The numbers are in for the year-end summary of temperature for 2008, with “year-end” referring to the end of the climatological year (December through November) rather than the calendar year (January through December). Of course this will lead to lots of spin in the denialosphere, and RealClimate has a post about it, so I stole the title from their post — I can’t let them have all the fun!
Without further ado, here are the annual (climatological year) averages for GISS temperature data:
I’ve already made numerous posts about the proper (and improper) statistical treatment of temperature data — and I’ll keep doing so until everybody who can get it, does get it. There’s no statistically valid evidence at all — none — that global warming has stopped, or even slowed.
But at this point, I think I’ll just show you what denialists will use to “spin” the data:
Get it?
62 responses so far ↓
Gerda // December 17, 2008 at 5:47 pm
lol! yes i get it :-)
a picture paints a thousand words.
J // December 17, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Nice post. Short and to the point.
Looking back at the “You Bet” post from January, if you plug in the 2008 GISTEMP annual mean, it looks like it comes in just inside your confidence interval around the recent warming trend (i.e., it doesn’t fall in the “not-warming wins” side). Your “Update” to that post said the threshold for 2008 was 0.3946.
Of course, this is D-N rather than J-D, so I suppose if December is really, really cold, 2008 might be the first data point in that “not-warming” zone. If I’m figuring this right, the December land/ocean temp would have to come in below -0.06 to bring the 2008 average below your threshold. Considering that the last three months have been 0.52, 0.58, and 0.58, this seems very unlikely to happen.
Slioch // December 17, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Tamino: Off topic I know. But you are sitting there waiting for responses, so I’m going to jump in, sorry.
It is probably my computer incompetence, but I cannot work out how to access your previous articles unless I previously saved their URL. Is there an Open Mind index/archive from which I can retrieve previous pearls, for my own interest and to cast before the swine?
[Response: If you go to the main page, you can scroll up and down to see links to the most recent 10 posts. At the bottom of the main page is a link to "older entries" which you can use to access those (10 at a time, with an "older entries" link at the bottom of each). There's also a calendar for the month at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar which has the dates of posts highlighted, which are links to those days' posts, as well as a link below it to the previous month's calendar (which will have a link to the month before that, etc.). And just above that little monthly calendar is a search feature (the box that says "To search, type and hit enter") if you know what you're looking for.]
Ross // December 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Why is the top graph so completely different from the 30 year satellite record of mid-tropospheric temperatures. It should show no net temperature increase in the time!
[Response: The top graph shows over 120 years of data; the satellite data only cover 30. You might be talking about the satellite data reduction from UAH (Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville), from the team led by denialist Roy Spencer; you'd be better served with the reduction from RSS (Remote Sensing Systems), or from the Univ. of Maryland, or the Univ. of Washington. And you might even be looking at monthly data from satellite measurements, whereas these are annual averages.
And even if you do use the satellite record from UAH, whether you use monthly or annual data there's still an upward trend. I repeat: there's still an upward trend, for every data set, including every reduction of satellite data -- despite what denialists may have told you.
Then of course there's the fact that lower-troposphere temperature isn't surface temperature. Add in the fact that satellites do not measure lower-troposphere temperature at all -- they measure temperature in extremely thick bands of the atmosphere, so the lower-troposphere temperature has to be "estimated" from combining the data from multiple channels, in order to remove an estimate of the cooling trend in the stratosphere; that's why there are so many different "reductions" of satellite data, none of which agree with each other.
It sounds like you've been totally hoodwinked by denialist propaganda.]
Red Etin // December 17, 2008 at 8:39 pm
If society had spent a trillion dollars over the past 10 years, some might have been claiming that the effect of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere was now having an effect. The current warming trend, with fluctuations, is probably natural.
[Response: I wouldn't be among those claiming that CO2 reductions had caused the apparent reduction in warming, because there is no reduction -- it only looks that way to statistical ignorati.
The current warming trend is caused by human activity.]
David B. Benson // December 17, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Tamino — Well done!
t_p_hamilton // December 17, 2008 at 8:49 pm
J:”If I’m figuring this right, the December land/ocean temp would have to come in below -0.06 to bring the 2008 average below your threshold. Considering that the last three months have been 0.52, 0.58, and 0.58, this seems very unlikely to happen.”
Also, considering that the monthly temperare anomaly has not been negative since 1992.
