We shouldn’t discount the possibility that he just pulled it out of his ass because he was angry at Xeni for writing a headline that did not meet his standards.
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The answer seems simple. We need weather manipulation technologies to offset the bad weather to where the religious loonies live.
This is kinda like the out-of-towners voting Rob Ford in. They need to feel consequences.
Standards?
Insulting, condescending, barely legible thoughts directed at an empty chair, predicated on a deliberate misapprehension of intentionality constitutes having standards?
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[quote=“usagemayvary, post:18, topic:50107”]We use practically the same things today we did back then, so the only incorrect thing to do is hypothesize reasons why we shouldn’t accept past data.[/quote]You’re not saying atmospheric science has remained unchanged for 134 years, I hope.
[quote=“usagemayvary, post:18, topic:50107”]stop trolling.[/quote]While I am well aware that “just asking questions” has become a questionable “tactic”, to suggest that blind, unflinching acceptance is the only reasonable response is not helpful to the cause. It struck me as a sufficiently obvious point that someone else was bound to bring it up eventually and/or there was probably a very good answer that was not occurring to me. @dnebdal came up with a reasonable response without having to throw out accusations of “trolling”.
It’s not mainly the surface temperatures that give us these data. It’s largely done with ocean temperatures (mid and deep), which fluctuate a lot less over the seasons. And of course glacial ice-core samples give us tree-ring accuracy as to how much carbon has been emitted over the centuries to date.
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Exactly. I’m sure the Fin(n)s don’t eat only local produce. Crippling food shortages (plant, meat and fish) will be one of the first effects felt.
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I agree with you, Jorpho, and wish other people would be kind instead of just condescending. Calling someone a troll because they disagree with you or have questions about your conclusion is a dick move.
We have no way to know if a thermometer made in 1880 is the same as a thermometer made today. Sure, the Industrial Revolution had taken place by then, but there weren’t standards in place to ensure that every thermometer was exactly the same. Variances in brand, manufacturer, or even machine molds could produce discrepancies. To assume that the 98° someone recorded in the early 20th Century is the same as what we measure as 98° is an educated guess. Which is fine place to start from, but it’s not the only place.
Not to mention something even more basic: the “hottest year on record” claim might be true (we’re talking about hundredths of a percent, which is within the margin of error), but that doesn’t prove anything about man’s role in the rise in temperature. It assumes a cause (based on other environmental evidence, of course) that might not be the real cause.
But you can’t argue that with people who have their mind made up. They just insult you and move on.
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Blaming religion is entirely the wrong response here (especially with the Pope starting to make speeches about how we need to deal with climate change now), especially if you want to change people’s minds.
Everybody has buttons you can push that will get them to give you knee-jerk reactions instead of rational thought (and if you don’t think that’s true of liberals, try saying things about the need to re-legalize abortion clinic protests or the need to use GMO crops to feed the world). The difference is that with religious people, those buttons are big and well-marked, and the right-wing political machines have spent the last 50 years seeing which ones to push how hard to get the results they want to get votes, campaign contributions, and ideological commitment. The GOP leadership doesn’t actually care about gay marriage or evolution, but they’ll use them to get voters to the polls. They care passionately about not having Congress pass regulations on oil and coal and energy-using companies, because their corporate sponsors don’t want to be interfered with, and “don’t trust scientists about Global Warming” is a message that fits very nicely with “don’t trust scientists about Evolution”.
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I mean, yes, the centigrade scale based on the properties of water goes back to the 1700s, and yes, we still have thermometers made in the 1800s. But we definitely need to consider the possibility that the physics has changed!
I mean, anything to raise doubt over the overwhelming scientific evidence is worth considering, right? If people disagree, that just shows they’re not open to reason. Not us, we’re asking valuable questions, like whether temperatures are anything that can truly be known in the first place. 
No, this being the hottest year on record doesn’t prove anything taken on its own - but it’s not actually taken on its own, if only you cared to look. Asking questions to try to learn more about something is respectable, asking them in hopes of the opposite deserves the condescension it gets.
