Forgot your password?

Comment: Re:records go back to 1880, very funny (Score 1) 547

taking measurements from inaccurate thermometers and scant coverage from over a century ago, and claiming we know global average temperatures in the 19th century is beyond ludicrous.

The coverage was a lot smaller than today's but it was so much cooler then, that the error is less than the change.

No amount of massaging of data can make credible comparison to today's grid of sensors.

Yes it can. It's just that the error bars are larger back then.

Comment: Re:What exactly is 'creationism' anyway? (Score 2) 649

by Truth_Quark (#47269195) Attached to: Teaching Creationism As Science Now Banned In Britain's Schools

Neither 'science' nor 'Christianity' nor 'creationism' can prove any sort of causality between the beginning of the universe and anything else.

Of those, science grows. (So long as the Buddhists don't burn your library). With each passing generation more and more of the universe is understood.

I think "science" probably can prove some sort of causality between the beginning of the universe and other things. Given time.

Comment: Re:but (Score 1) 191

Yep. From my link:

Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000. With this information, the company offered her $800.

It's just that the court also awarded compensation for less tangible costs, and valued it at $200,000, of which they McD's was judged responsible for 160,000, the other $40,000 being the proportion that was Liebeck's own fault for spilling of coffee on herself.

They also awarded a lot of punitive damages. I'm not sure how much if any of those were to be awarded to Liebeck. It might not have even been decided, because both parties appealed, and then settled out of court.

Comment: Re:Qualifications? (Score 1) 107

He's supporting and advertising a free energy source. It's idiotic.

And he posts under pseudonyms as his own biggest fan. He's probably the GGP.

The suggestion that he's been right at some point when telling the engineers of the world that they're doing it wrong is laughable. The guy's got no sense of reality. Perpetual motion refutes consistently observed properties of the universe. Engineers know this.

Comment: Re:Facts are there (Score 1) 379

by Truth_Quark (#47086643) Attached to: Studies: Wildfires Worse Due To Global Warming

A whole bunch more:
Appears to be about 5%, not 0%.

Your link gives 38 scientists who claim or believe that GW is not Anthropogenic. That is people, not papers, but for it to be 5% of people, the implication would be that there are only 760 climate scientists. 30,000 is a better estimate. As it is, 38 is 0.1%, or to the implied accuracy of the number of figures given in my 0% estimate, it would be 0%.

Comment: Re:Sensationalism at it's finest... (Score 1) 136

by Truth_Quark (#47078035) Attached to: Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice

You think biodiversity and climate haven't changed radically in the last 4.5 billion years? You think the earth is static state? Have sea levels fallen and risen before?

No, I think that the current warming is primarily caused by human activity, and that this is putting extinction pressure on great swathes of a wide range of ecosystems, is responsible for the observed acceleration in sea level rise.

Forbes is using NOAAs data.

They're not understanding that the increase in CO2 is responded to my a warming over the following decades though. Scientific sources are better, and Forbes' opinion pieces are appallingly unscientific when it comes to climate change.

The economist reported the 25% number

So they did. A well researched and intellectual publication. Not scientific as such, but educated. It gets a pass.

Yet, still no warming during that time

Not quite true. There has been warming.


Not even close to correct. Completely wrong. Every time you decompose global warming into the response to natural and anthropogenic forcing it looks something like this. Most or all of the observed warming is anthropogenic. Every time you look at what is applying radiative forcing it looks like this. Anthropogenic forcing dominates, and of the anthropogenic forcings, CO2 forcing is the largest part.

There is no question in the scientific literature that most of the current warming is likely anthropogenic. About 0% of scientific organisations and 0% of scholarly papers refute this fact. We know it better than we know an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs.


by Truth_Quark (#47077545) Attached to: Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice

Twenty five percent of human CO2 emissions have been in the past decade and yet no corresponding percentage of warming.

That's a lot. Whose figures are you quoting?

The warming from an increase in CO2 takes 25-50 years for 60% of it to have occurred.