Red Etin // December 17, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I said “having and effect” and not anything about a reduction. Let agree that if we were to reduce CO2 inputs and this were to have an effect on the trend of increasing temperature , the first sign would be a levelling off - just as has happened over the past 10 years. And we haven’t done a thing - we just kept emitting CO2. So what will we expect to see if we spend a trillion or two on CCS?
[Response: The "levelling off" is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they're inevitable. It's a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend -- they aren't -- but it's an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
Unfortunately, even if we completely halt greenhouse gas emissions today we'll still see more man-made global warming because we haven't yet experienced all the warming that's "in the pipeline." The best we could hope for is that it won't accelerate the way it's going to if we keep up "business as usual."
If we don't act soon to limit, even eliminate, emissions, then it won't just be bad, it'll be terrible. Try food shortages, lack of clean water, and millions -- if not hundreds of millions -- of climate refugees. Try open warfare between neighboring countries competing over dwindling resources. The financial cost of climate change will be a helluva lot more than "a trillion or two." And the cost in terms of human misery -- I count that far greater.
You sound a lot like a smoker who complains that nicotine gum costs too much for you to try to quit. Newsflash: smoking cigarettes is more expensive. Lung cancer is far more expensive -- and brings lots of non-financial misery to boot.]
Dave A // December 17, 2008 at 9:49 pm
So, explain to me again how your first graph relates to GISS’s inability to define SAT?
Please explain also how when Steve M showed 1934 was warmer in the US than 1998 the GISS response was that the US was only 2% of the globe’s surface and thus this had no effect on global temperatures. Yet Mann’s use of BCPs found in a tiny, tiny area of that 2% somehow had global significance?
It would be nice to have a reasoned answer rather than invective.
[Response: You've done nothing but trot out a bunch of meaningless garbage, starting with the detestable (and meaningless) meme about "GISS's inability to define SAT." You're either too stupid to know the difference between temperature and temperature change, or you'll sink to any low to discredit the truth.
Your entire comment is invective -- but you sure don't want it in return!]
Dave A // December 17, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Tamino,
Thanks. Note you didn’t say anything about Mann’s BCPs.
But here’s an honest quote from Mark Serreze and Andrew Barrett
As climate scientists, we must constantly grapple with imperfect models and imperfect observations. The challenge is trying to make sense of both.
The implication here is surely that the results could also be imperfect? Wouldn;t it be better all round if this was acnowledged more often?
http://climatesci.org/2008/12/15/emerging-arctic-amplification-by-mark-c-serreze-and-andrew-p-barrett/
[Response: Results are imperfect? Wow!
I've never denied that, or even implied a denial of it. And the good people at RealClimate post about it all the time.
So you've gone from a comment full of nothing but invective (with an appeal for no invective in reply), to a statement of the obvious which is nothing but a straw-man argument. And you threw in an attempt to change the subject (Mann's BCP) for good measure.
The problem is not that climate scientists don't acknowledge imperfection; that's bread-and-butter for working science. The problem is that denialists take a time span which is way too short to draw any useful conclusions about trend, then pontificate about a "cooling phase" over the last decade with no acknowledgement that their analysis (if there is any) isn't merely imperfect, it's just plain wrong. The problem is that they can't face the truth so they try to hide it by omitting all the data that shows how empty their arguments are. The problem is that when you're faced with a post showing just how ridiculous (by which I mean, worthy of ridicule) their strategy is, you slander the surface temperature record and throw in a potshot at bristlecone pines to boot.]
cce // December 17, 2008 at 11:57 pm
McIntyre did not show that “1934 was warmer in the US than 1998.” 1934 and 1998 are and were tied. McIntyre showed that there was a 0.15 degree warm bias in the US from 2000 to 2007, or about a 0.003 degree warm bias for the world. The accumulated difference between UAH and RSS is ~30 times larger, yet for some reason, “skeptics” don’t feel a strong urge to audit Spencer and Christy.
Phil. // December 18, 2008 at 12:51 am
Dave A
“Please explain also how when Steve M showed 1934 was warmer in the US than 1998″
How many more times must we have this canard repeated? Steve M showed no such thing, it had already been shown by Jim Hansen years earlier!
From 2001:
“The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the
GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century.
