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posted by martyb on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the Meanwhile-Carnarvon-Airport-(Australia)-Reached-113.7°F-(45.4°C) dept.

Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S., Dispelling Doubts About Climate Change

A poll released Tuesday showed that more people are starting to believe climate change is credible, partly due to the frigid weather which has gripped the United States.

The poll released by Associated Press showed that 48 percent of respondents found the science of human-induced climate change more convincing when the poll was taken in November 2018 than they did five years ago, compared to 14 percent who thought it less convincing.

Eighty-three percent of those polled who believe in climate change want the federal government to take actions to mitigate it, and 80 percent want their state governments to act, the survey found.

More people than expected supported a carbon tax to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the survey.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768179.htm

Prolonged, Life-Threatening Cold to Grip Midwestern US This Week as Polar Vortex Plunges South

The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for frostbite to occur in minutes and hypothermia during the final days of January.

The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F [-43°C] in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day's record of 36 below zero F [-38°C] from 1966.

As harsh as Sunday morning was, the worst is yet to come as the polar vortex gets displaced from the Arctic Circle and dives into the Midwest in the wake of the disruptive snowstorm starting this week.

https://news.yahoo.com/prolonged-life-threatening-cold-grip-165320957.html

Climate Change Cooks up Ideal Conditions for Snow

Look at all that snow in the Alps; has global warming taken a break? Alas, no, it turns out that the recent record-breaking dumps of snow across much of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are more likely a consequence of global warming. Why? Balmy temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are cooking up the ideal conditions to create snow.
[...]
Global warming enhances the current snowfall … Anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic are loading winds from the north with moisture,” tweeted Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam last week.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/21/weatherwatch-climate-change-cooks-up-ideal-conditions-snow


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  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @09:08AM (35 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @09:08AM (#792934)

    Is the earth heating up?
    Maybe, it's actually hard to tell since the #1 claim of, "higher highs" is more than compensated for by lower lows as evidenced by the last 20 years of progressively colder and more dangerous winters.

    Let's be straight. I'm urging you to start looking at the raw data, sans the numerancy applied to it, to force it to fit the popular narrative and do so with an open mind. Don't just come to a conclusion and then read the data that supports your biases. Seek the truth, let the biases go and just look at the damned data.

    From where I sit, I just see a widening swath of temperatures in general. This goes directly against the popular narrative which continually discounts documented historical facts about both warmer and cooler times from well before humans were a dominant force on the planet. We've had hot and cold stretches that run decades even centuries, it's recorded, you just have to look at it and take it into account.

    If you draw your conclusions from all available data. It should be clear to anyone who respects the scientific method, anthropogenic climate change is just pseudo-scientific non-sense. It is not substantiated by the raw data and is quite contrary to what the data is actually telling us.

    It's not a science, it is a religion. Like all religions it is preaching guilt and sin. But this religion is dangerous because it is wrapped up in the trappings of popular science.

    It will one day be looked at as the luminous aether of our generation. This is already clear from the fact that anyone who takes a contrary position to the popular narrative or pokes holes in the claims, is immediately labeled a heretic / denier and lumped in with the flat earth crowd, which is the modern version of burning at the stake.

    Calling a skeptic a denier is just intellectually dishonest, because the anthropogenic climate change religion is completely saturated with claims which would not be able to be substantiated in a real scientific field. The evidence is too flimsy to stand up to any actual scrutiny and data has to be shaped and molded for it to even fit the narrative of the religious leaders.

    Just as celestial spheres were required to explain the orbits of the sun, moon, stars and planets about the earth a few hundred years ago. We eventually realized that was wrong and hopefully one day we will realize AGW is wrong as well. Hopefully one day we will get a Copernicus or Galileo who will set the record straight, but right now I'd settle for a Martin Luther.

