4 ms·
You shouldn't care about what reference is taken. The point is that compared to any reference, the curve is increasing.
by corradio 10y ago
You shouldn't care about what reference is taken. The point is that compared to any reference, the curve is increasing.
- sageikosa 10y ago800 million years ago is my reference point
- karl11 10y agoThat doesn't make sense. What if the reference is 5 minutes ago?
- euyyn 10y agoIf we're talking about annual average temperature, what doesn't make sense is thinking about 5min ago.
- corradio 10y agoTake the reference that is 5min ago, call it T0. You will still observe that temperatures (i.e the sequence of measured temperatures minus T0) are increasing. Changing the reference changes the y-scale of a graph, but does not change the derivative (the speed at which it changes, i.e. increases or decreases).
- joatmon-snoo 10y agoDid you look at the graph? The local derivative is most definitely not indicative of a general trend. For comparison, I throw a ball down at the ground, and for the first 0.1 seconds it's moving down - can I conclude that the ball is going to keep moving down, even when it hits the ground? That's your logic.
- stale2002 10y agoI don't think you know what baseline means. Baseline is just the starting point of the x-axis. It doesn't matter. Personally I'd set the baseline to 0 degrees. Because thats how temperature works. But you can pick whatever you want. It does not matter what you x-axis starts at. It doesn't change the data. Or you could just have no baseline. Just remove the X-axis line from the graph.
- sanderjd 10y agoWhat? Just because it's daytime (in the US) right now? In a few hours when it's dark, the temperature will definitely be going down when compared with a baseline of 5 minutes in the past. I don't think you've thought this through...
- stale2002 10y agoThen you could still look at the graph from 10 years ago, and compare it to your baseline of 5 minutes ago. "baseline" just means the line that defines the 0 point on the X-axis. It is just a flat line across the bottom graph It doesn't matter.
- bsbechtel 10y agoThat's ridiculous, of course you need a baseline for any sort of evaluation. Your comment implies any sort of warming, regardless of absolute levels, is bad.
- stale2002 10y agoOk, then, how about this. The baseline is 0 degrees, because that is the lowest that temperature can be. Would that be a fair baseline?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- corradio 10y agosorry for not being clear enough. I meant that the speed of warming is of interest here. That speed is independent of the baseline chosen. And that speed is what is worrying.
- gaius 10y agoThe point is that compared to any reference, the curve is increasing But that in and of itself doesn't mean anything - the Earth has warmed from two ice ages that we know of. The baseline absolutely determines what conclusions can be drawn from the data.