3 ms·

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think it's very likely you are right. Also thanks for the link to the data. I tried in the past to get access to actual raw d

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think it's very likely you are right. Also thanks for the link to the data. I tried in the past to get access to actual raw data so I can play with it, and draw my own conclusions, but all I got was always many levels above the raw data. Your point about politicians in denial is 100% on. And as a skeptical guy it bothers me that people perceive me as being somehow in the same boat as them. It is my perception that those guys are not really trying to find truth, or what's best for humankind, or anything beyond what will get them elected in the next cycle. However, that being said, I'm still skeptical. To give you an example, how many times did you not read in the media that Greenland is melting. Well, here's the real time data about the Greenland ice sheet mass [1]. Have you ever heard that the mass accumulation for the 2017-18 year was way above the 30-year mean? Edit: Also, thanks the Hacker News community. This is the first time I express my views on climate change without using a throwaway account, and I fully expected my karma to take a huge hit. So far it didn't, it stayed about flat. I expected to be destroyed in the comments. Nope, all comments have been respectful. Well done Hacker News. [1] https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-shee...

threeseed 8y ago
From the link you posted: "As mentioned, satellites measuring the ice sheet mass have observed a loss of around 200 Gt/year over the last decade." Doesn't that make the media right ?
- credit_guy 8y ago
  Not really. The 200GT/year is about 0.008% of the total mass of the ice sheet in Greenland. At this rate, Greenland will be ice-free in about 12500 years. The last ice age ended 11700 years ago [1], and at the time the Greenland ice sheet was many times larger than today. What that means is the average annual ice loss since the last ice age ended was higher than the current 200 GT/year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
clay_the_ripper 8y ago
My question for you would be, what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious). Is that global climate change exists at all? Or that it’s somehow being misprepresented? To me it’s always just come down to which do I think is more likely: A) 99% of all scientists are intentionally duping society into believing global warming for some unknown agenda that they all share and we don’t know about for an unknown benefit B) the people who stand to make billions (maybe trillions) of dollars by claiming that global warming doesn’t exist or is at least to some degree a conspiracy are behind the idea that globally warming isn’t real When i want to find out who is behind something, I typically look at who stands to make the most money from their viewpoint being accepted as the dominant one. To me it seems, given the enormous amount of money at stake, that scenario b is much more likely.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  Meh, no delete button and I should've known better to ponder on such subjects...
  - gotocake 8y ago
    Like all things the truth is probably somewhere in the middle... That’s a fallacy. Between anti-vaxxers and modern medicine the truth isn’t in the middle. Between Nazi ideology and its victims, the truth wasn’t in th middle. Between people who think that cell phone towers are controlling their minds with alien rays, and the rest of us, the truth isn’t in the middle. Some shit is just wrong.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  >what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious) I was fully convinced that the science about global warming is settled until I read Crichton's novel "State of Fear" [1]. That one planted some seeds of doubt in my mind. I know, a lot of climate change advocates say the novel was debunked (and maybe it was), but after I read the novel, I started thinking that maybe I should take a closer look and try to draw my own conclusions. And what I saw was not always good. Not always bad, mind you. To be honest, in the last 2 years or so, I get less and less skeptical, but overall, I still consider myself skeptical. Let me list a few things * A large part of Earth's land mass is in remote areas of Russia, Africa, South America. It's likely that more than 50% of the land mass does not have good temperature records. * Many temperature stations, while somewhat appropriate for reporting temperature for purposes of weather forecast, are not appropriate for climate change science (e.g. they are located in a parking lot, subject to the heat of the asphalt). * The temperature in a hot desert often drops below freezing during nighttime. Why? Because the air is dry, in other words the greenhouse effect is much lower. That should tell you that water vapors in the atmosphere are a very powerful greenhouse gas. Climate scientists admit as much. More powerful than CO2? Well, you