Submitted via IRC for Bytram
'Pause' in global warming was never real, new research proves
Claims of a 'pause' in observed global temperature warming are comprehensively disproved in a pair of new studies published today.
An international team of climate researchers reviewed existing data and studies and reanalysed them. They concluded there has never been a statistically significant 'pause' in global warming. This conclusion holds whether considering the `pause' as a change in the rate of warming in observations or as a mismatch in rate between observations and expectations from climate models.
[...] Dr. Risbey said: "Our findings show there is little or no statistical evidence for a 'pause' in GMST rise. Neither the current data nor the historical data support it. Moreover, updates to the GMST data through the period of 'pause' research have made this conclusion stronger. But, there was never enough evidence to reasonably draw any other conclusion.
"Global warming did not pause, but we need to understand how and why scientists came to believe it had, to avoid future episodes like this. The climate-research community's acceptance of a 'pause' in global warming caused confusion for the public and policy system about the pace and urgency of climate change.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Captival on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:15AM (9 children)
What I'd like to hear from my scientists:
"We did research. Here are the results."
What I'm currently hearing:
"An act of thoughtcrime has been committed and those responsible are under direct investigation. How can we prevent future heretics from questioning the righteous orthodoxy?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:31AM (3 children)
We have a fight over high-stakes funding for research, and a fight over far higher stakes control of the world economy. In such an environment, honest science is impossible and nobody can be trusted.
Not that the science matters! No matter if the orthodox opinion is factual or not, the winning move is to burn more coal. Avoiding coal just reduces the price, making other nations more likely to cheat. Crushing our own economy in self-inflicted burden will ultimately weaken us to the point that we are nowhere near a superpower, and it becomes possible for other nations to seriously consider conquering us for our unmined coal. If things get hot enough to cause major problems, the nations best able to deal with it will be the ones with the stronger economies... enabled by burning lots of coal.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:20AM
My view is that shaky science plus "Think globally. Act locally." is going to result in some impressive historical lessons for anyone willing to pay attention. The mitigation advocates don't have the evidence or authority to impose and enforce global rules on climate change mitigation. So it's going to devolve to local demonstrations. And in an environment where defectors prosper and mitigation efforts have substantial costs, this will result in educational shifts in power to the defectors.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:55AM
Only a hand full of people in the world come even close to be qualified climate scientists, and they're under just as much social pressure as anybody else.
For the rest of us, it's like we've been knocked out and have woken up aboard a lavishly appointed cruise ship.
We're seated at some kind of gaming table in the ship's casino. The guy on the left says this is the Titanic, but is just as busy placing bets as anybody else. The guy on the right is the captain who insists nothing is wrong. He boasts that before he left the bridge, his last order was to shovel on more coal.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:23PM
I found it really interesting checking out the map at https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants. [carbonbrief.org] The west appears to be closing a lot of coal plants and does not have any plants proposed to replace them. I presume this is switching to natural gas, which although still a fossil fuel is better than coal when it comes to pollution. I couldn't find the map I looked at a while back, but it showed proposed plants better, with hundreds in the process of being built in China but none in the west.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NateMich on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:35AM (1 child)
Inconclusive results don't make headlines, get you invited onto talk shows, or sell books and movies.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:29PM
Calling it a "pause" in the first place was pretty damn clickbaity.
Global Temperature Record [wikipedia.org]
Most humans would not call 2014 a pause.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:00AM
especially when I read things like:
"The comparisons were made with a variety of statistical techniques to correct for problems in previous work."
you can 'fix' anything using the 'right' statistical techniques.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:11AM
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:21PM
They did the research, the nonexistant pause is the result.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:30AM (4 children)
No, they didnt. That's ok though, the Hansen 1988 scenario B/C scenario is still pretty good: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction.htm [skepticalscience.com]
This type of article that tries to pass of post-hoc justifications with predictions is anti-scientific though. If climate researchers were properly vetting each other they would be run out of town.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @02:32AM
*"pass off post-hoc justifications as"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:09AM (2 children)
From your link:
Note that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions is still increasing which is a more aggressive warming scenario than scenario B, but the measured warming is less than scenario B even by GISS measurements. A lot of models, including some that have a far less alarming long term prognosis would fit "pretty good".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:38AM (1 child)
Yep, just fitting the trend in 1988 would fit "pretty good" (actually better than any of those Hansen 1988 projections). "Pretty good" means ok, but not a big deal. You need to predict something surprising to get (intelligent) people to care. It is simple Baye's rule.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:42AM
*Bayes' rule
I mean you need to sum up the performance of all possible explanations in the denominator. The model in question (found in both the numerator and denominator) is only interesting if it dominates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:39AM (15 children)
Or we're toast. Once again the human race is counting on a technology breakthrough to save our asses. Something like fussion or workable carbon capture . The last breakthrough was the agricultural revolution. Now we need an energy breakthrough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:50AM
Now we need an energy breakthrough.
