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> Why should I be called upon to remember exactly which year Your own words were: "I of course remember when that became untenable". I didn't think it would be

by phaemon 12y ago

> Why should I be called upon to remember exactly which year Your own words were: "I of course remember when that became untenable". I didn't think it would be any effort. > Hmmm, maybe it was around 10 years into that? So about 5 years ago then? 2009 or so. Let's say after 2000 just to be safe. Because the IPCC - you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - was formed in 1988. That's "Climate Change". In 1988. I think perhaps your memory is faulty. Also, "global temperature data stopped showing warming ~15 years ago" is just wrong. I thought you said you were a scientist?

waterlesscloud 12y ago
It's not a clear cut thing, but there was definitely a period when "Global Warming" was the popular phrase, as a result of being promoted by scientists talking about public policy. http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-warming-vs-climate-change http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-war... "But global warming became the dominant popular term in June 1988, when NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate, specifically referring to global warming." So it looks like his memory was just fine on that topic.
- phaemon 12y ago
  His memory was when the phrase "global warming" became "untenable and changed to "climate change"". That's what's wrong. The phrase "Climate Change" was not introduced late on because there was some problem with "global warming". It's been in use from the start. If he'd said "unfashionable" rather than "untenable" then he'd have been closer to the mark.
- phaemon 12y ago
  This did pique my curiosity, so I had a look at Google Ngram viewer which gave: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming%2Cclimate+change&year_start=1960&year_end=2012&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming... It looks from that like the two phrases were equally popular till 1994, when "Climate Change" suddenly took off. There was never a point where "Global Warming" was significantly more popular. Do you know of any other places I can check this?
hga 12y ago
As waterlesscloud notes, I'm talking about the popular use. I'll turn around your IPCC argument: anyone with a clue would realize there was a distinct chance another change in the party line like the cooling to warming flip would be required by the short term temperature record, so the IPCC merely future proofed their gravy train. My calling was science. Finances prevented me from fulfilling that potential, which is why you'll find me here in Hacker News. Saying "just wrong" is no more convincing than my bald assertion of what I thought was generally accepted, so for example use a search like this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+stopped https://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+stopped to find deniers like the BBC, Wikipedia, NATURE (http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525 http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-mi...), National Geographic, and The Economist in the first two pages of my results....
- phaemon 12y ago
  Regarding your search, most of those links are explanations of why you're wrong. The problem is that scientists are saying something like, "Given the measurements we've made of the extra energy the earth is absorbing, we'd expect surface air temperatures to be rising even more rapidly than they are. The energy can't just disappear. Where is that extra energy going to?" What deniers hear is, "Computer models tell us the earth should be heating up and it isn't! The energy must be missing! The earth is cooling!" But, fair enough I should have said more than "just wrong". So allow me to explain why it's wrong and, since you don't like temperature data, we can do it talking about waves on a beach. Imagine you're measuring the height that waves come up a beach. You notice that if you look at, say, the last 30 measurements, you can see a clear upward trend: the tide is coming in. Now you'd like to determine whether or not the tide is turning. So you look at the last 16 measurements (it helps to start from that big wave 16 measurements back), and there you go - no significant increase in the height up the beach. Does that tell you whether the tide has turned or not? Well of course it doesn't. Otherwise you could continually find moments where the "tide was turning" simply by taking a short enough period of measurement. And you'd continually be wrong. What's the correct way of doing this? It's pretty simple. You check the longer term trend (tide is coming in) and then take the last 16 measurements and see if that trend is significantly different to your previous trend. This way adding data strengthens your findings, whereas with the previous way removing data strengthens your findings. So, basically, you're doing it wrong. Do it the correct way and then tell me what you find. As for: > the IPCC merely future proofed their gravy train. Well, there's no falsifying the Golden Rule: "it's all part of the conspiracy"

by phaemon 12y ago

waterlesscloud 12y ago

It's not a clear cut thing, but there was definitely a period when "Global Warming" was the popular phrase, as a result of being promoted by scientists talking about public policy. http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-warming-vs-climate-change http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-war... "But global warming became the dominant popular term in June 1988, when NASA scientist James E. Hansen had testified to Congress about climate, specifically referring to global warming." So it looks like his memory was just fine on that topic.

phaemon 12y ago
His memory was when the phrase "global warming" became "untenable and changed to "climate change"". That's what's wrong. The phrase "Climate Change" was not introduced late on because there was some problem with "global warming". It's been in use from the start. If he'd said "unfashionable" rather than "untenable" then he'd have been closer to the mark.
phaemon 12y ago
This did pique my curiosity, so I had a look at Google Ngram viewer which gave: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming%2Cclimate+change&year_start=1960&year_end=2012&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming... It looks from that like the two phrases were equally popular till 1994, when "Climate Change" suddenly took off. There was never a point where "Global Warming" was significantly more popular. Do you know of any other places I can check this?

hga 12y ago

As waterlesscloud notes, I'm talking about the popular use. I'll turn around your IPCC argument: anyone with a clue would realize there was a distinct chance another change in the party line like the cooling to warming flip would be required by the short term temperature record, so the IPCC merely future proofed their gravy train. My calling was science. Finances prevented me from fulfilling that potential, which is why you'll find me here in Hacker News. Saying "just wrong" is no more convincing than my bald assertion of what I thought was generally accepted, so for example use a search like this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+stopped https://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+stopped to find deniers like the BBC, Wikipedia, NATURE (http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525 http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-mi...), National Geographic, and The Economist in the first two pages of my results....

phaemon 12y ago
Regarding your search, most of those links are explanations of why you're wrong. The problem is that scientists are saying something like, "Given the measurements we've made of the extra energy the earth is absorbing, we'd expect surface air temperatures to be rising even more rapidly than they are. The energy can't just disappear. Where is that extra energy going to?" What deniers hear is, "Computer models tell us the earth should be heating up and it isn't! The energy must be missing! The earth is cooling!" But, fair enough I should have said more than "just wrong". So allow me to explain why it's wrong and, since you don't like temperature data, we can do it talking about waves on a beach. Imagine you're measuring the height that waves come up a beach. You notice that if you look at, say, the last 30 measurements, you can see a clear upward trend: the tide is coming in. Now you'd like to determine whether or not the tide is turning. So you look at the last 16 measurements (it helps to start from that big wave 16 measurements back), and there you go - no significant increase in the height up the beach. Does that tell you whether the tide has turned or not? Well of course it doesn't. Otherwise you could continually find moments where the "tide was turning" simply by taking a short enough period of measurement. And you'd continually be wrong. What's the correct way of doing this? It's pretty simple. You check the longer term trend (tide is coming in) and then take the last 16 measurements and see if that trend is significantly different to your previous trend. This way adding data strengthens your findings, whereas with the previous way removing data strengthens your findings. So, basically, you're doing it wrong. Do it the correct way and then tell me what you find. As for: > the IPCC merely future proofed their gravy train. Well, there's no falsifying the Golden Rule: "it's all part of the conspiracy"