The world has never seen such freezing heat

[Lancer]

A Very Inconvenient Truth

[Felch]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Yeah, Theben, but so is what determines how fat i am. But i still know, that if i drink a lot of beer, i am more likely to get fat. Other activities (EDITED) may counter that, but the more beer i drink, the more i need of the counter to keep my weight.

EDIT: We can not influence the solar minimum. Maybe we could counter global warming by dust particles, literally blocking the sun, but that certainly is no counter to climate change.

I think what Theben was referring to was the fact that there are all sorts of factors that are essentially impossible to accurately model. You can only model to the limits of your understanding. So while they may account for the increased water vapors in the atmosphere (higher temperatures will allow for greater humidity), do these vapors trap heat, do they reflect sunlight, or is there some sort of balance that occurs? We can guess, we might even guess correctly, but it takes only a small error in your initial set of assumptions to wind up with big error at the end.

The models are especially questionable because key researchers involved in creating them are obviously biased. I prefer my science to be conducted with a more detached and skeptical attitude than has been shown here. Some of these guys act like they're on a crusade.

Always, always, always doubt scientists who are 100% certain about a prediction. It shows a lack of professionalism. Especially when their certainty is based on conjecture and not experiment.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
I doubt it be more reliable than measuring since the 19th century. The thermometer being a standard instrument (whichs practial use requires accuracy - in chemistry for example) for a long time, the only major problem is the locality of the device. Those are standardized, too, now, but i dont know since when. But this source of error also applies to sample taking, as you cant really tell if this or that sample was constantly shadowed 150 years ago or not. You´d also have to take at least as many samples as they have been record station for any time covered to match the grid of the records, which btw, is lacking, i´d think.

So: long range, like pre 1850 (depending on region probably), and short range, maybe from 1960 on, i´d say, samples and satelites (mainly for uncorvered regions only though), but in between i´d say records. How well do satelite- and ground-record data match anyways, today, i´d like to know....

Er, what? You DO know that coring samples taken today can provide accurate climate data centuries to millions of years old, like older than Humans have been a separate species, right? We aren't relying on coring samples taken in the pre-Industrial era. And satellites aren't THAT good, this isn't f*cking Star Trek.

[chequita guevara]

This is why scientists refer to climate change as opposed to global warming. The reality is that when you add more energy to a chaotic system, the result tends to be less equilibrium.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Comrade Snuggles
The reality is that when you add more energy to a chaotic system, the result tends to be less equilibrium.

It's perfectly realistic to say something like that. Trying to accurately model the system decades into the future is what cracks me up.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
... satellites aren't THAT good, this isn't f*cking Star Trek.

Satellites are pretty good. I'm wracking my brain trying to remember any wide ranging temperature readings on Star Trek. Any way, the military match ground readings with satellite readings many times a day in a lot of sites worldwide, and see very little (within one tenth of a degree) worldwide.

[snoopy369]

The part that amuses me most is this (from the OP):

but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

So, you have four sets of numbers, and one is consistently different from the other three. And yet you take the consistently different one ... ??

[Dauphin]

In a stunning turn of events data (quietly) released by NASA shows that the 4 warmest years ever recorded occurred in the 1930's, with the warmest year on record being 1934 (not 1998).

Only 4 of the top 10 warmest years occurred in the past 10 years (1998, 1999, 2006)

Is it NASA that can't count?

[Dauphin]

Re: The world has never seen such freezing heat

Originally posted by CrONoS
Don't know what kind of newspaper is the Telegraph, but whatever if it's true, it's pretty ****ing "badlysome".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml

Telegraph is usually fair but not usually balanced.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Re: Re: The world has never seen such freezing heat

Originally posted by Dauphin
but not usually balanced.

Yep. I tried standing it upright on my table, and it fell right over.

[KrazyHorse]

The reality is that when you add more energy to a chaotic system, the result tends to be less equilibrium.

[CrONoS]

http://www.dailytech.com/Sea+Ice+Growing+at+Fastest+Pace+on+Record/article13385.htm

Bill Chapman, a researcher with the Arctic Climate Center at the University of Illinois, says the rapid increase is "no big deal". He says that, while the Arctic has certainly been colder in recent months, the long-term decrease is still ongoing. Chapman, who predicts that sea ice will soon stop growing, sees nothing in the recent data to contradict predictions of global warming.

Others aren't quite so sure. Dr. Patrick Michaels, Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia, says he sees some "very odd" things occurring in recent years. Michaels, who is also a Senior Fellow with the Cato Institute, tells DailyTech that, while the behavior of the Arctic seems to agree with climate models predictions, the Southern Hemisphere can't be explained by current theory. "The models predict a warming ocean around Antarctica, so why would we see more sea ice?" Michaels adds that large areas of the Southern Pacific are showing cooling trends, an occurrence not anticipated by any current climate model.

[Dinner]

That would make sense since so much sea ice is lost during summer so the % change in the winter freeze area will be larger. What we should be looking at is the variation between summer and winter which seems to be increasing.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That would make sense since so much sea ice is lost during summer so the winter freeze area will be larger. What we should be looking at is the variation between summer and winter which seems to be increasing.

That doesn't parse logically... more ice melts in the summer so there is more ice in the winter? We're not talking more ice FORMING, but more ice TOTAL, as far as I can tell...

I think we're learning simply that weather is a chaotic mess and trying to predict anything substantial over a long period of time is ... difficult.

[Unimatrix11]

Well, sure it´s hard to model global climate - but what´s the alternative ? Try it out on the real thing ? When you cant do an experiement, you have to make a model.

Sources of Data: So, if ground observation matches with satelite obsevation, the latter would be the primary source for recent data. For the time before sats, it would be ground observation (where avaiable). Sample taking would only be the primary data source, when nothing else is avaiable. If someone measured a certain temp at a given time, and writes this up, i trust that more, than derived data (and in science and model building it is always: direct observation > derived data > guessing). If we dont trust records, there is no point in making them.

Samples do give us additional information though, esp. about times, when nobody made a record. But they tent to be more fuzzy - for example, it can tell us that there were ice-ages, but when, at what year exactly, the ice melted where, and wether it returned and then receeded again to this place and such, are tricky things to work out. Often the best avaiable, but when a record exists (and pictures, say, of glaciers, are records, too !), samples are obviously inferior. Or, if someone gave you the complete set of data, giving the temp every 6 hours for a whole year and documented point of observation, would you seriously go and sample the area ? And if you did so take samples, say 100 years later, would you rather trust the findings you derived on by the samples about the temp a century ago, or the data-sheet your grandpa had stored away since then ? Sample away as long as no records exits all you want, but when it does exist, it´s a rather rediculous waste of time IMHO.