@Plaz

Quote:

One bit that can look bad taken out of context... "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts", until you add back the other bit.... " has warmed OR cooled". Pretty much telling them to include all sides of the debate. The problem with that is...?

The problem with that is they are judging scientific facts. They are using their notion of the politic to make such judgement. One example was given in the article they allowed the guest to talk that the 2000s was the hottest decade. Then they went on to note that 2009 was cooler so that was a problem. Yet they failed to rely on any scientitic evidence whatsoever that the statement of 'a problem'. What scientist did they cite? None because it was the news reporter, or more properly their bosses, political agenda.

I'm all for showing all evidence. And it should have an equivalent air time based on it's acceptance by scientists and it's depth of publication in scientific journals. When we have a few percentage points, at most, that the Denialists are correct they shouldn't have a 50% weighing in the news. This distorts the view of the current understanding in science. In essence this creates an impression that the scientists are having a major debate about X, when the truth is the debate is somewhere else in that group of study.

Last edited by BrianK on 17-Dec-2010 at 02:31 PM.

Milankovitch cycles in 30 seconds

This is not going to work, as some think.

Chevy Volt
>>
We typically got between 29 and 34 miles when running on electricity alone>We used our Coulomb Technologies charging stations, which at 220-volt level took about four hours and 20 minutes per session and consumed about 12.5 kWh of electricity each time.

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"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

UK set to break historical record. By January 1st we will know whether December 2010 has been the coldest December on record or not.

Latest weather forecast computer models and the UKMO have said no to any significant mild breaking through from Boxing Day and into the New Year. In fact snow is more likely to intensify during this period as the Atlantic tries to make in-roads into Western Europe resulting in a classic battleground scenario which could lead to significant snowfall across the British Isles with the cold winning out in the end well into the first week of January.

The record to beat was set in 1890 the average mean CET (central england temperature) for December came in at -0.8C.

The current CET for December stands at -0.24C at time of posting:
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=cet;sess=

With 10 days left to go there is every probability that this record will smashed.

Merry XMAS!

Last edited by djrikki on 21-Dec-2010 at 09:21 AM.
Last edited by djrikki on 21-Dec-2010 at 09:21 AM.

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Looks like the first day of Summer is a bit cold in the land of Oz.

Last edited by damocles on 21-Dec-2010 at 01:46 PM.

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Dammy

Interesting editorial.

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Dammy

@damocles

Oh man, someone taking the weather to predict the climate .... (how predictable).

Maybe you should concentrate on WHY the weather is at such extremes these days instead off taking it as face-value argument against climate-change.

Last edited by Kronos on 27-Dec-2010 at 04:09 PM.

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- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

I ask where in the email do they judge or require any thing else but including both sides. You go on to reference instead.... "some thing in the article".

While the mail is treated as a smoking gun, it appears instead as an attempt to quel the problem you're complaining about. Report the news, don't embelish it.

And about equivalent time for other theories on air...... right.... just as soon as I start hearing some opposing veiws on PBS I'll be sure to write to Fox about their evil ways.


Plaz

Quote:

Maybe you should concentrate on WHY the weather is at such extremes these days

The weather goes to extremes all the time, has forever, not just "these days". I remain skeptical of the reasons being given for the dymanics when full knowlege of the dynamics doesn't exist. It's great that we're trying to learn though.

Plaz

@damocles
Quote:

Interesting editorial.

It's good we see this Editorial not actually on the news page or it actually might infer the writer knows something. This is a good article to work through to see how well one understands the current state of science vs a poor attempt at politicing.

@Kronos

Do you know what another word for "CLIMATE-CHANGE" is?

Weather.

So basically...you guys are against...weather.

Keep tiltin' at those windmills, Don Quixote.

Seriously, though, once the Goracle started on about Global Warming and we had some of the coldest winters on record (and indications that we could be headed for a completely natural and cyclical mini ice-age) suddenly the goalposts got moved and it was CLIMATE-CHANGE.

