9 ms·

UK Government: Climate change scientists broke the law hiding data

52 points by miked 17y ago

ErrantX 17y ago
The only conclusion that I 've been able to draw from this mess is: climate science has been seriously compromised :( I just cant decide who can be trusted as a source for accurate and unbiased information/opinion.
- vannevar 17y ago
  "The only conclusion that I 've been able to draw from this mess is: climate science has been seriously compromised" Really? I'll give you a more plausible conclusion: that the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions of their findings.
  - lacrossegm 17y ago
    Exactly right. The fervent nature of global warming denial-ism drives people to go to great lengths to undermine the real science and delay action.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action. Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.
      - lacrossegm 17y ago
        To each their own. I have looked it from both sides. The real-climate science camp seems genuinely concerned about causes and consequence of global warming. The other camp, call them deniers, skeptics, or whatever are more concerned about money. They believe that the cost to combat global warming is too high. It also seems divided along political lines. It is flawed logic but some people do think they can use it for political gain, on both sides of the aisle.
        ErrantX 17y ago
        The way I see it is: going green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts. I just don't see any actual committed progress to being "green" (I could name you 10 policy ideas right now that would have a massive impact). The climate work, IMO, is about talking a very very close look at how much of an impact we are having - and assessing if our response is enough or if more is required. But all I see, especially recently, is corruption, money and political manoeuvring on both sides. EDIT: I disagree with your appraisal of the 2 camps though (I'm guessing you fall into the believers camp). As someone sat in the middle, in frustration, both camps are as bad as the other.
        lacrossegm 17y ago
        "green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts." I totally agree with this position. There are numerous benefits to developing better clean air/water standards. The climate "work" has been on going for decades. The science supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming is sound. Their may be some "believers" when it comes to global warming that just take at face value. I'm more of an accepting skeptic. I was skeptical at first that we could 1) Change our climate 2) Predict climate change with any amount of reasonable certainty. Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true.
        ErrantX 17y ago
        > Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true. Sorry, this is my hang up. I understand the science - but the data and methodologies that we know about dont quite follow through for me (sometimes anyway)
      - vannevar 17y ago
        "Lets get the data sorted out" The data HAS been sorted out, by people who have spent the better part of their lives studying climatology. And among the group that has spent the most time studying Earth's climate, there is broad consensus that a) Earth's climate is warming and b) increased CO2 levels from human activities is the primary cause. The great thing about this debate, if you're a lobbyist for industrial groups opposing any action to limit CO2 on financial grounds, is that you don't have to prove all those people wrong. You just have to cloud the issue enough to create the illusion of debate over points a and b. It's the PR equivalent of 'reasonable doubt'.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions How do you know the intent of those asking for information? It seems to me that there are plenty of people here on HN that would just like to try their own hand at models. Who gets to decided when a request merits a response? the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests The one who pays the piper calls the tunes. If you're going to build your business (yes, research and universities are businesses) on public funding, then you've got to be prepared to have your customers -- the public -- ask about what you're doing. It seems to me that they ought to have at least an intern dedicated to maintaining a public web site where everything is made available. Then no annoyance to the researchers would occur.
    - gjm11 17y ago
      My understanding is that they couldn't make everything available, because some of their data came from sources with confidentiality conditions attached. See, e.g., http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-for-climate-data-approaches-tipping-point.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-fo... (note: "New Scientist" is less than perfectly reliable, but I have no reason to think they're wrong on this particular point).
- bballant 17y ago
  Trust your instinct and don't lose site of the fact that these cases of bad science are few compared to the good. My instinct tells me that we're destroying the planet. The effect of global warming is hard to see, but it's not hard to imagine given all of the other messes we've made.
  - beagle3 17y ago
    How do you know that "these cases of bad science are few compared to the good"? Seriously, whenever money or prestige is involved, the bad science has a much better chance.
    - bballant 17y ago
      I guess one can't know for sure, but I imagine the climate-change deniers and conspiracy-theorists would have uncovered more than one case of data fudging if it was wide spread. Money and prestige? Really? I wasn't aware climate science was the path to fame and wealth. Do you only trust the poor and obscure?
      - beagle3 17y ago
