thing to give me the lowdown, and not some old washed-up ex-politician.

So if you listen to the scientists, why does everything in the rest of your post contradict scientific results? Perhaps you should listen to Al Gore more, because he actually does a good job of summarizing the scientific evidence for global warming.

Well, maybe if Al Gore would give up flying in his private jets creating a bigger carbon footprint in one flight than what most average Americans do in a year, then maybe more people would take him seriously.

You see, there's a bit of a hypocrisy thing here. Don't tell me there's a crisis, and then go jump on your private jet.
 
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