    The fact is, humans just can't compete with nature when it comes to pumping out CO2 and Methane. We could go extinct tomorrow and it wouldn't even slow things down. The PETM pretty well proves it. We weren't around back then, yet it got much hotter, much faster. The water temp at the equator was close to a hot bath and at the poles it was swim suit weather all year long. But global temps still varied enormously even back then.

    Science keeps showing us that Earth has throughout most of its history had a much broader range of temps than it has for the last 10,000 years.
    For the last 10,000 years we've been in a post glacial band of temps that is quite narrow and this is why we're freaked out about a possible 2 degree difference, when during the PETM, temps were easily 20 degrees higher than they are now. This narrow band of temperatures is likely what allowed civilizations to rise and flourish. But the end of that period of gentleness does not mean an end to civilization anymore than an end to nursery school means an end to life.

    We will evolve, survive and thrive as we always have.

    Does this mean we should just pollute to our hearts content?
    No, but most animals don't need laws to tell them not to shit where they eat, so why should we?

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @11:59AM (25 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @11:59AM (#792951)

    how the fuck is this interesting?

    here's the raw data https://xkcd.com/1732/, [xkcd.com] in a form that anyone can understand if they are willing to actually look at it.

    The planet Earth is heating up. That is established scientific fact.
    If you disagree with the measurements or the way they are performed, please address them in a coherent and factual way, don't just say "from where I sit", because that is meaningless.

    Humans are the main cause for the Earth heating up. That is also established scientific fact, see reports by the Intergovernmental panel on climate change.
    If you disagree with their conclusions, please make a factual rebuttal of their findings, don't just complain about being labeled a denier (which you are).

    • (Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Monday January 28 2019, @12:57PM (3 children)

      by SpockLogic (2762) on Monday January 28 2019, @12:57PM (#792969)

      The xkcd link is broken. Just sayin.

      --
      Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday January 28 2019, @01:41PM (2 children)

      by SunTzuWarmaster (3971) on Monday January 28 2019, @01:41PM (#792981)

      https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]

      Poignant.

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:26PM (#793067)

        geez, how do they know the temperature ...uhm ... errr ... 538 years ago?
        i suppose using old wood, like when it's cold, they grow slow and when warm they grow faster, thus yielding "year rings", or how?
        nothing can "capture" temperature today and reveal it, uhm ... errr ... say 100 years from now.
          anyways, trees tend to generate shade and more trees, soon to be a forest(*).
        forests are always colder then a non shaded area, methinks.

        i imagine a thermometer hatching from a seedling, showing the temperature during its life time and then making a lot of other thermometers sprouting beside it.
        the baby thermometers will show colder temperatures when growing up in the shade of the papa thermometer, until they reach the same height or papa was felled by some lightning or storm ...

        anyways, modern thermometers tend to grow in cities, where there's lots of concert, asphalt and traffic and not on far away mountain tops or in deep wooden forests and modern thermometers generally show warmer weather ...

        (*) maybe that comic curve also correlates with amount of trees on the planet?

      • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday January 28 2019, @11:11PM

        by stretch611 (6199) on Monday January 28 2019, @11:11PM (#793286)

        From the xkcd link...

        The title attribute of the comic image...

        [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.

        In most browsers, hold your mouse steady over the image until a tooltip appears.

        --
        Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 28 2019, @02:00PM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @02:00PM (#792991) Journal

      Your link clearly demonstrats that civilization has risen thanks to temperature rise. And, then it has that Al Gore hockey stick. FFS - couldn't you do ANY BETTER?!?!?!

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 28 2019, @11:01PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday January 28 2019, @11:01PM (#793278) Journal

        Your link clearly demonstrats that civilization has risen thanks to temperature rise.

        https://xkcd.com/552/ [xkcd.com]

        And, then it has that Al Gore hockey stick. FFS - couldn't you do ANY BETTER?!?!?!

        Better than using actual data and citing the data source and telling about the possible errors of the data? What would that be?