        No, I distrust everyone, but I distrust someone with an incentive to lie more. Phil Jones is famous and was reasonably comfortable tenured professor with a guaranteed steady income, and wielding power over most of the western world with prophecies of doom and gloom. It's unlikely he'll say "I've been wrong for the last 20 years" regardless of what science shows. There are numerous examples: Read Michael Pollen's NYTimes "Unhappy meals", "Is it all one big fat lie" or Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" on how nutrition science is perverted for profit. Read about the recent raw milk legislation about how medical science is perverted for profit. edit: Wanted to say I'm not stating anything about climate research, as I don't know enough about it; just that I don't share the "good science outnumbers bad science" view.
- mseebach 17y ago
  Which is a conclusion with some pretty far-reaching consequences. Most environmental legislation in industrialized countries for the past decade, if not two, might have been based on flawed science. Considering the egos of the people who would need to go out and say "when the facts change, I change my mind" to clean up this mess, it could take decades. We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure?
  - anamax 17y ago
    > We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure? Govt failure isn't new. Govt is systemic risk. When US car companies decided that they didn't want to make the kind of vehicles that I wanted, Toyota was willing to do so. When the US govt decides to do something dumb, I'm expected to pay for it. And when I point out that it's doing dumb things, I get yelled at by folks who think that I have some obligation to fix the govt that they broke. Screw that.
    - vannevar 17y ago
      Indeed, screw all this 'democracy' business where I'm sometimes in the minority, and this 'free speech' nonsense where people voice disagreement with me. And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do. C'mon boys, let's get our jack-boots on and take care of this silliness once and for all.
      - anamax 17y ago
        Say anything you want, just don't force me to pay for it. > And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do. If something is such a great idea, spend your money and get rich. Of course, I also expect you to take the loss if you're wrong. What? You're not willing to risk your money? Which congress critters do you think can run your life better than you can? Seriously - I want names. Democracy? Would you choose Congress to run anything
kunley 17y ago
Global warming is the new swine flu.
- TheBranca18 17y ago
  The article talks about climate change. You might want to learn the difference between climate change and global warming before you dismiss it with a one-liner.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - kunley 17y ago
    Regardless of the verbal purity and political correctness the point from the OP is: someone was trying to force the conclusion than the climate is warming more than it is. Isn't that clear?
    - TheBranca18 17y ago
      Verbal purity? They are two totally different concepts. This isn't about making sure you use the right term, it's making sure you understand the difference between the two. And yes it was clear. I think anyone reading the article should come to that conclusion. Your comparison was shallow and silly and I called you on it.
      - ugh 17y ago
        Please tell me about the difference. As far as I know climate change is the more general term while global warming can be used to refer to the current climate change. Both terms are equally valid, even if global warming might fall a bit short in describing all the effects of climate change. (It will get warmer, but there will likely be other effects that are often less well understood.) There is hardly any harm done in using both terms interchangably. (Edited out ocean acidification - I guess that one is strictly speaking neither an effect of climate change nor of gloabal warming. It's rather just caused by the same thing that also causes the current climate change.)
lacrossegm 17y ago
Every victory for AGW denial is a long term loss for all mankind.
- mseebach 17y ago
  Yeah, screw the science, I know I'm right.
  - lacrossegm 17y ago
    Yeah, screw down-votes, I know right from wrong.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
yannis 17y ago
I am glad this is breaking out slowly but surely and the C02 saga will probably be the greatest scientific scandal of our time. I have been following the story for as far as I remember as I had an interest in Ice Ages. This article http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf is very good at debunking some of the myths. You can play with a model online with this http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tiptop http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tiptop and you can download a more sophisticated program http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ from Goddard, or you can write your own Clojure one, like the one we had yesterday here at HN. There is no doubt that an increase in CO2 will increase temperatures. However, this is only part of a model. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. If you follow the Palaeoclimate literature (ice cores in Antartica) the rise in temperature gave a rise to C02 and not the other way round. You can look how the famous hockey stick curve looks if plotted against historical times (it looks more like a series of hills). Serious variations in temperature (on a global level) are caused mostly by sunspot activity. I am sure other HN posters can add 100's more argument to these. However, as humans there is no doubt that we are destroying our environment. As such I am very much for better policies in this respect but certainly NOT for trading carbon credits and fattening fat cats further.
