Makes our assumed impact look pretty insignificant.
The Article wrote:
Another way of looking at it is: the last time that temperatures rose by this amount, it took the Earth over 4,000 years to accomplish it on its own. Apparently, with our 'help', that same rise in temperature has taken only about a century or so, and therein lies the problem.
Anyone who says they can tell you the average temperature of the Earth 10,000 years ago with accuracy anywhere near the margins found on that graph is lying to you. There are too many variables we can't even begin to pretend to have narrowed down back then. You have a few isolated preserved plant fragments from a few scattered sites around the world to try and show larger or smaller growth, the occasional tree rings, which vary in size for a variety of reasons not necessarily dealing with temperature (average rain fall, fire, oversaturation, drought, etc) and you have a few isolated gas cores from glaciers that may have concentrated or offgassed at any point in the last 10,000 years. Thats pretty much it. sedementation records and seed dispersal patterns can't be relied upon for anything more than really a century to cenury picture of growth patterns, and even then that ignores the wind and tide current dispersal patterns and topography. Even if you eliminate all the known volvano eruptions from the equation, you still don't know average atmospheric density, composition, thickness of the ozone layers, layout of the ozone layer density, output emission spectrum of the sun (was it the same? probably, but prove it) tidal patterns, oceanic temperatures, etc.
They are guessing that the few observable fossile records they have mean things they can't possibly actually know. Thats like me digging up a dead guy from 1836 and saying "Hey, this dead guy from 1936 was left handed, therefore everyone from 1936 must have been left handed!" Which is admittedly a silly example, but so is what they are trying to pull.
Any one of those taken individually won't tell you much of the story, but those graphics are combining every single data point from every single method we have at this point.
And it's still a giant hockey stick, even within the wide margin of error that the graph gives it.
They are guessing that the few observable fossile records they have mean things they can't possibly actually know. Thats like me digging up a dead guy from 1836 and saying "Hey, this dead guy from 1936 was left handed, therefore everyone from 1936 must have been left handed!" Which is admittedly a silly example, but so is what they are trying to pull.
No, it's like you digging up a dead guy from1936 with a hole in his skull and a newspaper taped to his chest with an account of him being shot in the head and saying "hey this guy was shot in the head!" Is it certain he was shot in the head? No. Is there some reason to believe something else? Not really. Spite, I guess?
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Thats like me digging up a dead guy from 1836 and saying "Hey, this dead guy from 1936 was left handed, therefore everyone from 1936 must have been left handed!" Which is admittedly a silly example, but so is what they are trying to pull.
It's more like digging up a maybe 1000 dead guys scattered randomly over the planet and doing statistical analysis on the physical properties that they all possess.
No, it's like you digging up a dead guy from1936 with a hole in his skull and a newspaper taped to his chest with an account of him being shot in the head and saying "hey this guy was shot in the head!" Is it certain he was shot in the head? No. Is there some reason to believe something else? Not really. Spite, I guess?
Except the guys head is missing, the newspaper has crumbled to inobservable dust, and the sticky from the tape is dried up. The reason to believe something else part might be very important, because any of those variables that we don't know and literally have no way of possibly knowing skew the results of that end of the chart +/- at least 10 degrees. which means from an error perspective they are completely outside the bounds of that particular chart and thus absolutly useless from a modeling perspective. You might as well just get some kindergartner to draw a line on some graph paper for the same level of accuracy that far back.
Thats like me digging up a dead guy from 1836 and saying "Hey, this dead guy from 1936 was left handed, therefore everyone from 1936 must have been left handed!" Which is admittedly a silly example, but so is what they are trying to pull.
It's more like digging up a maybe 1000 dead guys scattered randomly over the planet and doing statistical analysis on the physical properties that they all possess.
except those physical properties may have altered during the last 10,000 years. Gass chromatography samples from core drilling may have concentrated or offgassed at any point during that time. Ice is permiable on a variable basis depending on thickness. Other methodologies such as pollen density per sample, seed distribution, or fossil vegitation matter analasys from 10,000 years ago has a margin of error outside that of what the entire range of the chart shows. and those 1,000 samples you refer to are all scattered randomly within a few hundred miles of themselves since there are only a few suitible sampling locations on the nplanet that retain any ice that old.
Thats like me digging up a dead guy from 1836 and saying "Hey, this dead guy from 1936 was left handed, therefore everyone from 1936 must have been left handed!" Which is admittedly a silly example, but so is what they are trying to pull.
