4 ms·

'In a first' over what, the past 150 years? Less than that? The hysteria about 'climate change' - when almost all frames of reference are less than 1% of manki

by avazhi 2y ago

'In a first' over what, the past 150 years? Less than that? The hysteria about 'climate change' - when almost all frames of reference are less than 1% of mankind's existence, a time span representing .0017% of the history of the planet - really tends to reflect badly on the progenitors of said hysteria. Spoiler alert: the micro-climate everywhere is constantly changing and has been doing so for billions of years. Places get hotter, colder, drier, wetter, more arid, more humid, and any combination of those; some places become ocean, others desert. The earth's macro-climate is also constantly changing, with or without human inputs. A few billion years ago the planet was a ball of molten lava without an atmosphere. Humans were neither the cause of that, nor the reason the earth is no longer that way. This sort of temporally short sighted thinking and the screeching that accompanies it really is peak collective narcissism.

defrost 2y ago
You clearly don't understand the issue in the slightest. Thanks for coughing up something most people have heard before, perhaps work on why that particular screed is irrelevant.
- avazhi 2y ago
  Yes, because my position is at odds with yours I 'clearly don't understand the issue in the slightest'. Do better.
  - defrost 2y ago
    You dragged up a sad talking point from the 1970s that not even professional climate denialists like (I can name at least four) bother with anymore. It's presented as some kind of unique fresh hot take and begs the question as to whether you're simply trolling for a reaction or are genuinely that ignorant of the debate. It literally screams I can't be bothered making an anti-AGW case and reeks of laziness. You do better. Try "the urban heat island corrupt the data" or "it's the clouds, man" (a favourite of old nobel prize in semiconductor technologists that struggle to stay relevant). Your position is boring, it's the "why worry about immigration, billions of years ago the earth was molten and there weren't even Mexicans, let alone borders or humans" of insouciance. It's the one hand clap of the dullard too busy with their other hand.
    - oceanplexian 2y ago
      I think it’s a fair argument that measuring temps in the middle of urban areas does not produce the most reliable data. The people saying it’s a conspiracy are clearly wrong, but the people saying the data is iron-clad and as reliable as Newton’s laws are also full of it. I run my own weather monitoring equipment as a hobby and throw it in a time series database and see completely different results in air temperature, +/- a few degrees based on what side of the yard the measurement is taken on. In a world where we are splitting hairs over 1-2c the microclimates present in an urban area matter. Things like reflections, landscaping, buildings, the presence or reduction of haze from local pollution and a million other factors make this data super dirty. And not only is the problem collecting reliable data in the present, but correcting data that was taken 30, 40, or 50 years ago with less sophisticated technology.
      - defrost 2y ago
        > I think it’s a fair argument that measuring temps in the middle of urban areas does not produce the most reliable data. It was absolutely a fair point 30 odd years ago when it was first seriously raised and hammered in a number of sponsered AGW denialists blogs. It was a serious enough point that an American climate skeptic physicists looked very hard and seriously at the data to determine if this was a valid argument against the claims of rising tempreture some 16+ years ago (IIRC). * The result of that, and many other such studies, was that climate scientists were handling geospatial tempreture data correctly and not overweighting the tempreture of large non urban areas with readings from small constrained urban areas. Today we are more certain given the constellation of MODIS and other satellites that continuously orbit the planet every hour and a half in precessing paths that cover the globe and return both ground level and atmosphereic depth tempreture measurements. > I run my own weather monitoring equipment as a hobby Good on you. I recall the instructions given to us in 1980 when setting official Bureau Met weather stations all across Australia and how to standardise and normalise instrument placement. In high school and university mathematics we also looked at the central limit theorem and the differences between single readings and pooled readings, etc. * This was a particularly famous and well documented bit of climate debate history in the USofA theatre, I leave you to look up the details. FWiW it was "debunked" multiple earlier times, eg in Geophys Letter 1999 [1] and ranks as a standing oft repeated "climate myth" [2] [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/urban-heat-island-debate-cools-down https://www.science.org/content/article/urban-heat-island-de... [2] https://skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm https://skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
  - Perenti 2y ago