- Retric 17y ago
  I am shocked by how many up votes this got. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. The worldwide CO2 production is 4.53 metric tons per capita, that’s metric tons of a gas. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=co2+emissions+GLOBAL http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co... Calculate the increase in PPM of CO2 with the human production of CO2 and the numbers work out. It’s not like we can’t figure out how much CO2 we released in the last 10 years, and compare atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from 10 years ago. I could do these calculations for you, but work them out for yourself and you can see that yes humans do produce plenty of CO2 to alter the concentration in the atmosphere. PS: Mass of gas in the atmosphere * concentration increase vs. Mass of gas produced.
  - 17y ago
xenonite 17y ago
Global warming != Climate change 1.) Global warming increases average temperatures. 2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally. Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong! This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way! The climate change IS happening, this does not change by disproving 1.)
- xenonite 17y ago
  I was asked to source my statements, as I did not do so before. The IPCC Third Report concludes that climate change might either be caused of a changing mean temperature, a changing variance, or both. What the real cause for climate change is, needs to be carefully assessed. This supports my statement that climate change is not necessarily caused by increasing mean temperatures. http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/088.htm http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/clim...
- TheBranca18 17y ago
  Better than I could state it myself. Funny how this comment is ignored even though I tried to make this distinction in another comment :)
- jerf 17y ago
  The problem is that nobody care whether the "climate is changing". Change is the only constant. The question is whether it is bad and whether we can do something about it. Neither has been very well established in my mind. If in fact our CO2 contribution's effect is far smaller than the IPCC and environmentalists claim, then natural variation is the dominant factor and even completely giving up industrialization entirely next year may not have a very large effect. This means that it is a lot harder to affect the climate than we have been telling ourselves. And climate changes have been happening continuously for billions of years, so it's not at all obvious that they are a priori bad for anything other than human agriculture. (Which is itself bad, but something we can deal with, and broadly speaking is our problem rather than the ecosystem's problem.) If environmentalists think they can turn on a dime after thirty years of "anthropogenic global warming -> disaster", they are in for a well-deserved beating in the court of general opinion. Falling back to "The climate is changing" is basically an admission that we have no clue, and more than that, where we thought human effects dominated it, it doesn't seem to. You can't just turn around and apply panic over AGW to panic over "climate change"; it is neither rational nor human-irrational. If you want to panic over something environmental, how about overfishing, plastic pollution in the pacific, fertilizer runoff, or something else that isn't "debatable" but actually, factually exists? In addition to the fact that it's a bad idea to try to "salvage" climate change as an issue, it isn't even necessary. There are real problems. Unless you personally are driven by using environmentalism as an excuse to destroy democracy and transfer wealth to the poor, if you are really driven by concern for the environment, you don't need to "win" this issue. Trying to build your political case on a lie can only be actively harmful in the long run.
ubulgaria 17y ago
At this point we don't need climate science -- we just need to observe the ice at poles and the dead coral reefs.
- anamax 17y ago
  > we just need to observe the ice at poles It's currently increasing at both.... The polar bear populations are increasing too. > the dead coral reefs Runoff from deforestation is killing most of them. There's some effect from increased disolved CO2, but it goes both ways. (Some creatures/plants benefit, others have problems, and still others don't seem to care.)
  - bballant 17y ago
    Ice is and polar bear populations are increasing? I have only read evidence to the contrary. Please provide a citation so I don't think you just made this up.
    - anamax 17y ago
      http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153 http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153 You can look up the polar bears yourself. You'll find that the population now is about 4-5x the population in the 60s. It may be decreasing slightly in the past few years, but that's in the noise compared to the recent increases. There's no reason to suspect temp change has had an effect comparable to direct intervention by humans.
      - bballant 17y ago
        Thanks for sharing the article. In looking at the data, one notices a clear cyclic pattern but also a subtle general upward trend in temperature and downward trend in ice cover (i.e. the temperature lows are higher and the highs are higher) over time. But I'm no climate scientist. With respect to the polar bears, I searched around and found many articles which state that the population in the 60's had been diminished because of hunting and that, currently, the plurality of polar bear populations are in decline because of climate change. The one article I found that supports your argument was from Fox News (no bias there ;-)).

