There are some really neat looking videos on the NASA website showing how carbon dioxide moves throughout the earth's atmosphere.
Scientists have made ground-based measurements of carbon dioxide for decades and in July NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite to make global, space-based carbon observations. But the simulation — the product of a new computer model that is among the highest-resolution ever created — is the first to show in such fine detail how carbon dioxide actually moves through the atmosphere.
The main article has a video that shows a world wide view over the year 2006. It runs about 3 minutes. Close-ups on a month's time scale can be found here and each of the 3 videos run about 30 seconds.
The main article mentions that CO2 concentrations reached 400 ppm (parts per million) for the first time in the Spring of 2014. Before the industrial revolution, it was about 270 ppm. The sub article mentions that the videos show 375 (dark blue) to 395 (light purple) ppm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 20 2014, @05:23PM
Carbon Dioxide is a life-giving gas necessary for the majority of life on this planet. Rejoice in it's abundance!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 20 2014, @05:36PM
Yeah, I'm considering to move to Venus, where carbon dioxide is 96% of the atmosphere. Must be a great place to live!
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday November 21 2014, @12:34PM
Good luck. You don't need to take winter clothes, but I'd recommend a raincoat. Sulphuric acid rain can be bad on your skin.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 20 2014, @06:23PM
Models are cute, except that that bright red is missing a little devil laughing for full effect.
The problem is that the deniers just don't believe the models. You need to make the same video, but with the actual satellite data. And it needs to go over multiple years to show how it's not just cyclical. It will take a long time to gather all the required data...
And then the deniers will either not believe it anyway, or be told that the continuous growth of their bank account requires that they don't (and it protects their grandchildren anyway)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday November 20 2014, @07:12PM
That's the key: There is no information a scientist can present that will change the minds of those who have already decided that the whole idea of global climate change is a liberal conspiracy dreamed up by a bunch of hippies trying to destroy America. How do we know this? Because every time the denier side asks for more evidence, and then the climatologists come back with that evidence, that changes absolutely nobody's opinion about the issue.
Want proof that that can happen? Look at evolution, which has been settled science now for roughly 150 years and is still not believed by something like 40% of Americans. Indeed, it's a cultural marker not to believe in evolution: saying you're a creationist is demonstrating that you haven't been taken in by that whole "science" conspiracy, and there is not coincidentally a strong correlation between denying evolution and denying global climate change.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 20 2014, @07:41PM
> liberal conspiracy dreamed up by a bunch of hippies trying to destroy America
That always cracks me up. The "liberals" accuse the "conservative" of trying to concentrate all the money amongst the Rich (enslaving the poor and destroying the middle-class). The "conservative" accuse the "liberals" of trying to destroy their own country (by killing jobs with taxes and unarmed gay immigrant people). Half the people reading this post believe that those average joes watching the same football game as them in the bar while drinking the same shitty beer are out to get them, just because they polymorph into certified evil joes as soon as they clock in at their job for the oppressive government.
Can we get back to reasonable middle-ground compromises? (historical definition of middle-ground, not the current one)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday November 20 2014, @08:52PM
If one side of a debate says 2+2=4, and the other side of the debate says that 2+2=6, is it in any way correct or useful to suggest that 2+2=5 is a good compromise position? Consider that this encourages the side that thinks it's larger to say that 2+2=8 so that the middle-ground position is now 2+2=6.
Sometimes, one side of a debate is just plain wrong. Being wrong doesn't make you evil or stupid, but it does mean that if you should rethink it in light of a demonstration that you are wrong. And that's what the one side of the AGW and evolution debates are refusing to do.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 20 2014, @09:03PM
Agreed. I silently expanded the topic of my question to politics in general, not just climate discussions.
I also specified "historical" for the middle ground, since it it my humble opinion that Obama's non-social policies are much farther right than his own party expected, and it displaced the nay-sayers across the aisle much closer to the extreme right than many traditional conservatives would like to be.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday November 20 2014, @07:49PM
Minor nitpick, but it's a pet peeve of mine: Not all creationists don't believe in evolution or think the earth is 6,000 years old. A creationist believes that God created the universe. Many creationists also believe in young earth and reject evolution, but not by a long shot do all creationists think that way.