It's more like digging up a maybe 1000 dead guys scattered randomly over the planet and doing statistical analysis on the physical properties that they all possess.
except those physical properties may have altered during the last 10,000 years. Gass chromatography samples from core drilling may have concentrated or offgassed at any point during that time. Ice is permiable on a variable basis depending on thickness. Other methodologies such as pollen density per sample, seed distribution, or fossil vegitation matter analasys from 10,000 years ago has a margin of error outside that of what the entire range of the chart shows. and those 1,000 samples you refer to are all scattered randomly within a few hundred miles of themselves since there are only a few suitible sampling locations on the nplanet that retain any ice that old.
I attempted to actually read the article. It's published in Science. I need a subscription.
except those physical properties may have altered during the last 10,000 years. Gass chromatography samples from core drilling may have concentrated or offgassed at any point during that time. Ice is permiable on a variable basis depending on thickness. Other methodologies such as pollen density per sample, seed distribution, or fossil vegitation matter analasys from 10,000 years ago has a margin of error outside that of what the entire range of the chart shows. and those 1,000 samples you refer to are all scattered randomly within a few hundred miles of themselves since there are only a few suitible sampling locations on the nplanet that retain any ice that old.
Yeah, not close to an accurate representation of the current state of science. Not even vaguely close. Where are you getting your climate change reporting from?
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At the risk of provoking the ire of publishing world, some excerpts...
Methods Summary:
The 73 globally distributed temperature records used in our analysis are based on a variety of paleotemperature proxies and have sampling resolutions ranging from 20 to 500 years, with a median resolution of 120 years (5). We account for chronologic and proxy calibration uncertainties with a Monte Carlo–based randomization scheme (6). Our data set exhibits several important strengths, as well as limitations, as compared to global and hemispheric reconstructions of the past 1500 years (2, 3, 7, 8). For example, whereas reconstructions of the past millennium rapidly lose data coverage with age, our coverage increases with age (Fig. 1, G and H). Published reconstructions of the past millennium are largely based on tree rings and may underestimate low-frequency (multicentury-to-millennial) variability because of uncertainty in detrending (9) [although progress is being made on this front (10)], whereas our lower-resolution records are well suited for reconstructing longer-term changes. Terrestrial records dominate reconstructions of the past millennium, whereas our stack is largely derived from marine archives (~80%). Unlike the reconstructions of the past millennium, our proxy data are converted quantitatively to temperature before stacking, using independent core-top or laboratory-culture calibrations with no post-hoc adjustments in variability.
Comparison of different methods and reconstructions of global and hemispheric temperature anomalies. (A and B) Globally stacked temperature anomalies for the 5° × 5° area-weighted mean calculation (purple line) with its 1σ uncertainty (blue band) and Mann et al.'s global CRU-EIV composite mean temperature (dark gray line) with their uncertainty (light gray band). (C and D) Global temperature anomalies stacked using several methods (Standard and Standard5x5Grid; 30x30Grid; 10-lat: Arithmetic mean calculation, area-weighted with a 5° × 5° grid, area-weighted with a 30° × 30° grid, and area-weighted using 10° latitude bins, respectively; RegEM and RegEM5x5Grid: Regularized expectation maximization algorithm-infilled arithmetic mean and 5° × 5° area-weighted). The gray shading [50% Jackknife (Jack50)] represents the 1σ envelope when randomly leaving 50% of the records out during each Monte Carlo mean calculation. Uncertainties shown are 1σ for each of the methods. (E and F) Published temperature anomaly reconstructions that have been smoothed with a 100-year centered running mean, Mann08Global (2), Mann08NH (2), Moberg05 (3), WA07 (8), Huange04 (36), and plotted with our global temperature stacks [blue band as in (A)]. The temperature anomalies for all the records are referenced to the 1961–1990 instrumental mean. (G and H) Number of records used to construct the Holocene global temperature stack through time (orange line) and Mann et al.'s (2) reconstruction (gold vertical bars). Note the y axis break at 100. The latitudinal distribution of Holocene records (gray horizontal bars) through time is shown. (I and J) Number of age control points (e.g., 14C dates) that constrain the time series through time.
