Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday May 25 2014, @02:30AM   Printer-friendly

Tim Palmer, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Oxford in the U.K., has published a somewhat controversial Perspective piece in the journal Science. In it, he theorizes that heavy thunderstorms in the western tropical Pacific (due to global warming) this past winter caused changes to the flow pattern of the jet stream, which resulted in the "polar vortex" that chilled the northern part of North America for the first four months of 2014. The winter of 2014 was cold in the U.S., of that there was no doubt. Subzero temperatures became the norm and heating bills skyrocketed. At the time, very few who experienced it were blaming it on global warming, but that may very well have been the cause anyway, Palmer suggests--despite the fact that global temperatures haven't been rising lately.

The abstract (and link to paywalled journal article) can be found at: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/803

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @06:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @06:33AM (#47260)

    CAGW: Catastrophic, Antropogenic Global Warming. These days called "Climate Change" I think.

    What causes changes in weather?

    If it's hot: CAGW.

    If it's cold: oh, that was CAGW.

    Hurricane? Probably exacerbated by CAGW.

    Unusual lack of hurricanes in 2013: likely explained by CAGW.

    15 years of relatively flat temperature trends? 15 years isn't enough to disprove CAGW.

    So, seriously, what can happen that would disprove the theory? What event would make the CAGW guys say "Hmm, maybe we need more data"?

    Also, do the official CAGW guys buy in on all this, or is it just a news media that is eager to adapt the news to the CAGW narrative? If it is the latter, have any CAGW guys publicly spoken out and said "Yeah, maybe the cold wasn't caused by global warming" or whatever?

    Posted anonymously due to fear of CAGW true believers hunting me down and MAKING ME PAY.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=4, Overrated=1, Total=5
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by andersjm on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:47AM

    by andersjm (3931) on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:47AM (#47277)

    If it's cold: oh, that was CAGW.

    Yeah, if it had been a global cold, that would have been a hard sell. It wasn't. At the same time that North America went through the cold spell, Europe had it warm. For example, the average February temperature in Denmark was 4.2K over the norm.

    15 years of relatively flat temperature trends? 15 years isn't enough to disprove CAGW.

    Where did the number 15 come from? Why not look at 10, 20 or 30 years back? I'll tell you why: It's a cherry-picked number, designed to make the time series start with the year 1998, the warmest year in recorded history. Whoever chose that number is a manipulating fraud. I hope it wasn't you.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Sunday May 25 2014, @08:32PM

      by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday May 25 2014, @08:32PM (#47362)

      Everyone who choses to cherry pick starting at 1998 knows full well global warming is happening. Because in order to cherry pick they have to have looked at other periods, and found that they don't support their argument. Which makes them liars.

      --
      Hurrah! Quoting works now!
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zsau on Monday May 26 2014, @07:24AM

        by zsau (2642) on Monday May 26 2014, @07:24AM (#47478)

        Everyone who choses to cherry pick starting at 1998 knows full well global warming is happening.

        Although perhaps true, it's not helpful. Most people who use the cherry-picked 1998 would've been copy-pasting from one of the denial-repeaters.

        It's the users not the choosers who spread the myths, and these people are often completely ignorant of their errors.

        In fact, they're usually so arrogantly convinced of their own rational skills that they refuse to listen to what the trained climate scientists have to say and ... believe ... everything they're told by ... webloggers and ... journalists?

    • (Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:20PM

      by marcello_dl (2685) on Sunday May 25 2014, @09:20PM (#47371)

      Yes, one of the warmest winter in 40 years in Italy too. Except that the few latest summers have been unusually cold and this could still be from AGW. Or solar cyles, or whatever.

      Anyway I am in deep suspicion of a system that proposes to fight C02 levels with taxes, while at the same time helping spread pollution (there would not be illegal waste dumpsters if you actually paid the price for disposing of an item with the item itself, and it would make the economy resemble normality again).
      Jeez, recall when the bees colonies collapsed and the system waits years before saying "Uh maybe it's those newfangled things we spray on crops". Or what about nuclear waste, treated with the same attention? Is AGW a way to look busy for the environment?