Or we could just chill... Cutting back on the confidence games will go a helluva long way
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:14AM (3 children)
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/ [ucsd.edu]
Was trying to find some post about how nuclear fusion and no use of fossil fuels would still kill the planet since we would be dumping so much heat. But found that more optimistic blog instead.
You may have heard of a number of companies laying low and working on fusion (such as LPP Fusion, General Fusion, Helion Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, etc.) as well as the big Lockheed Martin.
I think the real game changer could be peel-n-stick/flexible solar panels. Possibly much lower efficiency, but much lower weight, cost(?), and easier to install.
The question is: how cheap will it become to go off the grid (or at least not need the grid 90% of the time)? You could imagine that a cheaper version of Tesla's solar roof concept combined with a battery system could do the trick.
If the household demand for power plateaus or even decreases due to newer, more efficient appliances and A/C systems, and most of the household's needs can be taken care of by solar for some percentage of the time (use battery during the night and bad weather conditions, then rely on grid), then we can start closing redundant and polluting power plants.
Moving away from the household, commercial solar installations would obviously benefit from a cheap, light solar panel.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:03PM (2 children)
But in that context it's worth noting that with current design we probably don't have enough resources to build enough solar cells. So it's going to need a different design, possibly based around carbon, or at least different doping compounds and different connections.
Of course, cheap energy would help, as part of the reason for lack of materials is that it's too expensive to refine low grade ores. But I can't see running a refining factory on locally sourced solar energy. Especially not one that's even more energy intensive than the current ones.
There are lots of other reasons to want controlled fusion. (For me one big one is space habitats out beyond the asteroids. But they'd need to be large enough to be considered towns to be practical, and the economics are a bit dubious...so it's going to take more than one technological change.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 20 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)
[Citation needed]
We may not have enough neodymium for high efficiency generators (or electrical motors for EV), but silicon is abundant.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday December 21 2018, @04:05AM
This is a reference to an article that appeared here within the last week. I didn't read it for the details, but they're usually talking about one of the rare earths, which aren't really rare, but which most of the ores for are extremely low grade. I've seen it argued for indium, tellurium, various others. The argument is always economic at it's base, but that doesn't mean it isn't valid. So I didn't check the details of this one. (But the normal argument is why I put in the caveat about "with cheap enough energy we could refine lower grade ores".)
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 Thursday December 20 2018, @04:26AM (8 children)
Seems like if we were in as dire straits as the news has us believe, then we would be switching to nuclear. But we aren't. We are sitting on our hands doing nothing. We could turn all of the US's coal plants into nuclear in a couple of years. And deal with the issue of waste material later.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:30AM (1 child)
The "waste" is actually fuel for when mining and processing the current fuel becomes to expensive. Shit that sits there and heats up is fuel.
I think that is another angle in this whole "energy scam".
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:28PM
Feel free to fact check me on this one, but as I recall breeder reactors that would burn off most of our waste and give us power are illegal because they produce plutonium. Would need to repeal that.
Or like you know use Muh Thorium
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:35AM (5 children)
What kind of nuclear? It's typical for existing projects to be delayed by years and cost billions of dollars over budget [creativeloafing.com]... and then face many cost issues during operation and after being shut down. It's the kind of hot potato that nearly destroyed Toshiba [theregister.co.uk]. I'll at least agree that we could do something with the waste, especially if NIMBYism isn't a factor.
Throw me a bone here. A... thorium-enriched bone?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 20 2018, @06:51AM (4 children)
Lead's still less than a buck per pound. Seal it up overkill style, dump it in the middle of a stable mountain that you don't like, and forget about it.
I was going to say launch it in a random direction and get it to escape velocity but then I looked at the cost per pound of payload to escape velocity vs. amount of fuel a reactor uses in a year. I don't think they have enough profit margin to make that financially possible. It's also not something I'd want going up in chincy, WalMart rockets and getting scattered all across the upper atmosphere.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:08PM
Actually, if it were evenly distributed before coming down it wouldn't be much of a problem. It's the concentration that's the problem. The high level radioactives burn out pretty quickly, and could be used for process heat after they were no longer good enough for the reactor.
Actually, IIUC, there are "proposed but never built" reactor designs that could burn the reactor "waste" back to essentially harmless. The problem is that at one stage of the process they create a bunch of plutonium that could be extracted if it wasn't watched carefully.