In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main
reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing
temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station
history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S.
temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C. “
bob // December 18, 2008 at 12:59 am
In addition, as of recent months the “last 10 years” no longer covers the 1998 el nino. So the trend for the last 10 years is now upwards even going by the UAH record.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
Someone tried to pull the “temperature declined over the past 10 years” argument on me only yesterday.
Ross // December 18, 2008 at 1:27 am
What upward trend?
Yes, I’m looking at the satellite “RSS AMSU Global Monthly Mean Mid-Tropospheric Temperature Anomolies” for 30 years, as shown here http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe-m.html
[Response: Clearly you didn't do any analysis because the trend is easy to confirm. Linear regression indicates an upward trend which is statistically significant despite the strong autocorrelation of the data.
I'm constantly plagued by two kinds of false claims: those like you who haven't done any analysis at all but still declare a result (which is just plain wrong), and those who do analysis but don't know what they're doing, so they too declare a result (which is just plain wrong).]
Ray Ladbury // December 18, 2008 at 1:53 am
Dave A., Your comments really demonstrate a lot more about your lack of understanding of science than they do about the state of the science itself. You look wherever you can for any hint of uncertainty, perceiving it as a weakness. It’s not. Acknowledging and quantifying the uncertainties allows scientists to be more confident in what they do know. Yes, there are uncertainties in the temperatures. There are not, however, systematic errors that could mimic a consistent rising trend. Yes, there are uncertainties in the proxies. That’s why it’s a good thing you have a whole bunch of them telling you the same thing. For the consensus view to be significantly wrong, so many independent lines of evidence would have to be wrong that the probability is virtually nil. That’s science.
Hank Roberts // December 18, 2008 at 2:28 am
Dave’s here to waste the scientists’ time.
Good at it, too.
cce // December 18, 2008 at 5:05 am
Rather than getting information from the aptly named “Junk Science,” go directly to the source, updated monthly with linear trend so that even the near blind can see the warming. i.e. http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
Or compare the 4 usual suspects all on one graph as yearly averages (to 2007):
http://cce.890m.com/giss-vs-all.jpg
And why bring up TMT?
“It is important to note that although the MSU2/AMSU5 combination is called TMT or Temperature Middle Troposphere, this channel also has significant (5% to 15%) weight in the stratosphere, so that any tropospheric warming may be partly masked by the contribution of stratospheric cooling.”
http://www.ssmi.com/data/msu/support/Mears_and_Wentz_TMT_TTS_TLS_submitted.pdf
Slioch // December 18, 2008 at 9:49 am
Tamino, thanks for the route map to find your old posts. It is still a bit tedious to find something a year or so old, but I guess you have more important things to do.
Could you post a link to the data source for your graph above: I had assumed it would be column 15 (N-D) in this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
but the temp. anomaly for D-N 2008 there is given as 0.55C, whereas your graph shows about 0.42C, (with other years similarly displaced). What am I missing?
[Response: It's the column "D-N" for the file "GLB.Ts+SST.txt"]
Philippe Chantreau // December 18, 2008 at 10:46 am
Funny comment about the trillion dollar, Red Etin. Reminds me of the ‘trillions” that Baliunas forecasted as cost of phasing out CFCs.
I note that it did not take 10 years for some to spend close to that (how much more or less is anyone’s guess, given the lack of transparency and accountability) on an unnecessary war. It took even less time for the Wall Street geniuses to need close to a trillion for patching up their pathetic mess.
Quite frankly throwing a trillion in changes to lower CO2 emissions looks like a better way to spend than any of these 2 examples.
J // December 18, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Ross writes:
Yes, I’m looking at the satellite “RSS AMSU Global Monthly Mean Mid-Tropospheric Temperature Anomolies” for 30 years, as shown here http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe-m.html
If you’re looking for a comparison with surface temperatures, you’d be better off using the RSS lower troposphere product instead of their mid troposphere product. Unless your goal is to mislead people, of course.
And in general I’d recommend avoiding sites with names like “junkscience.com” unless junk science is what you’re after.
J // December 18, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Tamino writes: Response: Clearly you didn’t do any analysis because the trend is easy to confirm.
Indeed. As of this month the trend over the (almost) 30-year RSS TLT record (Jan 1979-Nov 2008) is +0.16 C/decade.
And, oddly enough, the trend in the GISTEMP surface temperature data for the same period is also +0.16 C/decade.