You need to look at the coming 30-40 years for the warming corresponding to emissions in the last decade.

Climate is always regional, that is why droughts come and go and areas see warming and cooling.

There is also global climate. Such as the current warming.

Time is wasted on trying to pretend we can modify things, spending time on overcoming changes is better spent.

No. The economic analysis shows that it is cheaper to reduce emissions.

I'd rather all the plastic be pulled from the sea or all the mercury pulllled out of it then worry about CO2.

Reducing emissions is possible and positive. You should pursue pipe dreams to if you want. That's not mutually exclusive.

I'd worry about the real damage to the planet.

Drop in biodiversity is real damage to the planet. Climate change and sea level rise is real damage to humanity.

Comment: Re:Where did you get that fact from? (Score 1) 136

by Truth_Quark (#47076831) Attached to: Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice

But adding the "trapped in ice" doesn't really make sense, if there's a constant exchange between water and ice, and each having the same concentration of plastic.

The article looks at ice cores containing plastic, so "trapped in ice" is what they found.

They don't speculate on mechanism, but bits of plastic are lighter than ice and larger than water molecules. It's plausible that they would have a tendency to remain right against the underside of the sea ice if they are in the water, and would get caught up early in the freeze. It's also plausible that they would be caught in the ice by one or both ends when the saltwater rivulets form, and not tend to flush into the sea in the same proportion as the water, just because the water is smaller. And it's even plausible that they would work their way up into the ice rather than down if a freshwater bubble comes passing though (unless it is flowing fast), or if they find themselves melted into from above by fresh meltwater.

I don't find it implausible that the constant exchange between water and ice favours uptake of the plastic into the ice.


by Truth_Quark (#47076627) Attached to: Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice

That's disingenuous. The colonies failed once the ocean froze over again.

More related to the Vikings having depleted the soil fertility, I suspect. But regional climate change may have played a part.

Our recent observations amount to jack in the long history of the earth.

Right, but the current climate change affects the planet since the industrial revolution, not since the history of the earth.

Warmer too, for instance forests growing faster in northern climes in the past and plant life that can't grow there right now existing in the past.

It's possible regionally. Where are you talking about? Globally we're probably warming than any time since the peak of the interglacial before last one, and possibly all times in the last 2-5 million years.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a theory.

No. Theories get lots of hits on google scholar, because scientists have written about them. Quantum Field Theory is a Theory. It gets nearly half a million hits on google scholar.

Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory is not. It gets less than 100 hits, mostly denialist writings of no scientific note.

The basic theory that explains Anthropogenic Global Warming is optics, which explains how greenhouse gasses cause the greenhouse effect.


by Truth_Quark (#47074907) Attached to: Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice

How did the Vikings settle Greenland?

By longboat, I believe.

Was it because a once frozen ocean stayed ice free so that they could make regular trips?

I think Eric the Red's exile was the primary factor that set the timing.

Tell me about the last 6 years.

In Greenland? It's been losing Ice Sheet Mass, because of increased glacial flow outstripping increased precipitation. Recent findings suggest that the ice sheet is much more vulnerable to ocean warming that previously thought.

When you say something like observed conditions, how much of the earths history do those "observed" conditions cover.

It depends on context. Can you point out which time I said "something like observed conditions" that you are referring to? Sometimes observations of ice go back nearly a million years, by ice core histories. Some Ice observations go back to 1978, the satellite histories.

Do Flora and Fauna records bear out periods warmer and colder than now?

Certainly colder. Warmer is uncertain globally within the past couple or few million years. Central Greenland regionally has probably been warming in the past few hundred years, judging from Ice cores.

Is global warming a theory due to the fact that it has facets that fly against observations?

No. Global warming is what happens when you warm the globe. It's not a theory. The relevant theories are probably optics and thermodynamics. There are no observations that suggest the globe isn't currently warming. Energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere measurements, and sea level measurements are probably the most irrefutable signs that the globe is warming, as a globe. But surface temperature measurements are also strongly indicative.