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To people weary of explaining these kinds of things your earnest questions can feel like trolling. You might find this helpful: Berkeley Earth. This non-profit atmospheric science organization has received funding from the Koch brothers, among other sources. The founder was originally a climate skeptic.
One aim of Berkeley Earth has been to examine the kinds of questions you are asking. In 2011 they released this video, showing changes in temperatures.
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I support your defense of Jorpho. The ‘troll’ accusation is used way too often and often rapidly and defensively where friendly discourse is more helpful.
I have no information on vintage thermometers and their accuracy, but bear in mind that mercury was the go-to substance used in thermometers for millennia, which has a very stable expansion rate, and cut and blown glass has been a fine art for even longer.
Couple this with the fact that we know CO2 is an effective greenhouse gas (easily reproduced in experiments). We know through ice-core samples that CO2 has risen sharply since mass industrialisation. We also very recently had first-hand experience with fluorocarbons and the measurable effect that human output had on the Ozone layer.
I’m no climate scientist, but the overwhelming consensus of evidence from climatologists (Governmental, Independent, Local and International) points directly at us.
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Well, I wasn’t. I was aiming specifically at religious loonies.
But now that you mention it, a program of indoctrination that requires people to act on the peer pressure of faith in order to belong, probably should bear some of the responsibility for scientific illiteracy, no?
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You are nowhere near “just asking questions”. You are begging the question,
which is a logical fallacy. There was never a question of using a
thermometer being a problem, you simply begged the question yourself as if
it were true.
As you have linked to a Wiki, I owe you the same.
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Okay, I’m in a good mood, let’s pretend you’re serious.
This isn’t a terrible question, the thing is a great many who seek to deny the basic, obvious and well understood science of this subject try to stir up doubt by asking these very basic questions. This is like asking what happens if you’re traveling at almost the speed of light and you turn on your headlights, an interesting question. Thing is we know the answer, and have for a long time.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/temperature-monitoring.php
http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-2-2-2.html
Those links explain the questions and answers to what you asked up there about temperature measurement.
It’s not that the question is terrible, but it’s long since been answered.
I believe the people who have done this science, and come to these conclusions know more about measurement uncertainties and biases, about statistical significance of data, than I do. I know this because I’ve looked at the public data sets, I’ve read some of the papers, and a lot of the summaries. I also believe they know more about the calibration and error of instrumentation and observations than I do.
I know a lot about those things, I’ve done a few thousand hours of analyzing measurements, calibrating instruments and gauges, sorting and analyzing statistical data. (Not temperature data, measurements and gage R&R in manufacturing, yes it’s gage, not gauge.) The math is the same, I know enough to know they are not bullshiting us, that they do in fact know what they hell they are talking about. That they have considered all these rather obvious questions, and that they’ve been addressed.
The certainty of AGW isn’t really up for debate, either you believe it, or you believe the reptilians are running the world.
The alternative hypothesis is that science is all a fraud, and made up by pointy headed idjuts… So, relativity? Gravity? Quantum theory? We’re having this discussion over the internet. All that there made up sciencey hokum seems to work when it comes time to download porn, doesn’t it?
So yes, this is real science, done by real scientists, who have their data examined by real statisticians and mathematicians. AGW is not a hypothesis proposed by some sophomore journalism student at Billy Bob Community college.
In the 80s when I was a child I asked all these obvious questions, thought it was all due to urban heat island effect, doubted that ice core data about atmospheric CO2 would be reliable etc. Thing is so did the people who spend their entire careers studying this subject, they asked all those questions, and answered them. We’re fucking up the planet. That’s the answer.
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Like it or not, the permafrost is melting across the Arctic. Global temps are hard to measure, but the rapid warming of the Arctic is quite obvious to the people that live there.
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you win today’s ouroboros prize for a post wholly describing itself.
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The debate surely is about man’s contribution to climate change rather than if earth is getting warmer.
Y’all know what this means, don’t you? Predators.