52 points by miked 17y ago

The only conclusion that I 've been able to draw from this mess is: climate science has been seriously compromised :( I just cant decide who can be trusted as a source for accurate and unbiased information/opinion.

vannevar 17y ago
"The only conclusion that I 've been able to draw from this mess is: climate science has been seriously compromised" Really? I'll give you a more plausible conclusion: that the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions of their findings.
- lacrossegm 17y ago
  Exactly right. The fervent nature of global warming denial-ism drives people to go to great lengths to undermine the real science and delay action.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    The fervent nature of global warming believers makes it hard to separate political posturing from useful action. Lets get the data sorted out; not so that we know what to do (that is easy, and almost irrelevant to GW issues - just no one is really bothering....) but so that the politicians can't abuse the figures for their own end.
    - lacrossegm 17y ago
      To each their own. I have looked it from both sides. The real-climate science camp seems genuinely concerned about causes and consequence of global warming. The other camp, call them deniers, skeptics, or whatever are more concerned about money. They believe that the cost to combat global warming is too high. It also seems divided along political lines. It is flawed logic but some people do think they can use it for political gain, on both sides of the aisle.
      - ErrantX 17y ago
        The way I see it is: going green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts. I just don't see any actual committed progress to being "green" (I could name you 10 policy ideas right now that would have a massive impact). The climate work, IMO, is about talking a very very close look at how much of an impact we are having - and assessing if our response is enough or if more is required. But all I see, especially recently, is corruption, money and political manoeuvring on both sides. EDIT: I disagree with your appraisal of the 2 camps though (I'm guessing you fall into the believers camp). As someone sat in the middle, in frustration, both camps are as bad as the other.
        lacrossegm 17y ago
        "green is just sensible irrespective of the actual facts." I totally agree with this position. There are numerous benefits to developing better clean air/water standards. The climate "work" has been on going for decades. The science supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming is sound. Their may be some "believers" when it comes to global warming that just take at face value. I'm more of an accepting skeptic. I was skeptical at first that we could 1) Change our climate 2) Predict climate change with any amount of reasonable certainty. Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true.
        ErrantX 17y ago
        > Once you understand the science you can see why its obviously true. Sorry, this is my hang up. I understand the science - but the data and methodologies that we know about dont quite follow through for me (sometimes anyway)
    - vannevar 17y ago
      "Lets get the data sorted out" The data HAS been sorted out, by people who have spent the better part of their lives studying climatology. And among the group that has spent the most time studying Earth's climate, there is broad consensus that a) Earth's climate is warming and b) increased CO2 levels from human activities is the primary cause. The great thing about this debate, if you're a lobbyist for industrial groups opposing any action to limit CO2 on financial grounds, is that you don't have to prove all those people wrong. You just have to cloud the issue enough to create the illusion of debate over points a and b. It's the PR equivalent of 'reasonable doubt'.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  requests from people whose only interest was to disseminate distortions How do you know the intent of those asking for information? It seems to me that there are plenty of people here on HN that would just like to try their own hand at models. Who gets to decided when a request merits a response? the scientists in question got tired of responding to repeated Freedom of Information requests The one who pays the piper calls the tunes. If you're going to build your business (yes, research and universities are businesses) on public funding, then you've got to be prepared to have your customers -- the public -- ask about what you're doing. It seems to me that they ought to have at least an intern dedicated to maintaining a public web site where everything is made available. Then no annoyance to the researchers would occur.
  - gjm11 17y ago
    My understanding is that they couldn't make everything available, because some of their data came from sources with confidentiality conditions attached. See, e.g., http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-for-climate-data-approaches-tipping-point.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427393.600-battle-fo... (note: "New Scientist" is less than perfectly reliable, but I have no reason to think they're wrong on this particular point).
bballant 17y ago
Trust your instinct and don't lose site of the fact that these cases of bad science are few compared to the good. My instinct tells me that we're destroying the planet. The effect of global warming is hard to see, but it's not hard to imagine given all of the other messes we've made.
- beagle3 17y ago
  How do you know that "these cases of bad science are few compared to the good"? Seriously, whenever money or prestige is involved, the bad science has a much better chance.
  - bballant 17y ago
    I guess one can't know for sure, but I imagine the climate-change deniers and conspiracy-theorists would have uncovered more than one case of data fudging if it was wide spread. Money and prestige? Really? I wasn't aware climate science was the path to fame and wealth. Do you only trust the poor and obscure?
    - beagle3 17y ago
      No, I distrust everyone, but I distrust someone with an incentive to lie more. Phil Jones is famous and was reasonably comfortable tenured professor with a guaranteed steady income, and wielding power over most of the western world with prophecies of doom and gloom. It's unlikely he'll say "I've been wrong for the last 20 years" regardless of what science shows. There are numerous examples: Read Michael Pollen's NYTimes "Unhappy meals", "Is it all one big fat lie" or Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" on how nutrition science is perverted for profit. Read about the recent raw milk legislation about how medical science is perverted for profit. edit: Wanted to say I'm not stating anything about climate research, as I don't know enough about it; just that I don't share the "good science outnumbers bad science" view.
mseebach 17y ago
Which is a conclusion with some pretty far-reaching consequences. Most environmental legislation in industrialized countries for the past decade, if not two, might have been based on flawed science. Considering the egos of the people who would need to go out and say "when the facts change, I change my mind" to clean up this mess, it could take decades. We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure?
- anamax 17y ago
  > We're hearing a lot about market failure these years, how's this for government failure? Govt failure isn't new. Govt is systemic risk. When US car companies decided that they didn't want to make the kind of vehicles that I wanted, Toyota was willing to do so. When the US govt decides to do something dumb, I'm expected to pay for it. And when I point out that it's doing dumb things, I get yelled at by folks who think that I have some obligation to fix the govt that they broke. Screw that.
  - vannevar 17y ago
    Indeed, screw all this 'democracy' business where I'm sometimes in the minority, and this 'free speech' nonsense where people voice disagreement with me. And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do. C'mon boys, let's get our jack-boots on and take care of this silliness once and for all.
    - anamax 17y ago
      Say anything you want, just don't force me to pay for it. > And screw these pointy-headed academics with their sinister hidden agendas, telling businessmen what to do. If something is such a great idea, spend your money and get rich. Of course, I also expect you to take the loss if you're wrong. What? You're not willing to risk your money? Which congress critters do you think can run your life better than you can? Seriously - I want names. Democracy? Would you choose Congress to run anything