    You have a BSc, but you use the word "variance" describing Melbourne weather. Variance is a statistical measure, which you _surely_ met in your degree. What you observe in Melbourne is variation, which is a different matter all together. This strongly suggests you do not truely understand the issues, and are repeating things told to you. Another example is where you say we know about 0.17% (or something, no tabs here) percent of Earth's history. Well, history begins about 5000yrs ago. I believe we know quite a bit about the last 5k years. We also know quite a lot about prehistoric climates - before history. We have reliable estimates of rates of change of global temperature, and of CO2 concentrations, and we have no evidence of greater rates of global warming than now.
    - avazhi 2y ago
      The OED defines variance as: 'the fact or quality of being different, divergent, or inconsistent: her light tone was at variance with her sudden trembling.' That is the first entry for variance; I was not referring to its technical statistical meaning (this should have been obvious). Recorded history and history are also two very different things - surely this is also obvious. The thermometer was invented in the 1700s. It's entirely possible that the area we now call Phoenix had 100+ days of 100 degree heat multiple times over the past millennium but we wouldn't necessarily know about it. Even by the most pessimistic projections 'climate change' (to the extent it exists) isn't going to result in catastrophe for the first world, and certainly nothing approaching an extinction event globally.
      - lm28469 2y ago
        > 'climate change' (to the extent it exists) isn't going to result in catastrophe for the first world I feel like in your mind climate change is +3 degrees on your local thermometer and you skip all the other side effects like literal billions of people migrating north because their environment literally can't support human life anymore You went from "it doesn't exist" to "maybe it exists but it won't impact me", you took a big step already
      - Perenti 2y ago
        Variance in Science is the square of the standard deviation. Since you are talking about a scientific issue, and discussing measurements, and since you claim to have a BSc it is reasonable to expect the word to be used in a technical context. All history is recorded history BY DEFINITION. You shouldn't be waving your degree around, you plainly are not a scientist. As to your understanding of this, consider tossing a coin, and getting heads. For one coin it's a 1/2 chance. For 2 in a row it's 1/4. For 100 the chance is 1/(2^100) which is about 10^-30, a vanishingly small chance. Now let's take the last 100 years of climate data from phoenix, we can estimate the chance of any day being over 100F from the data, and from that the chance of 100 days straight of over 100F. Given that less than half of the time it's over 100F in Phoenix, the odds of having 100 days in a row over 100F is less than 10^-30. This is 1st year science. Your very first data analysis course.
retrac98 2y ago
You don’t understand climate change. Nobody denies the climate has always changed. The issue is with human induced climate change is the rate of change. It’s the difference between bringing a car from 100mph to a gentle stop and slamming it into a brick wall. The rate of change we’ve introduced doesn’t give ecosystems or species the time they need to adapt.
- avazhi 2y ago
  I've got a BSc and I'm fully acquainted with the arguments for man-made climate change, as well as the proposed solutions. Even if one concedes that the climate is 'rapidly changing' solely or primarily because of man-made action, it doesn't follow that those changes will lead to catastrophe for people everywhere, particularly those in the first world. Having said that, Phoenix hitting 100 degrees for 100 days in a row doesn't support 'rapid climate' change occurring when the reference is the past 150 years. To put it another way, suppose the planet is warming (for whatever reason) - eventually we would get 100 days of 100 degrees in Phoenix, right? Who are you to say that it's rapid or unnatural? Cycles happen - neither of us can say this didn't also happen 500/1000/2000/10,000 years ago. I live in Melbourne and the winter we just had (here in the southern hemisphere) was the coldest I can remember. The year before was mild. Variance happens, in both the short term and the long term. Hysteria is laughable. I'm not saying we shouldn't take care to pollute as little as is reasonably possible, but promulgating wholesale societal change is never going to get the Green left (or whatever they prefer to be called) what they want.
  - Perenti 2y ago
    Comparing Melbourne's weather to global patterns is a stretch. For non-Australians, Melbourne weather is the subject of the song "Four seasons in one day".
  - lm28469 2y ago
    > it doesn't follow that those changes will lead to catastrophe for people everywhere, particularly those in the first world. lmao, the irony of talking about narcissism in your previous post
lm28469 2y ago
You're going to die in XX years but if I stab you in the heart you're going to die instantly, the result is the same, which apparently is all you care about so I assume you wouldn't mind the stabbing part, I just made it faster. It really isn't rocket science: nature exists and influences climate, but we also exist and influence nature, hence we also influence climate, natural climate change AND human made climate change can both exist simultaneously. Just look at the cause of regular climate change, if we influence the same variables we will get the same results ... but faster