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 28 2019, @02:03PM (6 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @02:03PM (#792993) Journal

      Yes, it IS interesting. If you've studied religion at all, any of the major religions, you would recognize how much AGWism resembles a religion. How many heretics have YOU burnt at the stake?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:32PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @03:32PM (#793026)

        agwism? i dunno what that means. i am guessing its a new term used to somehow belittle the xenos outside of a clique of hardcore adherents.

        i thought burning the heretics was a religion. heretics burning because the world is burning isn't technically fulfilling the goal ,although they do get crossed off the list of infidels to return to our maker to distribute His divine Justice.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 28 2019, @04:16PM (4 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @04:16PM (#793059) Journal

          anthropomorphic global warming ism

          AGWism

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:32PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:32PM (#793154)

            You embody pretty much everything dumb about the US, even if you are a paid agitator.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 28 2019, @07:12PM (2 children)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @07:12PM (#793172) Journal

              If I'm a paid agitator, then I want my pay. I've probably earned enough by now to pay for a cheeseburger.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:48AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:48AM (#793338)

                Such a typically American comment, suspicious.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:39AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:39AM (#793413)

                You sure you don't want a Royale with Cheese ?

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:21PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:21PM (#792997)

      Thank you for demonstrating my point so concisely.
      You've helped me make several points.
      The first one is data fitting.

      That cartoon is an excellent example of a misleading graph which is precisely the type of intellectual dishonesty I was speaking about when I mentioned that AGW is not so much a science as it is a religion.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_graph [wikipedia.org]

      The graph even though it is one of the better ones that exist, is misleading for a number of reasons.

      The first reason is that near the bottom, the time axis is intentionally compressed to show an exaggerated effect. Secondly it is misleading because it spends such a short time on the "current time" area where do have somewhat decent data and then projects wildly into the future based on less than 2 decades of trend despite the fact that the older data shows trends cycling back and forth over the millennia.

      In fact even with the skew, it doesn't break past +1 until several years past the end of the actual data and several years into the projected data and there isn't any support for those projections.

      Another point this demonstrates is appeal to authority. I made an argument about data being massaged to fit a narrative. Rather than try to show actual data, we get a cartoon which sources its data from a narrative given by the exact same priesthood that I warned about. Yet, going back to the same graph you can clearly see that temps are about where they are now, going as far back as 8500 BCE.

      Assuming the data in the chart is reasonably accurate, it would be far more honest to say that we haven't been this warm since 2000 BCE, but that we were this warm and warmer for up to 6500 years prior to that. Ergo, the last 4000 years have been part of a larger cycle with narrow temperature ranges that are now broadening and there is no clear correlation at all between human activity and this overall broadening.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @05:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @05:39PM (#793110)

        The time axis is intentionally compressed to show an exaggerated effect.

        It is 331 pixels for every 500 years, all the way from the top of the graph to the bottom. Perhaps you were misled, because toward the end there are labels for every 100 years, instead of every 500. But that is common for such a graph since we have a lot more data about the last 500 than the 20,000 before it.

        projects wildly into the future based on less than 2 decades of trend despite the fact that the older data shows trends cycling back and forth over the millennia... we were this warm and warmer for up to 6500 years prior to that. Ergo, the last 4000 years have been part of a larger cycle...

        So my factory produced 200 widgets +/- 100 widgets, each day for 20 years. We had a seasonal cycle, where some months we ramped production to 300 widgets a day, and other months we ramped down to produce only 100 widgets/day. Now we upgrade the factory, hire new employees, and turn on a new manufacturing line. This month we produced 300 widgets/day.

        By your logic, this must be part of our seasonal cycle because we have already had months in the past where we produced 300 widgets/day. There is no clear correlation at all between my manufacturing upgrades and the increased number of widgets. We must wait until we produce 400 widgets before we can be sure the new manufacturing line did anything at all.