Reminds me of George Carlin's routine about the difference between SHELL SHOCK, BATTLE FATIGUE and POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.

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The problem with AmigaOS on PPC isn't that PPC is big-endian. The problem with AmigaOS on PPC is that PPC is dead-endian.

@TheDungeonDelver

Certainly it's weather events. As the weather changes it brings drought, flooding, and other events that impact plant, animal, and human life. History has taught us that when resources are constrained people seek out new resources. Unfortunately, the result is Country X doesn't like the request from Country Y and wars result.

It's amazing how short our memories are. We see 1 month of a colder winter in Europe and we forgot about the months of hot European summer and a very hot Asian summer. Russia estimates about 56K people died from the heat this summer a 50% increase over last year.

@BrianK

Quote:

The foundation for this word is the greek skeptikoi. It means seeker or inquirer. A true skeptic analyses all evidence presented to her and selects the course with the proponderance of evidence.

I was interested to see you post this definition. All my adult life I've met people who call themselves skeptics yet I have so far always found that they are attached to some position or belief, or unbelief, with which they rubbish others.

Yet a science represents a way of knowing - check with a large dictionary. Hence it is often said that scientists are the truist skeptics. The site http://www.skepticalscience.com is very useful in making the science known. Have you looked over it?

What I can say is that everyone can be "skeptical" of whatever conflicts, on first aquaintance, with their apriori beliefs, their world view, which is a model of course. Few there are who are skeptical in accord with the intent to know rather than just believe. Those I have known did not call themselves skeptics but put no boundaries on their thinking as so many do. The hardest thing to do is to question one's own beliefs. I argue with myself more than with others and sometimes claim to have spent my life unlearning what I thought I knew.

I once heard Carl Jung answer a question just before he died. A journalist asked him if he believed in life after death? He began his reply thus "To believe is to limit one's mind, to disbelieve is to close one's mind ..." All my adult life I've refused to pose 'do you believe questions' or answer such questions. I do accept questions that invite thought rather than beliefs.

Noel

@BrianK

Quote:

It's amazing how short our memories are. We see 1 month of a colder winter in Europe and we forgot about the months of hot European summer and a very hot Asian summer. Russia estimates about 56K people died from the heat this summer a 50% increase over last year.

As I grow older
Winters seem colder :))

We experience weather, but even if we have long memories we rarely have data to make comparisons or the understanding to draw conclusions yet rarely hesitate to do so. Beyond the change of seasons and the change of climates we witness while traveling we have even less sense of climate yet climate science spans vast ranges of time.

Even with the evaluation of recent trends (e.g. 30 years) our individual consciousness cannot cope although I suppose it is possible to peg some things. For example, during the sixties our back lawn got so saturated in winter that for months we could barely walk on it. For all of the last twenty years my Subaru Legacy can be driven on it any time of the year without leaving a mark. Of course it is better to use measurable data rather than personal impressions - so we have to go to the scientists. I gather that globally water vapour content of the atmosphere has risen about 4% in that time. Some people argue that relative humidity will stay the same. Locally I consider it to have reduced but I have no numbers. This year where I live we have had a total of 6 months drought, 4 during the el nino early in the year and two through to the beginning of December since the predicted effect of la nina has kicked in; relative humidity has now risen. The ground is so busy soaking up water in the north the rivers have hardly risen at all. In parts of the South Island record rains have carried whole herds away as the farmers watched helplessly.

I've digressed a little from the main point, lack of individual consciousness of climate, and therefore climate change change, and in getting back to it I want to quote a passage I read when I was still twenty. This became my lifelong guide to achieving mental integrity and if possible, finding out for myself:

"The Lord Buddha has said:

that we must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said; nor traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor rumors, as such; nor writings by sages, because sages wrote them; nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a Deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor from inferences drawn from some haphazard
assumption we may have made; nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere authority of our teachers or masters. But we are to believe when the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness.

