Climate Change: Autotuned

melodysheep is back with the causes and effects of climate change set to music:

About Hemant Mehta


  • http://twitter.com/SubtleSprout Nora

    this is so amazing! autotuned bill nye!

  • http://twitter.com/BdrLen Len

    Just wanted to stop by and say that this is fucking awesome.

    • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Kevin_Of_Bangor

      And so is your comment.

  • Dmarx


    which world-view will not exist? 

  • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Kevin_Of_Bangor

    I live in Maine and every time there is a newspaper article about the latest snow storm some idiot always types in the comment section: Time to go shovel some global warming.

    Then a bunch of other idiots will join in and denounce global warming but if you make an attempt to tell them that global warming can also cause colder temperatures they think you are the idiot and you cannot reason with them.

    • Mommiest

       Ask them how a gas refrigerator works. I just saw one that runs on propane and makes ice cubes.

      • brianmacker

        It doesn’t work by any principle that would lead to global warming, and in effect shows that combinations of gases can operate counter intuitively. Which should hearten the skeptic.

        Water in the atmosphere is an example of that. It is not simply a greenhouse gas. The fact that water vapor is lighter than air means that it has an enhanced ability to move heat high in the atmosphere to be radiated to space (beyond most greenhouse gas blocking). It acts like both the wick and working fluid of a heat pipe. The wick is when it condensates and falls back as rain or snow. Like a heat pipe the latent heat of condensation transfers far more energy than a mere temperature change could, and if it changes to ice and falls as snow a even further enormous quantity of heat is released, the latent heat of freezing. This is a negative feedback.

      • brianmacker

        Water also has other abilities that a simplistic assumption that it is a mere greenhouse gas does not capture. It can also act as a shade cloth during the day in the form of clouds. Clouds do form at night and have the opposite effect but the evidence is that the daytime effects of clouds are stronger. Take a look at these charts: http://gustofhotair.blogspot.com/2009/12/analysis-of-australian-temperature-part.html

        We know that increased CO2, all other things being equal, will raise temperatures and thus lead to increased evaporation. If that leads to a uniform increase in cloud cover for both day time and night time then the more powerful cooling effect it has during the day than the night would be another negative feedback.

        Water vapor can also transport enormous quantities of heat horizontally while forming cooling clouds. Monsoons are an example of that. Also counterintuitively with the correct conditions the increased convection from hot dry soils can pull moist air in from areas with wetter soils, which cool by evaporation. Simple understanding would expect the moisture laden areas to be sole contributors to updrafts because the water vapor is lighter.

        Current computer models are admittedly inadequate to modeling cloud cover effects. There are sure to be other inadequacies with these other effects.

    • brianmacker

      They are mocking the idiots who point to heat waves as evidence of global warming and claiming the British children will never see snow again.

      • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ Kevin_Of_Bangor

        These people are not mocking the idiots at all. They are being 100% serious when they make that comment.

        • brianmacker

          Yeah, because shoveling global warming is clearly meant to be literal.

  • Ridgerunnr11


  • Agnostic

    Commercial for the big ‘clean’ energy companies…with too much lobbying power to fail? I wonder.

    • Patterrssonn

      I wonder what the hell you’re talking about.

  • sqeecoo

     I respect any position on man-made global warming reached by critical thinking. I’m always worried when my fellow atheists stick to their pro-global warming stance, well, religiously.

    Take care.

    • Patterrssonn

      Pro-global warming? There are religious atheists who want global warming to happen?

      You’re not making a whole lot of sense there Squee. As a general rule it might not be a bad idea to have someone else vet your comments before you post.

  • brianmacker

    I didn’t hear “natural variation” as a cause, but then again I can stand auto-tune.