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 Thursday December 20 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
also, there is a whole lot of nimby--it's a problem even for athiest non-voters that believe in neither political party to do the right thing or those that care not who is in charge as long as the lights are on and they have a job.
that one mountain they hollowed out and don't use is a good example of that --but I also am sort of skeptical about burrowing into mountains and calling it stable. those mountains came about because the tectonic plates weren't stable. i imagine that the plates underneath are still moving. Maybe not in our lifetimes, or the next generation or two--or even thousands of years.
but if the goal was to set and forget, wouldn't it be better to find a big flat area that hopefully won't be fracked ever (since that causes earthquakes in places that never had them... something about taking away the grease from stable tectonics...)... and dig down deep enough to set and forget in there?
I'm sure if the world agreed to, say, dig a hole in antarctica since it's frozen over anyway, and keep going and going... until Cthulu wakes up or they have a respository, the world's spent fuel could be safely stored in an area no one lives in and nothing lives in and has been frozen over for millenia. the only way someone would accidentaly come across it would be in some distant future or aliens dig it out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:41PM
And that's good enough.
Here's the thing with radioisotopes -- a given isotope is either hot or long-lived, never both. Now spent fuel has a mixture of various half-lives, but if you leave it sit for a thousand years, all the hot stuff (i.e. half-life under a century) has decayed away to almost nothing, and you're left with a bunch of long-lived, but low intensity, isotopes, along with their decay products. At this point, a release into groundwater is no longer such a big deal.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 21 2018, @01:59AM
Never happen. Eco nuts and scientists would lose every last bit of their minds. Doesn't matter if nothing has lived there since before humans were invented. Logic and reason need not apply to the discussion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @12:36AM
No, we need an Elon Musk.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:47AM (7 children)
Proves? Time after time, we get articles about "new research" claiming to "prove" something - anything. Ho-hum. No research is ever dis-proven, cast into doubt, questioned, superseded, or shown to be fraudulent.
Better titles are those that "suggest". New research suggests that the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. Except, we know that sun doesn't rise or set - instead as the earth rotates, the sun becomes visible to a portion of the earth, then becomes invisible.
Global warming pause? Yeah, that has happened before. We've even had a mini-ice age, within recorded history.
So, what are they pushing now? Not that same old hockey stick thing from Al Gore? OK, no hockey stick. Let them run at the mouth. The natives need to be worked up again, don't they? Maybe they'll lose some weight when they get agitated, and march in a meaningless demonstration.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @03:55AM (5 children)
I'm waiting for "new research" to say bacon and beer for breakfast is good for you. We're part way there. Eggs and butter are back on the menu. And they're having second thoughts about salt.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:04AM (3 children)
Regarding the salt in the diet, it is actually that more salt is associated with a lower blood pressure:
https://www.fasebj.org/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.446.6 [fasebj.org]
While obviously consuming salt raises blood pressure in the short term, presumably there is some feedback that leads to lower blood pressure in the long term.
I think the truth is something like this:
People consume exactly as much fat and protein and salt as they need, but a high carb diet messes everything up (your body expects a low percent (10%) of carbs) making people eat too much of everything.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @04:30AM
The problem with salt is that about 10% of people have a bad hypertension reaction to too much of it.
This reaction is so bad that even though it has little to no effect on 90% of people, in any statistical analysis this 10% of people skew the average so that salt looks really really bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:03AM (1 child)
I don't care. I like salt, so I eat it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:09AM
You will stop eating it if you eat too much. That is the point.
Dont eat the "food pyramid" diet that tricks you into consuming more of various stuff like salt than you otherwise would.
But really, get some fries and just douse them with salt. If it still isnt salty enough, add some more. Eventually your body will reject it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @05:12AM
Offtopic??! How was that Offtopic? You damn people got it right there in the headline, "New Research"! And I'm talking about new research! You no speeka the English?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Thursday December 20 2018, @10:02PM
> No research is ever dis-proven
The ONLY thing science can ever do is disprove. If you find evidence consistent with your theory, that does not prove your theory. If you find evidence contradicting your theory, then your theory is wrong.
The point of science isn't to formally prove anything, since that is impossible, but to build models and theories that are useful and have not yet been shown to be wrong within a certain domain.
For example, Newtonian physics is wrong. However, for everyday use the model is very useful and within this particular domain it has not yet been shown to be wrong.
So far as we know, all evidence points to the planet turning into a very FUN place sometime in the foreseeable future. You don't need to "believe" in global warming to see this. All of our pollution combined (light, noise, chemical, air, etc.) (and other social issues notwithstanding) is going to screw us over one way or another and quite frankly I don't care if the final cause is global warming or nuclear war over resources or critical disease outbreak or ...
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:17AM
The best part is how they are harvesting these posts and trying to figure out the best way to convince people to buy whatever is being sold.