"For this", says he in concluding, "I taught you not to believe merely because you have heard, but when you believed of your consciousness, then to act accordingly and abundantly."

Last edited by NoelFuller on 30-Dec-2010 at 01:42 AM.
Last edited by NoelFuller on 30-Dec-2010 at 01:37 AM.

@TheDungeonDelver

Quote:

Seriously, though, once the Goracle started on about Global Warming and we had some of the coldest winters on record (and indications that we could be headed for a completely natural and cyclical mini ice-age) suddenly the goalposts got moved and it was CLIMATE-CHANGE.

You need to know that the term "Climate Change" was applied to the whole subject by Canadian born physicist, Gilbert Plass, back in 1956 when he worked out the physics of radiative transfer. He also wrote a number of articles over the next few years on the role of CO2 and predicted what has since been observed with respect to temperature trends - nights warming faster than days for example.

Perhaps you should also research the result of the billions spent by USA on earth and sun observing spacecraft: that there are at present no natural processes to explain away what mankind is doing to the atmosphere and its consequences.

I assume you were just joking about weather and climate.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Okay I wrote a good reply and the crappy laptop ate it. .... So I'm shortening.

Thanks for the ideas on skepticism. Skepticism is an analysis based on logic, reason, and evidence. I'd agree that science is the closest thing we have to skepticism today. Skepticism is the journey not the destination. Unfortunately, climate dissenters are the worst but not only, that have hijacked the word and apply a definition that's out of alignment as they aren't searching for the answer they've settled on the destination.

The ideas about climate and the group consciousness is good. Though I wonder is this shouldn't be expanded to all of science? Science is such a broad area that no 1 person can know it all. And clearly people operate under this accepted group consciousness of science all the time. I'd bet the majority of people don't give chemistry or mechanical engineering a 2nd thought yet daily take a vehicle to work and rely strongly on such 'group consciousness' got it right.

Last edited by BrianK on 30-Dec-2010 at 03:55 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

The ideas about climate and the group consciousness is good. Though I wonder is this shouldn't be expanded to all of science?

Yes that is bang on. I only used climate to illustrate the general idea as it is easy and on-topic.

Noel

@TheDungeonDelver

Quote:

TheDungeonDelver wrote: @Kronos Do you know what another word for "CLIMATE-CHANGE" is? Weather. ...

Wrong.

The definitions are:

1) "Climate" is the entirety of all weather conditions that are possible at a given location.

2) "Weather" is the perceptible, short term condition of the atmosphere at a given location on the earth surface.

(Definitions based on German Wikipedia entries)

So its just the other way round:
Annother word for "Weather Cange" (all weather forms that are possible at a given location) is "Climate".

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Ciao

Dandy
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If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

Leading Skeptic Brendan Demelle , after years of denying Big Oil funds him, finally admits he's funded by Big Oil.

Not sure I agree with this global warming lark. The word 'global' suggests.. well globally temperatures are rising. Certainly not in the UK for the last 3 years. Each winter has been getting noticeable more traditional year on year with ice and snow making much more of an appearance. Even the summers are cooling off here, not that I suggesting this will continue, but 'global warming' has eased off somewhat on our shores.

On and off through the '00s the NAO and its associated jet-stream have been slowly drifting further south heralding somewhat cooler weather to Western Europe speckled throughout the seasons.

Even now with the Northern arm of the jetstream reaching further North toward the pole in turn bringing pretty mundane and boring weather to the BI, the southern arm is hanging around Portugal and Spain - well South of its post '87 so called 'modern winter' era.

As per my daily thread on Netweather.tv and for those who maybe interested, I maintain a daily update on SSTs (thats Sea Surface Temperatures) over the BI throughout the Winter months.

I host this at http://www.amigaos.net/SSTs.html

Doing my bit to advertise AmigaOS outside of the regular Amiga community.

Last edited by djrikki on 26-Jan-2011 at 08:48 AM.

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