That’s right. The satellite and surface temperature trends are essentially identical.
In an ideal world, Ross would now apologize for wasting everyone’s time, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Red Etin // December 18, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Philippe Chantreau
Philippe,
IMHO, society has 3 main global problems. Global war mongering, global poverty and global disease (do you need to see any evidence for these?). I think we can and should fix these before about “man-made global warming”, convincing evidence of which still remains elusive.
RE
[Response: Convincing evidence is overwhelming -- but you're not willing to be convinced.]
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 3:53 pm
[quote] Tamino said:
Response: The “levelling off” is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they’re inevitable. It’s a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend — they aren’t — but it’s an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
[/quote]
Uh, no. You didn’t prove it WAS natural fluctuation , you proved it COULD BE natural fluctuation. Only time will tell one way or the other.
[quote]
Unfortunately, even if we completely halt greenhouse gas emissions today we’ll still see more man-made global warming because we haven’t yet experienced all the warming that’s “in the pipeline.” The best we could hope for is that it won’t accelerate the way it’s going to if we keep up “business as usual.”
If we don’t act soon to limit, even eliminate, emissions, then it won’t just be bad, it’ll be terrible. Try food shortages, lack of clean water, and millions — if not hundreds of millions — of climate refugees. Try open warfare between neighboring countries competing over dwindling resources. The financial cost of climate change will be a helluva lot more than “a trillion or two.” And the cost in terms of human misery — I count that far greater.
[/quote]
And how is that different than the entire history of the human race? Bordering countries have been in open warfare against each other for dwindling resources since the invention of the first weapon. Only the last few generations have had the luxury of plentiful food, and that’s only in the developed nations. Undeveloped nations have never had such a luxury.
Steven Earl Salmony // December 18, 2008 at 5:09 pm
How hubris, corruption and greed resulted in the colossal collapse of the global economy.
In a world in which too many politicians are posers; too many economists are deluded; too many business powerbrokers with great wealth are con artists, gamblers and cheats; and too many of their absurdly enriched minions/’talking heads’ in the mainstream media parrot whatsoever serves political convenience and economic expediency, Jim Hansen’s truth about global climate change is buried amid cascading disinformation and anti-information derived from a `tool box’ of pernicious rhetorical devices.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
Ray Ladbury // December 18, 2008 at 5:26 pm
dean_1230, so shall we put you down as advocating a return to the middle ages? What is your point: people have always suffered and so they should suffer more in the future?
Dean, don’t want to practice psychology over the internet, but have you considered Prozac?
t_p_hamilton // December 18, 2008 at 5:38 pm
[quote] Tamino said:
Response: The “levelling off” is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they’re inevitable. It’s a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend — they aren’t — but it’s an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
[/quote]
dean_1230:”Uh, no. You didn’t prove it WAS natural fluctuation , you proved it COULD BE natural fluctuation. Only time will tell one way or the other. ”
Time told us already that the “cooling” from 1982-1992 was a statistical fluctuation. Some people are just slow learners.
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Ray,
My point is that Tamino warns that AWG will result in a new thing called “open warfare”, as if that’s something that has seldom happened. Even a cursory view of history shows that it’s happened since the beginning of recorded time.
I’m not saying that warfare is good… or desirable, just that it has always existed. Humans have only needed an excuse to start fighting each other (and sometimes not even that).
and I don’t need prozac… nor does my best friend, harvey :-)
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 7:50 pm
T_P,
One of my major issues with all sides in this discussion is exaggeration. Tamino’s linked article does a very good job of saying that the current (and potentially shortlived) cooling is totally consistent with AGW.
But even with what I consider a good argument that the current cooling should be met cautiously, if the temperatures cool over the next 10 years (as some people are claiming will happen due to PDO &/or solar activity), then Tamino’s analysis will have been shown to be wrong.
Only time will tell one way or the other. Right now, we don’t know what the long range implications of the temperatures over the last two years really is.
dhogaza // December 18, 2008 at 8:48 pm
The same as the long range implications of previous La Niña episodes.
Why should anyone expect this one to be different?
And some people blame the collapse of the stock market on Pluto moving into Capricorn next month.