will not get a straight answer to that question. You'll start hearing jargon such as "forcing", and in the end it will sound like CO2 is a more potent greenhouse gas. But behind all the jargon is the fact that CO2 in itself is not such a potent greenhouse gas, but only considering all various feedbacks (including water) that it induces. But those feedbacks are only modeled on a computer, they are not facts. Are they tested, validated, as good science would require? Oh well, it turns out that climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation. * By the way, did I mention that greenhouse effect is a miss-nomer? Actual greenhouses are not hot because of the "greenhouse effect"[2] * Bjorn Llomborg [3]. For those who don't know, the guy is a statistician who decided to take a look at the climate science through the eyes of a statistician. He wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which had a pretty moderate tone in my opinion. He was viciously attacked by the climate science community. For example, here's a quote from the wikipedia page: "The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between 'low' and 'very low'". If any scientist gets the modern day Giordano Bruno treatment, it's never climate science consensus scientists, always climate skeptics. I could keep going, but I don't want to write a wall of text. I'll stop here, and if people want more bullet points, I'll put them in some separate comments. Oh, and just to clarify. Many times I looked into the science, it did check out. For example, some skeptics point out to volcanic emissions. I spent time finding the numbers, and yes, it turns out that volcanoes emit peanuts compared to what we put in the atmosphere. I could go on with things that check out as well, but as I said above, I don't want to get people bored. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg
Benjammer 8y ago
>mass accumulation for the 2017-18 year was way above the 30-year mean What exactly does this mean to you? I'm curious what exactly the "a-ha" moment (even if it's relatively minor) is that you seem to be expecting when you add in the phrase "have you heard." And I don't mean this in a negatively rhetorical way, like "what are you talking about" or anything. I'm honestly curious about your thought process when you came across this fact for the first time.
mturmon 8y ago
> I tried in the past to get access to actual raw data so I can play with it, and draw my own conclusions, but all I got was always many levels above the raw data. I don't think you want to hear this, but: Do this if you want to goof around, but not if you want to reach a legitimate conclusion. People spend their whole time in grad school learning how to analyze such data. It's easy to fall into simple pitfalls (like ignoring known calibration issues) without that kind of intense training. (This is true of any scientific measurement.) And further, people who spend their careers on this have the benefit of critique of their initial results from their colleagues. Some of these errors are caught in conference posters and in peer review. The best place for a determined amateur like you (or me) to start is the recently-completed National Climate Assessment: https://science2017.globalchange.gov https://science2017.globalchange.gov . That will point you back into the primary literature. The amount of experience and judgement that went into that report is not something an amateur (even a very determined/intelligent one) can approach. As a point of comparison, consider the story of Berkeley Earth (http://berkeleyearth.org/about/ http://berkeleyearth.org/about/), which was started by skeptics but ended up reaching conclusions about rising temperatures similar to the ordinary climate science consensus. Will you be in a position to do better? Source: I work with a couple of co-authors of sections of the IPCC and NCA reports.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  Well, I'm a quant. I do know quite a lot about statistical pitfalls. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't do any mistakes if I look and analyze the data myself, but if I do and I engage people like the HN community, my mistakes will be pointed out, and it will be a learning experience, and I'll be able to progress towards a better understanding. And to be honest, I do think it's more likely than not that the global temperatures have been rising. But again, it would be nice to know you can access the data, and be able to whip out a jupiter notebook and do some sanity checks on it.
  - mturmon 8y ago
    The HN community knows a lot, but not about Earth science. (Although there are some astrophysicists here.) I have a PhD in a statistical field, and I work with PhD statisticians analyzing Earth science data. When things about interpreting results, or choosing appropriate data, come up...we talk to a domain scientist. So I’d suggest thinking about a way to do that, if you care about the validity of your conclusions. And, as I suggested earlier, a literature review, starting with the overview reports.