by avazhi 2y ago

defrost 2y ago

You clearly don't understand the issue in the slightest. Thanks for coughing up something most people have heard before, perhaps work on why that particular screed is irrelevant.

avazhi 2y ago
Yes, because my position is at odds with yours I 'clearly don't understand the issue in the slightest'. Do better.
- defrost 2y ago
  You dragged up a sad talking point from the 1970s that not even professional climate denialists like (I can name at least four) bother with anymore. It's presented as some kind of unique fresh hot take and begs the question as to whether you're simply trolling for a reaction or are genuinely that ignorant of the debate. It literally screams I can't be bothered making an anti-AGW case and reeks of laziness. You do better. Try "the urban heat island corrupt the data" or "it's the clouds, man" (a favourite of old nobel prize in semiconductor technologists that struggle to stay relevant). Your position is boring, it's the "why worry about immigration, billions of years ago the earth was molten and there weren't even Mexicans, let alone borders or humans" of insouciance. It's the one hand clap of the dullard too busy with their other hand.
  - oceanplexian 2y ago
    I think it’s a fair argument that measuring temps in the middle of urban areas does not produce the most reliable data. The people saying it’s a conspiracy are clearly wrong, but the people saying the data is iron-clad and as reliable as Newton’s laws are also full of it. I run my own weather monitoring equipment as a hobby and throw it in a time series database and see completely different results in air temperature, +/- a few degrees based on what side of the yard the measurement is taken on. In a world where we are splitting hairs over 1-2c the microclimates present in an urban area matter. Things like reflections, landscaping, buildings, the presence or reduction of haze from local pollution and a million other factors make this data super dirty. And not only is the problem collecting reliable data in the present, but correcting data that was taken 30, 40, or 50 years ago with less sophisticated technology.
    - defrost 2y ago
      > I think it’s a fair argument that measuring temps in the middle of urban areas does not produce the most reliable data. It was absolutely a fair point 30 odd years ago when it was first seriously raised and hammered in a number of sponsered AGW denialists blogs. It was a serious enough point that an American climate skeptic physicists looked very hard and seriously at the data to determine if this was a valid argument against the claims of rising tempreture some 16+ years ago (IIRC). * The result of that, and many other such studies, was that climate scientists were handling geospatial tempreture data correctly and not overweighting the tempreture of large non urban areas with readings from small constrained urban areas. Today we are more certain given the constellation of MODIS and other satellites that continuously orbit the planet every hour and a half in precessing paths that cover the globe and return both ground level and atmosphereic depth tempreture measurements. > I run my own weather monitoring equipment as a hobby Good on you. I recall the instructions given to us in 1980 when setting official Bureau Met weather stations all across Australia and how to standardise and normalise instrument placement. In high school and university mathematics we also looked at the central limit theorem and the differences between single readings and pooled readings, etc. * This was a particularly famous and well documented bit of climate debate history in the USofA theatre, I leave you to look up the details. FWiW it was "debunked" multiple earlier times, eg in Geophys Letter 1999 [1] and ranks as a standing oft repeated "climate myth" [2] [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/urban-heat-island-debate-cools-down https://www.science.org/content/article/urban-heat-island-de... [2] https://skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm https://skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
- Perenti 2y ago
  You have a BSc, but you use the word "variance" describing Melbourne weather. Variance is a statistical measure, which you _surely_ met in your degree. What you observe in Melbourne is variation, which is a different matter all together. This strongly suggests you do not truely understand the issues, and are repeating things told to you. Another example is where you say we know about 0.17% (or something, no tabs here) percent of Earth's history. Well, history begins about 5000yrs ago. I believe we know quite a bit about the last 5k years. We also know quite a lot about prehistoric climates - before history. We have reliable estimates of rates of change of global temperature, and of CO2 concentrations, and we have no evidence of greater rates of global warming than now.
  - avazhi 2y ago
    The OED defines variance as: 'the fact or quality of being different, divergent, or inconsistent: her light tone was at variance with her sudden trembling.' That is the first entry for variance; I was not referring to its technical statistical meaning (this should have been obvious). Recorded history and history are also two very different things - surely this is also obvious. The thermometer was invented in the 1700s. It's entirely possible that the area we now call Phoenix had 100+ days of 100 degree heat multiple times over the past millennium but we wouldn't necessarily know about it. Even by the most pessimistic projections 'climate change' (to the extent it exists) isn't going to result in catastrophe for the first world, and certainly nothing approaching an extinction event globally.
    - lm28469 2y ago
      > 'climate change' (to the extent it exists) isn't going to result in catastrophe for the first world I feel like in your mind climate change is +3 degrees on your local thermometer and you skip all the other side effects like literal billions of people migrating north because their environment literally can't support human life anymore You went from "it doesn't exist" to "maybe it exists but it won't impact me", you took a big step already
    - Perenti 2y ago
      Variance in Science is the square of the standard deviation. Since you are talking about a scientific issue, and discussing measurements, and since you claim to have a BSc it is reasonable to expect the word to be used in a technical context. All history is recorded history BY DEFINITION. You shouldn't be waving your degree around, you plainly are not a scientist. As to your understanding of this, consider tossing a coin, and getting heads. For one coin it's a 1/2 chance. For 2 in a row it's 1/4. For 100 the chance is 1/(2^100) which is about 10^-30, a vanishingly small chance. Now let's take the last 100 years of climate data from phoenix, we can estimate the chance of any day being over 100F from the data, and from that the chance of 100 days straight of over 100F. Given that less than half of the time it's over 100F in Phoenix, the odds of having 100 days in a row over 100F is less than 10^-30. This is 1st year science. Your very first data analysis course.