kunley 17y ago

Global warming is the new swine flu.

TheBranca18 17y ago
The article talks about climate change. You might want to learn the difference between climate change and global warming before you dismiss it with a one-liner.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- kunley 17y ago
  Regardless of the verbal purity and political correctness the point from the OP is: someone was trying to force the conclusion than the climate is warming more than it is. Isn't that clear?
  - TheBranca18 17y ago
    Verbal purity? They are two totally different concepts. This isn't about making sure you use the right term, it's making sure you understand the difference between the two. And yes it was clear. I think anyone reading the article should come to that conclusion. Your comparison was shallow and silly and I called you on it.
    - ugh 17y ago
      Please tell me about the difference. As far as I know climate change is the more general term while global warming can be used to refer to the current climate change. Both terms are equally valid, even if global warming might fall a bit short in describing all the effects of climate change. (It will get warmer, but there will likely be other effects that are often less well understood.) There is hardly any harm done in using both terms interchangably. (Edited out ocean acidification - I guess that one is strictly speaking neither an effect of climate change nor of gloabal warming. It's rather just caused by the same thing that also causes the current climate change.)

lacrossegm 17y ago

Every victory for AGW denial is a long term loss for all mankind.

mseebach 17y ago
Yeah, screw the science, I know I'm right.
- lacrossegm 17y ago
  Yeah, screw down-votes, I know right from wrong.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

yannis 17y ago

I am glad this is breaking out slowly but surely and the C02 saga will probably be the greatest scientific scandal of our time. I have been following the story for as far as I remember as I had an interest in Ice Ages. This article http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf is very good at debunking some of the myths. You can play with a model online with this http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tiptop http://cs.clark.edu/~mac/physlets/GEBM/ebm.htm#tiptop and you can download a more sophisticated program http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ from Goddard, or you can write your own Clojure one, like the one we had yesterday here at HN. There is no doubt that an increase in CO2 will increase temperatures. However, this is only part of a model. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. If you follow the Palaeoclimate literature (ice cores in Antartica) the rise in temperature gave a rise to C02 and not the other way round. You can look how the famous hockey stick curve looks if plotted against historical times (it looks more like a series of hills). Serious variations in temperature (on a global level) are caused mostly by sunspot activity. I am sure other HN posters can add 100's more argument to these. However, as humans there is no doubt that we are destroying our environment. As such I am very much for better policies in this respect but certainly NOT for trading carbon credits and fattening fat cats further.