As a creationist myself, nothing I believe is inconsistent with science. Which is easy, because faith and science are entirely different things.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 20 2014, @08:22PM
If you do - then it is inconsistent with science.
If you don't - then your deity is inconsistent with the omnipotent one that the Abrahamic religions believe in.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday November 20 2014, @08:52PM
Yes.
How so? If, for a moment, you accept the existence of God as an premise, what would be the problem with believing that the creator of the universe could violate the constraints of the universe?
And, unless you know something I don't, the existence of God is not falsifiable, so as long as I'm claiming faith and not science for the existence of God, there's nothing inconsistent with science there, either.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 20 2014, @10:07PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:52AM
Missed the fact that you replied...
Sure they are. They're not changeable on a whim by anyone except the entity that created them. Who, as far as we can tell, never changes them.
Wikipedia has an interesting Stephen Hawking quote:
Better said than I could have. Which is something I'd expect from a real scientist. :)
(Score: 1) by NotSanguine on Friday November 21 2014, @03:50AM
Do you believe in a deity that can violate the laws of physics?
Personally, I do not. However, that "belief" is not science, as the premise isn't falsifiable. Which puts that squarely into the arena of metaphysics.
Do we live in a multiverse (as posited by M-theory?), that too isn't falsifiable (at least as far as I'm aware -- please correct me if that's not so). Which makes *that* metaphysics too.
If you do - then it is inconsistent with science.
I'd say that it isn't inconsistent with science per se, but rather it's outside the arena that science operates.
For example, if we accept M-Theory to be true, the vast majority of the multiverse likely has different physical laws. As such, how can we know if there is/was/will be (as time may not be relevant either) some intelligent force that caused our little piece of the muiltiverse to come into being?
We can argue about this ad infinitum, but since there's no way to falsify any of these propositions, science isn't equipped to address them.
If you don't - then your deity is inconsistent with the omnipotent one that the Abrahamic religions believe in.
Your point is a good one, and I agree with you. However, given our current understanding of our universe, we can't perform an experiment or an analysis to even give odds as to the truth or falsity of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent force/being/sky daddy/whatever.
What (current) science can say with some confidence is that there is no evidence to suggest the existence of anything that can alter/nullify/violate the physical laws we have observed and/or deduced.
Feel free to disagree with any or all of this. But (current) science cannot provide evidence for, or refute, any of it.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday November 21 2014, @08:35AM
No, but an omnipotent deity can ruin all of science - right to the core - making it utterly useless. Science coexisting with an omnipotent god is like talking about who will die in the next episode of a TV fiction which hasn't been aired (or written) yet. OK, much of the internet seems to like doing that, but it achieves nothing, and certainly doesn't advance the plot.
That is why the (non-)existence of one is the thing that I wish people would address. God nullifies all science.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday November 21 2014, @04:59AM
My guess is if they could have, they would have.
I'm no planetary scientist, but based on the satellite maps of the weather, satellite data comes in pretty chunky and not very detailed. I think we've been spoiled by the detailed imagery by Google Maps. Unfortunately, it is a lot easier to take detailed photos than get detailed data like carbon dioxide emissions.
Personally, I think the models are pretty good. Fluid dynamic modeling is really hard and, if my understanding is correct, they got a model to match a year's worth of data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 21 2014, @07:49AM
When God changes your mind, that's faith.
When facts change your mind, that's science.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday November 21 2014, @07:51AM
Why Call Him God?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?
- Epicurus
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday November 20 2014, @06:46PM
didn't read the article of course, but from TFS:
The main article mentions that CO2 concentrations reached 400 ppm (parts per million) for the first time in the Spring of 2014. Before the industrial revolution, it was about 270 ppm .
Shoot, we haven't even doubled our CO2 since the industrial revolution? It seems like we're being lazy, let's get those factories pumping!!
/sarcasm
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