retrac98 2y ago

You don’t understand climate change. Nobody denies the climate has always changed. The issue is with human induced climate change is the rate of change. It’s the difference between bringing a car from 100mph to a gentle stop and slamming it into a brick wall. The rate of change we’ve introduced doesn’t give ecosystems or species the time they need to adapt.

avazhi 2y ago
I've got a BSc and I'm fully acquainted with the arguments for man-made climate change, as well as the proposed solutions. Even if one concedes that the climate is 'rapidly changing' solely or primarily because of man-made action, it doesn't follow that those changes will lead to catastrophe for people everywhere, particularly those in the first world. Having said that, Phoenix hitting 100 degrees for 100 days in a row doesn't support 'rapid climate' change occurring when the reference is the past 150 years. To put it another way, suppose the planet is warming (for whatever reason) - eventually we would get 100 days of 100 degrees in Phoenix, right? Who are you to say that it's rapid or unnatural? Cycles happen - neither of us can say this didn't also happen 500/1000/2000/10,000 years ago. I live in Melbourne and the winter we just had (here in the southern hemisphere) was the coldest I can remember. The year before was mild. Variance happens, in both the short term and the long term. Hysteria is laughable. I'm not saying we shouldn't take care to pollute as little as is reasonably possible, but promulgating wholesale societal change is never going to get the Green left (or whatever they prefer to be called) what they want.
- Perenti 2y ago
  Comparing Melbourne's weather to global patterns is a stretch. For non-Australians, Melbourne weather is the subject of the song "Four seasons in one day".
- lm28469 2y ago
  > it doesn't follow that those changes will lead to catastrophe for people everywhere, particularly those in the first world. lmao, the irony of talking about narcissism in your previous post

lm28469 2y ago

You're going to die in XX years but if I stab you in the heart you're going to die instantly, the result is the same, which apparently is all you care about so I assume you wouldn't mind the stabbing part, I just made it faster. It really isn't rocket science: nature exists and influences climate, but we also exist and influence nature, hence we also influence climate, natural climate change AND human made climate change can both exist simultaneously. Just look at the cause of regular climate change, if we influence the same variables we will get the same results ... but faster