      After all, a polluted world where therapies become essential for survival is a very desirable outcome for control freaks. Who controls the system providing clean food and therapies is your new master. Orwell's 1984 is the convoluted dream of a rookie in comparison.

    • (Score: 2) by mindriot on Monday May 26 2014, @09:40AM

      by mindriot (928) on Monday May 26 2014, @09:40AM (#47512)

      Also, I'm surprised the obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com] hasn't popped up in this discussion...

      --
      soylent_uid=$(echo $slash_uid|cut -c1,3,5)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @08:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 29 2014, @08:03PM (#48899)

      Hello, I'm the anonymous coward who wrote the top post ("How can we falsify the CAGW theory?").

      Where did the number 15 come from?

      I got that number by remembering, or possibly mis-remembering, something I read. After 1998 the warming trend was flat, and one or more CAGW advocates said "A few years of flat temperatures prove nothing; we would need to see at least 15 years of flat temperatures before it would be significant." Then, once the 15 years mark was hit, all CAGW advocates said that the 15 years of flat temperatures doesn't prove anything: more years are needed, or some special circumstances apply.

      I tried to use Google to find the original thing I read. I came up with a paper by Benjamin Santer et. al. which gives 17 years as the minimum time to be significant: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/17/ben-santers- 17-year-itch/ [wattsupwiththat.com]

      So it's possible I mis-remembered the 17 years as 15 years, or possibly I read something else that I couldn't find with Google.

      Why not look at 10, 20 or 30 years back?

      Well, it's trivially true that a 15-year span of flat temperatures would include a 10-year span of flat temperatures. But I don't really see the point in choosing a 10-year subset... why would I do that?

      And it's not true that there have been 20 or 30 years of flat temperatures; temperatures were rising in the 1990's. I don't want to claim something that wasn't true.

      Am I missing something here? If we are talking about "years of relatively flat temperatures", then the span is chosen by the temperatures, and 1998 wasn't relatively flat; it was hot.

      I'll tell you why: It's a cherry-picked number, designed to make the time series start with the year 1998, the warmest year in recorded history. Whoever chose that number is a manipulating fraud. I hope it wasn't you.

      Um, 1998 was warm, and then after that temperatures were relatively flat. In fact we are now working on 17 years of relatively flat temperatures. There is a graph in this article: http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/7360901-robert-w agner/1870791-climate-change-consensus-bubble-burs t-by-the-facts-at-near-95-percent-confidence-level [seekingalpha.com]

      Given that the current span of flat temperature years started after 1998, I don't see how you can leap to the conclusion that Someone Is Up To Something by saying that temperatures have been flat after 1998. I just don't get it man.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Nerdanel on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:12AM

    by Nerdanel (3363) on Sunday May 25 2014, @10:12AM (#47281) Journal

    Of course the theory could be falsified. For example, if the glaciers around the world were growing instead of shrinking, that would do it. Too bad it's not happening. Mid-latitude places like the Alps have their glaciers retreating and revealing new archeological discoveries, the Antarctic has lost enough ice that it would show on your desktop globe, and we'll soon have a workable Northwest Passage.

    Weather != climate, and it's indeed possible to measure the climate. For example, in mathematics there exists a method to calculate the so-called "average" from several numbers, in addition to some more difficult and advanced tools such as standard deviations and running averages.

    Posted non-anonymously even though this place is full of denialists. I think it's the libertarian bias.

    • (Score: 1) by karmawhore on Sunday May 25 2014, @12:21PM

      by karmawhore (1635) on Sunday May 25 2014, @12:21PM (#47296)

      My pet theory: it's because there's no (active) technocrat.net to draw them away. Please, Bruce! You gotta start posting, or soon we're going to be overrun with doomsday stockpilers and conspiracy theorists. And hams. But those guys are mostly okay.