I don’t pay much attention to them, though.
t_p_hamilton // December 18, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Dean_1230:”But even with what I consider a good argument that the current cooling should be met cautiously, if the temperatures cool over the next 10 years (as some people are claiming will happen due to PDO &/or solar activity), then Tamino’s analysis will have been shown to be wrong.”
IF the physics changes, sure, we expect to see changes in temperature trends. Trends, not transient noise.
“Only time will tell one way or the other. Right now, we don’t know what the long range implications of the temperatures over the last two years really is.”
None, since they arise from short term noise, which averages out over the time period in question. Scientists were not surprised by the cool 2008. What is alarming is that it was as warm as it was!
Dave A // December 18, 2008 at 10:57 pm
the problem is not that climate scientists don’t acknowledge imperfection; that’s bread-and-butter for working science.
I agree that privately climate scientists acknowledge the imperfections but that is NOT how their science is presented to the public and the politicians.
Where are the uncertainties in the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers or the press releases put out by scientific institutions?
Where, for example , does Mann express any uncertainty about his, yet again, novel statistical analysis in his recent PNAS paer?
David B. Benson // December 18, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Dave A // December 18, 2008 at 10:57 pm — IPCC documents use ‘likely’, ‘highly likely’, ‘most likely’, and so on, in a carefully defined fashion.
Think about it.
Maybe even read IPCC AR4 WG1 report, although I’ll admit it is a slog.
Hank Roberts // December 18, 2008 at 11:14 pm
> where are the uncertainties
http://www.google.com/search?q=Where+are+the+uncertainties+in+the+IPCC+Summary+for+Policy+Makers%3F
By the way, Dave, have you ever wondered what’s in ketchup, and why that isn’t printed on every bottle, package, and ad?
Because it’s defined where you can look it up.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=155.194
luminous beauty // December 19, 2008 at 12:11 am
DaveA,
A quick word count of Mann08 gives 20 usages of the word uncertainty. 22 if you count the references.
Say what, again?
Hank Roberts // December 19, 2008 at 2:01 am
Watch for it:
http://www.desmogblog.com/policy-communications-inc-astroturf-shell-game
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:17 am
Dave A., you have a tendency to look at what scientists are saying and interpret as if it were coming from a layman. A layman equates uncertainty with lack of knowledge. To a scientist, the uncertainty is part of the knowledge. We know where the uncertainty lies and about how large it is or we don’t have a model. To say we have uncertainty about some aspects of climate science does not mean we don’t know what we do in fact know. In other works, uncertainty about clouds does not imply uncertainty about greenhouse forcing in a dynamical model.
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:20 am
Dean_1230, OK, so we’ve always had war and want. Still, your point? Are you saying that we shouldn’t care about creating conditions where the arrival of the 4 horsemen of of the Apocalypse becomes a virtual certainty? Sorry, Dude, don’t buy it.
Philippe Chantreau // December 19, 2008 at 7:18 am
Dave A, the public and politicians have a poor understanding of uncertainty. If medical science always disclosed uncertainties and unknowns, people would panic inthe doc’s office. Unjustifiably so, but they would.
Because of the rigor of the process and the successes achieved, in the popular imagination science leads to certainty, it’s mathematical. Not quite so, as we know.
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Ray,
My point is that exaggeration is never useful in science. Claiming that warfare will suddenly become the norm due to AGW denies the historical precedent that warfare has always been the norm. That’s fearmongering and has no place in science. Nor does your “4 horsemen of the apocalypse” statement.
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:51 pm
dean_1230,
Warfare is not the norm. Famine is not the norm. Disease is not the norm. Yes, they occur, but they do so sporadically. At any given time, most of the countries on Earth are at peace, in good health, etc. Climate change does present a significant probability of increasing competition for food, water, land, etc. at the same time global population speeds toward 9-10 billion. I don’t consider that something we can afford to be sanguine about. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse were famine, pestilence, war and death. If, as seems likely, climate change decreases agricultural productivity and availablity of water and habitable land and allows tropical diseases to become endemic outside their normal ranges, do you suspect any of the 4 will decline the invitation?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Ray,
History says otherwise… Warfare IS the norm. Maybe not global warfare. Globalization, though, has had a major effect on warfare. WWI & II may not be anomalies with respect to future warfare and you can’t make the claim that either were due to AGW. If you follow the history of warfare, you’ll see that the trench warfare of WWI was a direct result of the new weapons that were introduced around the time of the American Civil War. WWII was a direct result of WWI. If the Cold War had turned hot, then WWIII would have been a direct result of WWII. It would be naive to think that WWIII isn’t going to happen… regardless of what we do about the environment. (a short list of “world wars” have to include WWI & II, The French & Indian wars, Alexander, the Mongol Hordes, the Barbarians at the gates, etc). And when the masses weren’t organized against each other, small kingdoms were constantly at each other’s throats. History just doesn’t support your comments.
