xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline

[cm husker]

I think this bears looking into. Every month's temperature in the past 136 years.

What's the source of that neat graphic? I'm guessing the underlying methodology is quite suspect. Emissions are generally holding steady during the past decade. But this graphic indicates that global temperatures are jumping rapidly. Is that because temps are actually climbing? Or are we better at estimating global temperatures than we were in 1940? It's this sort of "graphic based science" with no actual detail that makes meaningful discussions difficult.

I still remember when global cooling was the fear in the 80s - so I'm really curious if that infographic is even accurate at all.

What I do know is that developed countries are already cutting emissions - but we want to hamstring the developing countries by imposing unfair restrictions on them, which will, counter-intuitively, almost certainly raise overall emissions in the long run (because developing countries will slow or fail to develop and will therefore not transition to energy saving methods or alternate energy sources).

 

[cm husker]

I don't know what the exact means of temperature recording are for that graph, but mercury thermometers have existed since the early 1700's.

Of course they have. But, I question deeply their ability to measure down to the exact degree that long ago.

Or know the global temperature average, for that matter.

 

[ZRod]

So... just quick and dirty science. Greenhouses gases aren't just co2. It include H2O (which is the most abundant greenhouse gas). So, just a SWAG, you could reduce emissions and not see a direct correlation for a few years. Because as temps warm more water vapor forms and increases green house gases further. Also you can't take a couple years as a trend. There are many factor that influence global temps, and a long term approach is really the only way to evaluate the trends and establish a pattern. It's why in engineering we don't test 5 parts and call it good, we evaluate an amount (typically 30) to establish a pattern.

 

[cm husker]

We still haven't talked about the key question, which is the calculation comparing the cost of climate change with the cost of avoiding it.

In other words, even if climate change is man made, is it worth the cost of reversing it?

If climate change were to cause 1,000,000 excess deaths a year, but restricting development in developing country would cost 2,000,000 deaths a year, should we follow through on emissions?

 

[BigRedBuster]

I don't know what the exact means of temperature recording are for that graph, but mercury thermometers have existed since the early 1700's.

Of course they have. But, I question deeply their ability to measure down to the exact degree that long ago.

I wouldn't. Science understood far more back then than what most people realize. All they had to do was establish the freezing and boiling point of a solution and create and calibrate the scale how they saw fit. Fahrenheit invinted his own degree, it's not something that existed. It's also easily reproducible since thermal expantion for a given solution/element will always follow the same curve.

Hey...I completely understand that if a scientist in Omaha in 1884 wanted to know the exact degree it is outside they could.

I have a hard time believing they knew the exact degree of the entire earth back then, or the temperatures of the oceans at various depths. It's no different than me sitting here on September 14th with cold weather in Nebraska and claiming global warming must be turning into global cooling. I can't say that because I don't have the precise data from around the world.

 

[BigRedBuster]

We're affecting climate change.

That said, it's way LESS important that we're affecting climate change than people make it out to be.

We are doing all sorts of other sh**ty things to damage the world. We're hurting the air we breathe. We're causing plants/trees to become extinct. Bees are dying, the ocean is so polluted it's becoming problematic for the fish to live in it. Lead is in our water, even in the U.S. These are things we KNOW we're causing. We should be doing something about THOSE instead of arguing about this. (By "we" I mean the people who can do something. Not "we" in this forum post). And many of the things we could be doing for all of that would at the same time help the climate change problem just in case we are the cause.

Not just in China. Here's Salt Lake City. Yes, it's in the perfect location to have problems like this but it's not just places with thick visible smog that have problems.

THIS is my opinion on environmentalism. We have major problems around the world that need to be solved with the environment. Solving those would probably also solve global warming if we are the cause. Arguing about these things is a meaningless exercise.

 

[ZRod]

We still haven't talked about the key question, which is the calculation comparing the cost of climate change with the cost of avoiding it.

In other words, even if climate change is man made, is it worth the cost of reversing it?

If climate change were to cause 1,000,000 excess deaths a year, but restricting development in developing country would cost 2,000,000 deaths a year, should we follow through on emissions?

It's not a key question. It's wild speculation. What justification is there to believe that we as a people wouldn't be able to improve or invent better technologies when pressed without people dying? Human history is driven by invention and ingenuity, and you want to believe we are incapable of continuing that for some reason.