      --
      =kw= lurkin' to please
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Daniel Dvorkin on Sunday May 25 2014, @03:45PM

      by Daniel Dvorkin (1099) on Sunday May 25 2014, @03:45PM (#47319) Journal

      So far, Soylent doesn't seem to have developed the self-reinforcing anti-science echo chamber that infested Slashdot. There are a few of the loonies here, but not enough of them to take over every discussion. Hopefully it will stay that way.

      --
      Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @05:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25 2014, @05:04PM (#47324)

        Stop calling it global warming, climate change if you want people to do anything about it. Call it what it is. It is pollution. People get that. The people doing the polluting were able to change the narrative by saying 'prove it'. Then another group of people figured out they can steal more money from people thru the use of taxes (see UPS and Europe, tl;dr taxes went up, rates went up, and they used even more fuel). Follow the money and you will see what is going on. It has little to do with real science and more to do with peoples bottom lines.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @01:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @01:18AM (#47407)

        Seriously? Just wait till they post some flame bait article about evolution...it requires faith to believe in just as Christianity does or Judaism or Islam for that matter...which retard religion is right is really a crap shoot at this point. And yes I called evolution a religion. Then again I just invaded soylentnews.com with CRAZYTALK!! Oh the humanity!

  • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday May 25 2014, @08:29PM

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday May 25 2014, @08:29PM (#47359)

    Gravity. These days called "A Force" I think.

    What causes changes in vertical position?

    If it goes down: Gravity.

    If it goes up: oh, that was Gravity.

    Fallen over? Probably exacerbated by Gravity.

    Unusual lack of ground level helium: likely explained by Gravity.

    50 years of man made satellites not falling? 50 years isn't enough to disprove Gravity.

    So, seriously, what can happen that would disprove the Gravity theory?

    --
    Hurrah! Quoting works now!
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @12:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 26 2014, @12:59AM (#47403)

    All I read was blah blah blah I'm a dirty whore!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Murdoc on Monday May 26 2014, @01:22AM

    by Murdoc (2518) on Monday May 26 2014, @01:22AM (#47409) Homepage
    Or maybe, just maybe, science is more complicated than the way you are trying to falsify this theory? You and I can't do it, not on the back of a cocktail napkin. The guys who study this stuff spend 8+ years just to get their Ph.D.s, then plenty of years of work afterwards using complex math and powerful computers. The point is that the science is in. AGW is as much a fact as we can make it. There is really no need to keep debating this [youtube.com], even if we could.

    The question you have to ask yourself is, why are you so afraid of the facts? I know the conclusions are scary, but hiding from them isn't going to solve anything. Perhaps you just haven't gone looking for enough information yourself? A key component of intellectual honesty is to have the courage [criticalthinking.org] to accept valid evidence wherever it may take you, even if it means having to accept something scary, or having to let go of your previous beliefs about something. It's hard, I know, give it time, but it is something worth working towards. Wouldn't you rather know what the real truth is? I mean, what if AGW is right? If it is, and you deny it, how is that helping anything?

    As for how "catastrophic" it is, that will depend on what we do about it. If we just keep debating it, and nothing else, yes it will be. We need to start working on this now, and make some drastic changes.

  • (Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday May 30 2014, @10:05AM

    by Open4D (371) on Friday May 30 2014, @10:05AM (#49085) Journal

    How can we falsify the CAGW theory?

    Well, here's the latest report. http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/ [www.ipcc.ch] Knock yourself out.

     

    15 years of relatively flat temperature trends?

    As I've said before [soylentnews.org], this is just selective reading of the data. You're better off looking at the full graph [nasa.gov].

     

    What event would make the CAGW guys say "Hmm, maybe we need more data"?

    We always need more data. The only way we can be 100% sure about the results of this emit billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere experiment is to let it run its course. But when you're pretty sure you know the results will be devastating, I'd rather we cancelled the experiment and accepted that we'll never be 100% sure.

     

    Posted anonymously due to fear of CAGW true believers hunting me down and MAKING ME PAY.

    Hmmm, interesting idea. Well, I'd be tempted to hunt your grandchildren down in 50 years and draw their attention to your reckless disregard for their generation's wellbeing.