Famine has always existed, but is actually less of a problem now than in previous generations. This, however, has caused a different problem. Overpopulation. Are we at a point where the world cannot grow enough food for the population? Right now, no. Agricultural techniques have kept up with the demand. Will that be the case in the future? I do know that new techniques are in the works (hydroponics & genetic manipulation, for example) that have significant promise, but whether it’s enough remains to be seen. Our generation is one of the first in the history of the human race that hasn’t had to work to survive (being defined as having food and shelter)… survival is almost guaranteed. We don’t work for those… we work for the extras that life can bring us.
Disease/pestilence is also caused and hastened by globalization. The Florida citrus industry is under attack from canker and greening that originated in SE Asia. We are also having serious troubles with non-native species invasions (zebra muscles in the great lakes, for example). We are not able with current techniques to contain these invasions. While these don’t attack humans, we’re not immune to those that do. The Avian flu would not be a major concern if it weren’t for the ease of travel to and from the far west. Likewise, the introduction of European diseases on the Native American civilizations did much to seal their eventual doom. You ask what if tropical diseases start moving from their natural habitat… well, they already are due to globalization.
You say that the approaching apocalypse will be due to AGW… It could very well be that the 4 approach now and that they have nothing to do with AGW at all!
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Dean_1230, The facts are that war has not typically affected the majority of the human population at any given time–and when it has, the results haven’t been particularly pleasant. In any case, I would think that you would have to be astoundingly obtuse to not get the point that increasing competition for resources in a world with population already straining supplies to the limit.
Let me try to simplify it:
Climate change=decreased resources=bad
Got that, or does the transitive property give you trouble?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Ray,
You’d have to be incredibly blind to understand that one of the primary reasons the human race has prospered is due to our ability to adapt to any situation. I have no doubt that whatever the future brings (be it the big 4 or be it a new ice age), mankind will figure out a way to survive.
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 5:05 pm
oops… my last post should have read “blind NOT to understand”
Jim Eager // December 19, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Survive? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to aim for something a little higher than mere survival.
Hank Roberts // December 19, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I think Dean got it right the first time. The notion that humanity has prospered by adapting ignores the big difference — humanity changes the environment. The ‘naked ape’ is very poorly adapted to almost every environment in the world and is exploiting almost all of them beyond the dreams of avarice.
guthrie // December 19, 2008 at 7:07 pm
A way to survive? You seem to assume that we can never deal with problems before they become survival issues, and also to not be bothered about the deaths and destruction which occur because nothing was done.
Hurricane KAtrina is a prime example. The failure of the levees was predicted. The city did apparently have the capability to evacuate people, but didn’t use it. The Feds had the ability to deal with the disaster, but didn’t use it as well as they could. The disaster was predicted, but people didn’t do anything about the predictions, and as a result lots of people died.
But yet others survived. Should be ignore the fact that those tasked with preventing the deaths failed, and applaud some fake Darwinian process?
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 7:13 pm
dean_1230, You know, there was a time when humans weren’t doing so well. You can tell this because there was a constriction in the genetic diversity and we’re all descended from a small number of survivors. In particular, the era of human civilization has been one of abnormal climatic stability–all the agricultural infrastructure of civilization was developed during this period. So, I’m curious. How do you think we’ll “figure out a way to survive” when our cereal crops fail, and when you say “we’ll survive” do you mean human civilization or small bands of hunter gatherers–you know like we were for most of our existence?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Ray,
If I was a betting man, I’d bet on the latter. I’ll always take a farmer/hunter/gatherer over a “civilized” person when we’re talking about survival. At some point, something will arise that will take a big bite out of our population. Again, look at the history of the earth and you’ll see that happening again and again. Mammals were more adaptable than reptiles and so were able to survive.