We took the 5° × 5° area-weighted mean of the 73 records to develop a global temperature stack for the Holocene (referred to as the Standard5×5 reconstruction) (Fig. 1, A and B). To compare our Standard5×5 reconstruction with modern climatology, we aligned the stack's mean for the interval 510 to 1450 yr B.P. (where yr B.P. is years before 1950 CE) with the same interval's mean of the global Climate Research Unit error-in-variables (CRU-EIV) composite temperature record (2), which is, in turn, referenced to the 1961–1990 CE instrumental mean (Fig. 1A). We then assessed the sensitivity of the temperature reconstruction to several averaging schemes, including an arithmetic mean of the data sets, a 30° × 30° area-weighted mean, a 10° latitudinal weighted mean, and a calculation of 1000 jackknifed stacks that randomly exclude 50% of the records in each realization (Fig. 1, C and D, and fig. S4). Although some differences exist at the centennial scale among the various methods (Fig. 1, C and D), they are small (<0.2°C) for most of the reconstructions, well within the uncertainties of our Standard5x5 reconstruction, and do not affect the long-term trend in the reconstruction.
In addition to the previously mentioned averaging schemes, we also implemented the RegEM algorithm (11) to statistically infill data gaps in records not spanning the entire Holocene, which is particularly important over the past several centuries (Fig. 1G). Without filling data gaps, our Standard5×5 reconstruction (Fig. 1A) exhibits 0.6°C greater warming over the past ~60 yr B.P. (1890 to 1950 CE) than our equivalent infilled 5° × 5° area-weighted mean stack (Fig. 1, C and D). However, considering the temporal resolution of our data set and the small number of records that cover this interval (Fig. 1G), this difference is probably not robust. Before this interval, the gap-filled and unfilled methods of calculating the stacks are nearly identical (Fig. 1D).
Because the relatively low resolution and time-uncertainty of our data sets should generally suppress higher-frequency temperature variability, an important question is whether the Holocene stack adequately represents centennial- or millennial-scale variability. We evaluated this question in two ways. First, we generated a single mean zero, unit variance white-noise time series and used it in place of our 73 records. The white-noise records were then perturbed through Monte Carlo simulations using the resolution and chronological uncertainty specific to each proxy record as well as a common 1°C proxy uncertainty. We composited a Standard5x5 global stack from these synthetic records and calculated the ratio between the variances of the stack and the input white noise as a function of frequency to derive a gain function. The results suggest that at longer periods, more variability is preserved, with essentially no variability preserved at periods shorter than 300 years, ~50% preserved at 1000-year periods, and nearly all of the variability preserved for periods longer than 2000 years (figs. S17 and S18). Second, spectral analysis indicates that the variance of the Holocene proxy stack approaches that of the global CRU-EIV reconstruction of the past 1500 years (2) at millennial time scales and longer (figs. S20 and S23).
As a disclaimer they point to possible seasonal bias, and wish for more samples from the mid-southern latitudes and central pacific.
Something for the anti-climate change group:
Quote:
These temperatures are, however, warmer than 82% of the Holocene distribution as represented by the Standard5×5 stack, or 72% after making plausible corrections for inherent smoothing of the high frequencies in the stack (6) (Fig. 3). In contrast, the decadal mean global temperature of the early 20th century (1900–1909) was cooler than >95% of the Holocene distribution under both the Standard5×5 and high-frequency corrected scenarios.
Something for the pro-climate change group:
Quote:
Global temperature, therefore, has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene within the past century, reversing the long-term cooling trend that began ~5000 yr B.P. Climate models project that temperatures are likely to exceed the full distribution of Holocene warmth by 2100 for all versions of the temperature stack (35) (Fig. 3), regardless of the greenhouse gas emission scenario considered
TL:DR = Basically the world (mainly the northern hemisphere where most of their data is from) has been warmer in the recent past, but hasn't gone from warm to cold (or cold to warm) this fast.
Edited, Mar 11th 2013 9:08am by someproteinguy
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TL:DR = Basically the world (mainly the northern hemisphere where most of their data is from) has been warmer in the recent past, but hasn't gone from warm to cold (or cold to warm) this fast.
That is the point of the article. To demonstrate that, yes, temperatures have been this hot in the past and is a normal part of life on this planet. The catch is the rate at which temperatures have went up in the past century has been equivalent to what normally takes four millennium. Amusingly this dramatic speed at which the temperature has increased begins right around the time of the second industrial revolution. Correlation != causation, I know. Just an interesting tid bit of information.
And that the local flora and fauna (including us) have been given ~3% of the time to adapt as in the past.
Odd thing to be concerned about. Micro evolution can move quite quickly. I guess if you really are fond of pine trees or whatever it is grows around your polluted lake up there (condom trees?) then it's a concern, otherwise life will adapt, find a way, yadda. Concerns about how humans end up boned are a lot more interesting.
