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Don't you know that correlation = causation? CO2 is going up. Temperature is going up. Ocean is going up. Conclusion? All caused by CO2. Oh, and temperature g

Don't you know that correlation = causation? CO2 is going up. Temperature is going up. Ocean is going up. Conclusion? All caused by CO2. Oh, and temperature going down is also caused by CO2 going up. I haven't seen it yet but I'm sure Ocean going down is CO2-related also.

throwaway5752 10y ago
I'm pretty sure that's not how they model the climate. These are the same people that predict the course of hurricanes multiple days ahead. I think they understand elementary school level scientific principles.
- sathackr 10y ago
  They don't have the data to model it the way they predict the course of hurricanes. Models are just models, they're only as good as their design and the data they are fed. We have solid temperature data for only a few hundred years, if that. That's a lot of time to try to model something with so many variables. Both sides have been found to be tweaking the models and input data to tune the output to their agenda, and nearly every time I see it presented, it's "average global temperature rise of x over the last y years has contributed to z inches of sea level rise. We must reduce CO2 because climate change" Average global temperatures have gone up, and down, and up, and down many many times, even before we were even here. If the science were more solid, there wouldn't be so much controversy over it. For every model presentation you can find that predicts it, I can find one that doesn't. Is CO2 a greenhouse gas? Yes. Can it trap heat? Yes. Does that conclude that the extra CO2 we are generating is the cause of global temperature rise? Not by a long shot. Does it warrant further investigation? Absolutely. The consequences of being wrong are far to great to ignore.
  - throwaway5752 10y ago
    Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was saying that since they are real scientists, they are not abject idiots and running a linear regression on atmospheric CO2 vs mean global surface temperature. I can't tell you what to think or what models to select, but the rapid and sustained increase in temperatures over the past 30 years would suggest something is up, so I would at least focus on models that would have retroactively explained that rise.
    - graycat 10y ago
      As in the US National Academy of Sciences report in http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html (1) the temperature in 2006, and, thus, also now, is essentially the same as in the year 1000 and (2) there was a rapid rise in temperature from year 900 to year 1000. But for the temperature increase from year 900 to year 1000, the usual arguments about CO2 from human activity do not apply. Apparently CO2, from humans or anything else, had nothing to do with it. So, the current temperature and the rise of the past 100 years also happened between year 900 and year 1000. Can't blame humans for the rise from 900 to 1000. And, since the rise of the past 100 years is much like 900 to 1000, it doesn't have to look like "something is up" now, especially not human activity.
      - throwaway5752 10y ago
        You are referring the the midieval warm period? i do not have access to the PDF. Can you share the citation for 2006 vs MWP peak being the same? I would like to square it with the various source data represented in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperatur...
        graycat 10y ago
        I downloaded the PDF from that URL years ago, for free, no membeships, etc. Their main graph is on their page 2 of the PDF. By eyeball, their graph looks a lot like the graph in the Wikipedia page you gave. I was unsure just when the Medieval Warm Period was, but the Wiki graph seems to say it was near year 1000. My eyeball reading of the graph in the PDF says that the temperature in year 1000 is essentially the same as in year 2006 when the PDF was published, and the increase from year 900 to year 1000 was much like the increase from 1906 to 2006. I may be off by some 0.1 C or some such, but there are several curves so that about get to take your pick. Bottom line: Year 1000 wasn't a disaster and wasn't caused by humans releasing CO2, so I'm not much worried about now and not convinced that the current temperature or recent increases were caused by CO2. E.g., was the Little Ice Age caused by less CO2? I doubt it!

throwaway5752 10y ago

I'm pretty sure that's not how they model the climate. These are the same people that predict the course of hurricanes multiple days ahead. I think they understand elementary school level scientific principles.

sathackr 10y ago
They don't have the data to model it the way they predict the course of hurricanes. Models are just models, they're only as good as their design and the data they are fed. We have solid temperature data for only a few hundred years, if that. That's a lot of time to try to model something with so many variables. Both sides have been found to be tweaking the models and input data to tune the output to their agenda, and nearly every time I see it presented, it's "average global temperature rise of x over the last y years has contributed to z inches of sea level rise. We must reduce CO2 because climate change" Average global temperatures have gone up, and down, and up, and down many many times, even before we were even here. If the science were more solid, there wouldn't be so much controversy over it. For every model presentation you can find that predicts it, I can find one that doesn't. Is CO2 a greenhouse gas? Yes. Can it trap heat? Yes. Does that conclude that the extra CO2 we are generating is the cause of global temperature rise? Not by a long shot. Does it warrant further investigation? Absolutely. The consequences of being wrong are far to great to ignore.
- throwaway5752 10y ago
  Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was saying that since they are real scientists, they are not abject idiots and running a linear regression on atmospheric CO2 vs mean global surface temperature. I can't tell you what to think or what models to select, but the rapid and sustained increase in temperatures over the past 30 years would suggest something is up, so I would at least focus on models that would have retroactively explained that rise.
  - graycat 10y ago
    As in the US National Academy of Sciences report in http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html (1) the temperature in 2006, and, thus, also now, is essentially the same as in the year 1000 and (2) there was a rapid rise in temperature from year 900 to year 1000. But for the temperature increase from year 900 to year 1000, the usual arguments about CO2 from human activity do not apply. Apparently CO2, from humans or anything else, had nothing to do with it. So, the current temperature and the rise of the past 100 years also happened between year 900 and year 1000. Can't blame humans for the rise from 900 to 1000. And, since the rise of the past 100 years is much like 900 to 1000, it doesn't have to look like "something is up" now, especially not human activity.
    - throwaway5752 10y ago
      You are referring the the midieval warm period? i do not have access to the PDF. Can you share the citation for 2006 vs MWP peak being the same? I would like to square it with the various source data represented in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperatur...
      - graycat 10y ago
        I downloaded the PDF from that URL years ago, for free, no membeships, etc. Their main graph is on their page 2 of the PDF. By eyeball, their graph looks a lot like the graph in the Wikipedia page you gave. I was unsure just when the Medieval Warm Period was, but the Wiki graph seems to say it was near year 1000. My eyeball reading of the graph in the PDF says that the temperature in year 1000 is essentially the same as in year 2006 when the PDF was published, and the increase from year 900 to year 1000 was much like the increase from 1906 to 2006. I may be off by some 0.1 C or some such, but there are several curves so that about get to take your pick. Bottom line: Year 1000 wasn't a disaster and wasn't caused by humans releasing CO2, so I'm not much worried about now and not convinced that the current temperature or recent increases were caused by CO2. E.g., was the Little Ice Age caused by less CO2? I doubt it!