Retric 17y ago
I am shocked by how many up votes this got. C02 can get absorbed by the Oceans and other earth mechanisms and balance out. The worldwide CO2 production is 4.53 metric tons per capita, that’s metric tons of a gas. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=co2+emissions+GLOBAL http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co... Calculate the increase in PPM of CO2 with the human production of CO2 and the numbers work out. It’s not like we can’t figure out how much CO2 we released in the last 10 years, and compare atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from 10 years ago. I could do these calculations for you, but work them out for yourself and you can see that yes humans do produce plenty of CO2 to alter the concentration in the atmosphere. PS: Mass of gas in the atmosphere * concentration increase vs. Mass of gas produced.
- 17y ago

xenonite 17y ago

Global warming != Climate change 1.) Global warming increases average temperatures. 2.) Climate change might turn the weather to extremes, which implies greater temperature _variance_ locally. Now the pattern I see is: people are trying to focus on 1.), disprove it, then (falsly) claim that 2.) would also be wrong! This is not the case. 1.) does NOT relate to 2.) in any way! The climate change IS happening, this does not change by disproving 1.)

xenonite 17y ago
I was asked to source my statements, as I did not do so before. The IPCC Third Report concludes that climate change might either be caused of a changing mean temperature, a changing variance, or both. What the real cause for climate change is, needs to be carefully assessed. This supports my statement that climate change is not necessarily caused by increasing mean temperatures. http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/088.htm http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/clim...
TheBranca18 17y ago
Better than I could state it myself. Funny how this comment is ignored even though I tried to make this distinction in another comment :)
jerf 17y ago
The problem is that nobody care whether the "climate is changing". Change is the only constant. The question is whether it is bad and whether we can do something about it. Neither has been very well established in my mind. If in fact our CO2 contribution's effect is far smaller than the IPCC and environmentalists claim, then natural variation is the dominant factor and even completely giving up industrialization entirely next year may not have a very large effect. This means that it is a lot harder to affect the climate than we have been telling ourselves. And climate changes have been happening continuously for billions of years, so it's not at all obvious that they are a priori bad for anything other than human agriculture. (Which is itself bad, but something we can deal with, and broadly speaking is our problem rather than the ecosystem's problem.) If environmentalists think they can turn on a dime after thirty years of "anthropogenic global warming -> disaster", they are in for a well-deserved beating in the court of general opinion. Falling back to "The climate is changing" is basically an admission that we have no clue, and more than that, where we thought human effects dominated it, it doesn't seem to. You can't just turn around and apply panic over AGW to panic over "climate change"; it is neither rational nor human-irrational. If you want to panic over something environmental, how about overfishing, plastic pollution in the pacific, fertilizer runoff, or something else that isn't "debatable" but actually, factually exists? In addition to the fact that it's a bad idea to try to "salvage" climate change as an issue, it isn't even necessary. There are real problems. Unless you personally are driven by using environmentalism as an excuse to destroy democracy and transfer wealth to the poor, if you are really driven by concern for the environment, you don't need to "win" this issue. Trying to build your political case on a lie can only be actively harmful in the long run.

ubulgaria 17y ago

At this point we don't need climate science -- we just need to observe the ice at poles and the dead coral reefs.

anamax 17y ago
> we just need to observe the ice at poles It's currently increasing at both.... The polar bear populations are increasing too. > the dead coral reefs Runoff from deforestation is killing most of them. There's some effect from increased disolved CO2, but it goes both ways. (Some creatures/plants benefit, others have problems, and still others don't seem to care.)
- bballant 17y ago
  Ice is and polar bear populations are increasing? I have only read evidence to the contrary. Please provide a citation so I don't think you just made this up.
  - anamax 17y ago
    http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153 http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=153 You can look up the polar bears yourself. You'll find that the population now is about 4-5x the population in the 60s. It may be decreasing slightly in the past few years, but that's in the noise compared to the recent increases. There's no reason to suspect temp change has had an effect comparable to direct intervention by humans.
    - bballant 17y ago
      Thanks for sharing the article. In looking at the data, one notices a clear cyclic pattern but also a subtle general upward trend in temperature and downward trend in ice cover (i.e. the temperature lows are higher and the highs are higher) over time. But I'm no climate scientist. With respect to the polar bears, I searched around and found many articles which state that the population in the 60's had been diminished because of hunting and that, currently, the plurality of polar bear populations are in decline because of climate change. The one article I found that supports your argument was from Fox News (no bias there ;-)).