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Dumb statement. At least as dumb as "Well, the planet will still be here even if we're not"
Um, no? Not sure how "if brown trout goes extinct we'll have to eat some other fish" equates to "the human race going extinct is no big deal because there will still be life of some kind". Attempting to halt change of "native" life is a weird human contrivance. Attempting to halt change that ends up killing people is self preservation. Not sure why you'd want to equivocate the two. I think hunting the passenger pigeon to extinction for it's lovely hat feathers was a bad idea, but not as bad as you know, genocide.
And directly tied into the bit about the other species.
No..not really. Did you read too much Rachel Carson as a child or something? Humans could survive massive changes to ecosystems and see marginal changes to quality of life in aggregate. We have multiple times in our history. The fact that something is happening now doesn't actually magnify it's importance to the course of human history.
Edited, Mar 11th 2013 2:28pm by Smasharoo
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
I was talking to one of our states epidemiologists recently. They're already seeing bug populations showing signs of change both in numbers and geographic range. She had no doubt that we'd be seeing more and more widespread vector borne diseases.
Of course we humans need a few generations to build up immunities.
Scientists concur that if the Sweating Point* rises above 35 C, any human being who steps out of doors will simply drop dead. Unfortunately, I forget how many degrees C the average temperature of the Earth would have to rise to reach this Sweating Point. But the scientists collating the next IPCC were so alarmed about us already exceeding all the worst case scenarios since the last IPCC, that they brought the Sweating Point up as a case for real concern. What appalled me was that apparently the last IPCC did NOT include permafrost melting in sea-rise predictions. Because a few years ago, they didn't think the permafrost was going to melt. They thought that governments would contain CO2 better than they have. They didn't think that extra CO2 would raise the Earth's average temperature so quickly. The worst case scenarios are now so bad and so likely that scientists are talking about abandoning social neutrality and going political.
*as determined by a damp cloth wrapped around a mercury thermometer.
I was talking to one of our states epidemiologists recently. They're already seeing bug populations showing signs of change both in numbers and geographic range. She had no doubt that we'd be seeing more and more widespread vector borne diseases.
And less hypothermia? Somehow Africa has managed to survive with more insect borne diseases, I'm sure Biddeford can manage. I understand there are negative biological consquences to climate change, it just seems like an inane thing to focus on given the more catastrophic potential problems. Depletion of fresh water reserves, for instance. People die from lack of water all the time. Far more than die of Dengue fever or Malaria or whatever the scary thing is supposed to be.
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Disclaimer:
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
Scientists concur that if the Sweating Point* rises above 35 C, any human being who steps out of doors will simply drop dead.
*as determined by a damp cloth wrapped around a mercury thermometer.
Like a relative humidity/dew point calculation? Seems like those temperature/humidity levels have been reached before in certain places.
I find it hard to believe they'll "drop dead"... maybe they'll be uncomfortable, eventually succumbing to heat stroke without proper care. But you make it sound as if you'll just pass out as you exit onto your front porch.
I was talking to one of our states epidemiologists recently. They're already seeing bug populations showing signs of change both in numbers and geographic range. She had no doubt that we'd be seeing more and more widespread vector borne diseases.
And less hypothermia? Somehow Africa has managed to survive with more insect borne diseases, I'm sure Biddeford can manage. I understand there are negative biological consquences to climate change, it just seems like an inane thing to focus on given the more catastrophic potential problems. Depletion of fresh water reserves, for instance. People die from lack of water all the time. Far more than die of Dengue fever or Malaria or whatever the scary thing is supposed to be.
I wasnt talking simply about Maine.
Bugs are one of those microcosms you were talking about. As they're geographical ranges change, they come in contact with people that havent' yet met with the diseases they're carrying ....and BAM Africa's Malaria problem is now spread to India.
All in all it was merely and example of how adaptation, and differing rates of adaptation can impact the worlds ecosystem.
Biddeford will be underwater before they all die from West Nile Disease.
Bugs are one of those microcosms you were talking about. As they're geographical ranges change, they come in contact with people that havent' yet met with the diseases they're carrying ....and BAM Africa's Malaria problem is now spread to India.
They sort of have that problem already in most of India, but I understand your point.
Biddeford will be underwater before they all die from West Nile Disease.
Wait, weren't we talking about NEGATIVE consequences?
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Disclaimer:
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.