        In reality, we take into account the production of the old line, and the production of the new line, and we forecast under the idea that the old one produces a max of 300/day, and the new one 300/day, so we have a capacity of 600 per day +/-200 into the future.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:44AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:44AM (#793420) Journal
        And don't forget two more things: the absence of error bars and the sudden appearance of multi-decade climate variation with the beginning of the instrument period.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:39PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @02:39PM (#793006)

      here's the raw data [link to a webcomic]

      Wow, a web comic is now considered "raw data" by the people concerned about this stuff... We have to be jumping the shark on this, it is like the shoeshine boy telling you to buy stocks. All the suckers are bought in, time to shear them. Perhaps that is related to blaming extreme cold on CO2 now too*.

      * Actually, the original CO2 theory (from when they wanted to extrapolate a downward trend) was that it would increase humidity, which would turn to precipitation when the air traveled to the poles. This would cause more snow/ice to form there which would reflect more sunlight, thus leading to an "ice age". This idea will likely be making a come back in the next 10 years.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:12PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @06:12PM (#793138)

        The XKCD author is a huge nerd that does quite a good job of using real data to make jokes.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:47PM (#793190)

          So? A web comic does not pass for "raw data", even if a "huge nerd" made it. This is ridiculous.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 29 2019, @04:06AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 29 2019, @04:06AM (#793424) Journal
          The notable mistakes of that particular graph have been discussed before. But I agree. The shark has been jumped here. The need to convince us of climate change catastrophe has greatly outpaced the actual data that can support such a claim. Fortunately, we can wait a few decades to see if the xkcd author and you are accurate or not.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:04PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @04:04PM (#793049)

      how the fuck is this interesting?

      here's the raw data https://xkcd.com/1732/, [xkcd.com] [xkcd.com] in a form that anyone can understand if they are willing to actually look at it.

      The planet Earth is heating up. That is established scientific fact.
      If you disagree with the measurements or the way they are performed, please address them in a coherent and factual way, don't just say "from where I sit", because that is meaningless.

      Humans are the main cause for the Earth heating up. That is also established scientific fact, see reports by the Intergovernmental panel on climate change.
      If you disagree with their conclusions, please make a factual rebuttal of their findings, don't just complain about being labeled a denier (which you are).

      OP asked for the AGW / Climate Change proselytizers to review the raw data themselves without the fudging /normalizing and come to their own conclusions and you post a link to a hack cartoonist who is best known for a $5 wrench anti-crypto meme and you call it "raw data." Way to prove his point. This is why your opposition brands you as religious zealots and not scientists. What is sad is that you have enough penitent parishioners to exclaim AMEN and mod you as "informative." WTF?

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 28 2019, @05:28PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @05:28PM (#793103) Journal

      Sorry, but that humans are the cause of the warming is only a strongly indicated assumption. There are other possibilities, and why the hell should it matter, we still need to act to counter the warming, no matter who's to blame.

      (OTOH, the effect of the CO2, methane, etc. is a scientific fact. It's just that volcanoes, etc., also emit CO2, etc., and we haven't carefully measured all sources. So that humans are contributing to the warming is a fact, but that they are causing the warming is only extremely highly probable.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 28 2019, @05:13PM (4 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @05:13PM (#793090) Journal

    It's not just hotter highs and colder lows. It's also more violent tornadoes and hurricanes. And more of them. Are we seeing more floods than ever before? More forest fires than ever before? More drought in some places?

    Are these things real?

    If they are and they get worse, shouldn't we begin trying to curb the damage being caused by humans? Or should we just ignore it for the convenience and profit of a few?

    Major infrastructure changes take time. We should be working towards such changes before we're doing so under any kind of time pressure caused by constantly kicking the can down the road. Why NOT try to limit CO2 emissions -- within reason, and economic reason? Why not invest more in solar, wind, wave and battery technology? These things don't get perfected overnight. Just like the original primitive automobile. So why not try to work with other nations to try to gradually, reasonably fix this problem?