Further more if you're going to play a numbers game; 2 million people barely registers as a fraction of a percent of the global population. More than three times that die every year from starvation and we really don't seem to care too much.

 

[ZRod]

I don't know what the exact means of temperature recording are for that graph, but mercury thermometers have existed since the early 1700's.

Of course they have. But, I question deeply their ability to measure down to the exact degree that long ago.

I wouldn't. Science understood far more back then than what most people realize. All they had to do was establish the freezing and boiling point of a solution and create and calibrate the scale how they saw fit. Fahrenheit invinted his own degree, it's not something that existed. It's also easily reproducible since thermal expantion for a given solution/element will always follow the same curve.

Hey...I completely understand that if a scientist in Omaha in 1884 wanted to know the exact degree it is outside they could.I have a hard time believing they knew the exact degree of the entire earth back then, or the temperatures of the oceans at various depths. It's no different than me sitting here on September 14th with cold weather in Nebraska and claiming global warming must be turning into global cooling. I can't say that because I don't have the precise data from around the world.

Agreed, but you're not looking at one day, or one year, or one decade. This is over a century more or less. Don't you think that given over 100 data points for every day of the year you might be able to establish a trend? And if you were to take that from 4 or 5 other locations you could probably establish a pretty reliable data set?

 

[cm husker]

We still haven't talked about the key question, which is the calculation comparing the cost of climate change with the cost of avoiding it.

In other words, even if climate change is man made, is it worth the cost of reversing it?

If climate change were to cause 1,000,000 excess deaths a year, but restricting development in developing country would cost 2,000,000 deaths a year, should we follow through on emissions?

It's not a key question. It's wild speculation. What justification is there to believe that we as a people wouldn't be able to improve or invent better technologies when pressed without people dying? Human history is driven by invention and ingenuity, and you want to believe we are incapable of continuing that for some reason.
Further more if you're going to play a numbers game; 2 million people barely registers as a fraction of a percent of the global population. More than three times that die every year from starvation and we really don't seem to care too much.

If it's wild speculation (it's not) to believe that emission initiatives would slow growth, particularly in developing nations, then it's pure mysticism to claim that in 2050, global warming will be killing an excess 500,000 a year.

Because, after all, how do you know we won't have engineered mitigating technology by then?

Your last paragraph is both callous and completely misses the point. If you believed what you wrote then all your stated concerns about climate change leading to deaths would be disengenuous, because they would be a "fractional" amount of the global population.

I don't think you really believe what you wrote, though. I think you just don't want to answer the direct question that I posed.

 

[ZRod]

I do actually believe what I wrote. The world is a callous place, that's just the way it is. You're playing a numbers game speculating on lives lost with a do nothing alternative or another option. That is no different than what I just said. You're apparently concerned with a very small number of people, when the article you linked to listed 7 million people dying in the next 14 years, and hundreds of millions more suffering adverse affects from global warming.

Of course new standards would hinder growth in developing nations. That's what China is constantly bitching about. Maybe standard of living will decrease, but who says new regs won't create knew jobs or displace old jobs and increase the standard of living? It's speculation...

There is evidence to suggest climate change will cost lives. It will likely increase drought leading to possible famine, it will increase severe weather leading to destruction of towns, cities, and other dwellings. It could influence sea levels displacing people from their costal dwellings. People will suffer diseases and illness because of pollution and other changes. All of this is an understood possibility over the long term future, and it affects hundreds of millions of people. We're even seeing it take affect right now. It seems like the better option is to do what we can to change that, than to say "people's lives are going to suck in the short term let's do nothing".

 

[Landlord]

It's no different than me sitting here on September 14th with cold weather in Nebraska and claiming global warming must be turning into global cooling.

It's at least a little different. You don't give the scientific method much credit, do you?

 

[Scratchtown]

I'm confused wtf people think they are going to do to change it? Are industries gunna go away? Are we gunna go back to horse and buggie?

It's warming up. It's not good, and yet, there is also nothing we can do about it that will make a BIG difference.

 

[zoogs]

 

[Landlord]

nothing besides SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS, of course.

 

[ZRod]

nothing besides SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS, of course.

Ugh... this again? Maybe someday...