Whether civilization survives depends on more than just physical adaptability. For civilization to survive we have to trust that our leaders are doing what’s best for civilization (does anyone now think that they are???). One such example of them NOT doing that is the aforementioned Hurricane Katrina. That’s a prime example of our leaders knowing the risks, knowing the destruction that would ensue and deciding with every appropriations bill that neglected the problem that the city of New Orleans wasn’t worth the money.
Of course, it could be that our leaders were trying to tell us to stop living along the coast or in swamps, but then that would cramp our lifestyle…
Ray, you mention that humans have flourished during a period of “abnormal climatic stability”. So what’s to say that this stability isn’t about to end? Would we even recognize the end if that stability if it was happening? How long have other stable climatic periods lasted?
JCH // December 19, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Just because people have survived head-on collisions doesn’t mean we have to go along with some idiot’s arguments for driving on what has become the wrong side of the road.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Hank,
I have never wondered what is in ketchup, perhaps because I think it is disgusting!
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm
David B Benson,
Of course I am aware of the words the IPCC use, though they are not particularly helpful and do not in any way suggest there may be problems with their overall premise.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Ray,
Are you trying to tell me that ‘trends’ don’t happen in science ( they certainly happen in every other walk of life!).
How many times have so-called scientific orthodoxies been later shown to be false?
dhogaza // December 19, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Oh, Lord, so first you claim they don’t discuss uncertainty, now when shown wrong you claim they do discuss uncertainty but you don’t find the words “particularly helpful” (despite their being precisely defined).
And as far as problems with their overall premise … which premise would that be? That CO2 is a GHG? Which unassailable observation do you have in mind?
In the sense you mean, i.e. not only false but so wrong as to thoroughly mislead our thinking about the natural world … not often.
Why don’t you list some of your favorites for us?
David B. Benson // December 19, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm — I have no idea what you mean by ‘overall premise’, but the science is sound and is correct. The unknowns are all fairly minor.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Dhogaza,
How are terms like ‘likely’ , ‘highly likely’ etc scientific?
Perhaps if they admitted upfront that the underlying science was imperfect it would be better.
Lastly, you’ve previously claimed to know my political views, without ‘knowing’ anything about me, now you claim to know the ’sense’ in which I write something.
Arrogance springs to mind.
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:42 am
They’re precisely defined in the document.
ALL of science is imperfect. They’re assuming a target audience with triple-digit IQ.
Yet I don’t see a long list, nay, not even a short list, of “scientific orthodoxies which have been proven false” in any sense pertinent to climate science.
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:58 am
Dave A doesn’t “get it”, but his opinion doesn’t count.
However, Barrack Obama certainly does get it, and his opinion DOES count.
Great choice of science advisor …
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:59 am
Eh, should’ve been in the open thread, sorry ’bout that.
David B. Benson // December 20, 2008 at 1:08 am
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 11:28 pm — Go read about Bayesian reasoning and inductive logic. Tese ideas, often treated informally, are the essence of scientific thinking.
Ray Ladbury // December 20, 2008 at 2:26 am
Dean_1230, Well, there we will have to disagree. I’ll take civilization over barbarism any day. Civilization has brought us relative peace, science, communication, culture, not to mention a lifespan more than 30 years. The period of climatic stability is ending because we are ending it–and rapidly. It is the rapidity of the change that really puts us at risk.
Ray Ladbury // December 20, 2008 at 2:38 am
Dave A., “Trends” happen all the time in science–rising trends, falling trends, statistically significant trends. But trends in the sense of fashions? Nope. Scientists are interested in what works–in what helps them understand the world around them. Scientific orthodoxies shown to be false? Well, first, what the hell is a scientific orthodoxy? Second, if you mean, standard models and theories, the answer is not that often, especially in the physical sciences. Medicine is different. It’s not really a science, as any good doctor will tell you.
Let’s look at a real scientific revolution, shall we? Relativity overturned classical mechanics, but Einstein was very careful to show that at low velocity, relativity reduced to classical dynamics. Quantum mechanics? Well, ever hear of the correspondence principle? It essentially elevates what Einstein did to a general principle and uses it to elucidate the structure of the new theory. So, no, really, scientific “orthodoxies” aren’t really shown to be false too often. Science is the most conservative of human activities. Nothing is ever really discarded. We just build on the foundations.
Now here’s the real question, Dave. Why are you scared of science? Why not learn enough about it so they you at least aren’t always arguing against straw men?