threeseed 8y ago

From the link you posted: "As mentioned, satellites measuring the ice sheet mass have observed a loss of around 200 Gt/year over the last decade." Doesn't that make the media right ?

credit_guy 8y ago
Not really. The 200GT/year is about 0.008% of the total mass of the ice sheet in Greenland. At this rate, Greenland will be ice-free in about 12500 years. The last ice age ended 11700 years ago [1], and at the time the Greenland ice sheet was many times larger than today. What that means is the average annual ice loss since the last ice age ended was higher than the current 200 GT/year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

clay_the_ripper 8y ago

My question for you would be, what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious). Is that global climate change exists at all? Or that it’s somehow being misprepresented? To me it’s always just come down to which do I think is more likely: A) 99% of all scientists are intentionally duping society into believing global warming for some unknown agenda that they all share and we don’t know about for an unknown benefit B) the people who stand to make billions (maybe trillions) of dollars by claiming that global warming doesn’t exist or is at least to some degree a conspiracy are behind the idea that globally warming isn’t real When i want to find out who is behind something, I typically look at who stands to make the most money from their viewpoint being accepted as the dominant one. To me it seems, given the enormous amount of money at stake, that scenario b is much more likely.

UncleEntity 8y ago
Meh, no delete button and I should've known better to ponder on such subjects...
- gotocake 8y ago
  Like all things the truth is probably somewhere in the middle... That’s a fallacy. Between anti-vaxxers and modern medicine the truth isn’t in the middle. Between Nazi ideology and its victims, the truth wasn’t in th middle. Between people who think that cell phone towers are controlling their minds with alien rays, and the rest of us, the truth isn’t in the middle. Some shit is just wrong.
credit_guy 8y ago
>what exactly are you skeptical about? (Genuinely curious) I was fully convinced that the science about global warming is settled until I read Crichton's novel "State of Fear" [1]. That one planted some seeds of doubt in my mind. I know, a lot of climate change advocates say the novel was debunked (and maybe it was), but after I read the novel, I started thinking that maybe I should take a closer look and try to draw my own conclusions. And what I saw was not always good. Not always bad, mind you. To be honest, in the last 2 years or so, I get less and less skeptical, but overall, I still consider myself skeptical. Let me list a few things * A large part of Earth's land mass is in remote areas of Russia, Africa, South America. It's likely that more than 50% of the land mass does not have good temperature records. * Many temperature stations, while somewhat appropriate for reporting temperature for purposes of weather forecast, are not appropriate for climate change science (e.g. they are located in a parking lot, subject to the heat of the asphalt). * The temperature in a hot desert often drops below freezing during nighttime. Why? Because the air is dry, in other words the greenhouse effect is much lower. That should tell you that water vapors in the atmosphere are a very powerful greenhouse gas. Climate scientists admit as much. More powerful than CO2? Well, you will not get a straight answer to that question. You'll start hearing jargon such as "forcing", and in the end it will sound like CO2 is a more potent greenhouse gas. But behind all the jargon is the fact that CO2 in itself is not such a potent greenhouse gas, but only considering all various feedbacks (including water) that it induces. But those feedbacks are only modeled on a computer, they are not facts. Are they tested, validated, as good science would require? Oh well, it turns out that climate scientists don't believe a whole lot in falsification and validation. * By the way, did I mention that greenhouse effect is a miss-nomer? Actual greenhouses are not hot because of the "greenhouse effect"[2] * Bjorn Llomborg [3]. For those who don't know, the guy is a statistician who decided to take a look at the climate science through the eyes of a statistician. He wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", which had a pretty moderate tone in my opinion. He was viciously attacked by the climate science community. For example, here's a quote from the wikipedia page: "The Climate Feedback reviewers assessed that the scientific credibility ranged between 'low' and 'very low'". If any scientist gets the modern day Giordano Bruno treatment, it's never climate science consensus scientists, always climate skeptics. I could keep going, but I don't want to write a wall of text. I'll stop here, and if people want more bullet points, I'll put them in some separate comments. Oh, and just to clarify. Many times I looked into the science, it did check out. For example, some skeptics point out to volcanic emissions. I spent time finding the numbers, and yes, it turns out that volcanoes emit peanuts compared to what we put in the atmosphere. I could go on with things that check out as well, but as I said above, I don't want to get people bored. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg

Benjammer 8y ago

>mass accumulation for the 2017-18 year was way above the 30-year mean What exactly does this mean to you? I'm curious what exactly the "a-ha" moment (even if it's relatively minor) is that you seem to be expecting when you add in the phrase "have you heard." And I don't mean this in a negatively rhetorical way, like "what are you talking about" or anything. I'm honestly curious about your thought process when you came across this fact for the first time.

mturmon 8y ago

> I tried in the past to get access to actual raw data so I can play with it, and draw my own conclusions, but all I got was always many levels above the raw data. I don't think you want to hear this, but: Do this if you want to goof around, but not if you want to reach a legitimate conclusion. People spend their whole time in grad school learning how to analyze such data. It's easy to fall into simple pitfalls (like ignoring known calibration issues) without that kind of intense training. (This is true of any scientific measurement.) And further, people who spend their careers on this have the benefit of critique of their initial results from their colleagues. Some of these errors are caught in conference posters and in peer review. The best place for a determined amateur like you (or me) to start is the recently-completed National Climate Assessment: https://science2017.globalchange.gov https://science2017.globalchange.gov . That will point you back into the primary literature. The amount of experience and judgement that went into that report is not something an amateur (even a very determined/intelligent one) can approach. As a point of comparison, consider the story of Berkeley Earth (http://berkeleyearth.org/about/ http://berkeleyearth.org/about/), which was started by skeptics but ended up reaching conclusions about rising temperatures similar to the ordinary climate science consensus. Will you be in a position to do better? Source: I work with a couple of co-authors of sections of the IPCC and NCA reports.

credit_guy 8y ago
Well, I'm a quant. I do know quite a lot about statistical pitfalls. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't do any mistakes if I look and analyze the data myself, but if I do and I engage people like the HN community, my mistakes will be pointed out, and it will be a learning experience, and I'll be able to progress towards a better understanding. And to be honest, I do think it's more likely than not that the global temperatures have been rising. But again, it would be nice to know you can access the data, and be able to whip out a jupiter notebook and do some sanity checks on it.
- mturmon 8y ago
  The HN community knows a lot, but not about Earth science. (Although there are some astrophysicists here.) I have a PhD in a statistical field, and I work with PhD statisticians analyzing Earth science data. When things about interpreting results, or choosing appropriate data, come up...we talk to a domain scientist. So I’d suggest thinking about a way to do that, if you care about the validity of your conclusions. And, as I suggested earlier, a literature review, starting with the overview reports.