    Why is that seen as such a bad thing?

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 28 2019, @05:32PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @05:32PM (#793105) Journal

      To be fair, it had long been predicted that as we left the "little climatic optimum" storms and weather variability would increase. So what the "climate change" (aka "global warming") has done is merely increase the strength of something that would have happened anyway. So far. (Of course "merely" can mean the difference between a nuisance and a catastrophe, but what of that.)

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @05:49PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @05:49PM (#793119)

      because of how it is done. with lies and force. don't fucking tell me i can't burn my wood stove to keep warm while whole cities of chem plants pump cancer into the air. don't try to steal more money from the people while the IRS loses 19 billion a year to fraud and spends the rest on death and lining leaches' pockets. fuck your establishment/government solutions, you dumb ass slave.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @07:07PM (#793168)

        This comment I think encapsulates very well the zeitgeist when capitalism nears the end of its curve.

        The elites get away with murder and we cannot even heat our own houses.

        It's one of the dangers of placing so much wealth under the control of so few people....

    • (Score: 2) by gottabeme on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:56AM

      by gottabeme (1531) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @12:56AM (#793340)

      It's not just hotter highs and colder lows. It's also more violent tornadoes and hurricanes. And more of them. Are we seeing more floods than ever before? More forest fires than ever before? More drought in some places?

      Even the government reports say that hurricanes are at a low, not a high.

      Your rhetoric is so transparent. Asking a bunch of pseudo-scientific questions, appearing to be just so incredibly reasonable--how could anyone disagree with you? How could what you want possibly be seen as such a bad thing?

      You're either a liar or a fool. Which is it?

  • (Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday January 28 2019, @10:39PM (3 children)

    by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 28 2019, @10:39PM (#793272)

    The fact is, humans just can't compete with nature when it comes to pumping out CO2 and Methane. We could go extinct tomorrow and it wouldn't even slow things down. The PETM pretty well proves it. We weren't around back then, yet it got much hotter, much faster. The water temp at the equator was close to a hot bath and at the poles it was swim suit weather all year long. But global temps still varied enormously even back then.

    Science keeps showing us that Earth has throughout most of its history had a much broader range of temps than it has for the last 10,000 years.
    For the last 10,000 years we've been in a post glacial band of temps that is quite narrow and this is why we're freaked out about a possible 2 degree difference, when during the PETM, temps were easily 20 degrees higher than they are now. This narrow band of temperatures is likely what allowed civilizations to rise and flourish. But the end of that period of gentleness does not mean an end to civilization anymore than an end to nursery school means an end to life.

    We will evolve, survive and thrive as we always have.

    It is not about whether we can out-compete nature, it is about the balance that we are upsetting. You are correct in saying that things would continue to warm if we were to disappear tomorrow. This is a BAD thing. We have already set our course in motion, and it will take massive effort to turn it.

    Humans might survive such massive changes in temperature, but it ain't gonna be pretty for civilization and there won't be 7+ billion of us anymore.

    --
    The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @11:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 28 2019, @11:05PM (#793281)

      Warmer temperatures are so much better than colder temperatures it isn't even worth discussing.

    • (Score: 2) by EETech1 on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:42AM (1 child)

      by EETech1 (957) on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:42AM (#793388)

      Humans put 37 Gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere last year.

      37 trillion kilograms!

      The same weight as 100 million 747s

      Or 7.5 billion elephants.

      Or 75 times your weight (as well as 75X every other human)

      That can't be good!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @04:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @04:17AM (#793427)

        The dissolved CO2 in the oceans is extimated as 137,100 GT*. https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?s=n&v=0&id=100969 [harvard.edu]

        37 GT is about 0.02 % of that. Assuming no compensating mechanisms, in fifty years we will have changed the CO2 by about 1% of its value.

        *That page gives carbon mass. multiply by 44/12 to get CO2 mass.