Chart ‘o the day: Warming is over

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, June 23rd, 2011 - 77 comments
Categories: climate change, making shit up - Tags:

A nice graph sourced from here that highlights the basis of some of the sillier denier arguments. One swallow doesn’t make a spring and a couple of cooler years doesn’t break a trend. Oh, and 2010 isn’t on the graph. It was the warmest on record.

77 comments on “Chart ‘o the day: Warming is over ”

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  1. higherstandard 1
    23 June 2011 at 10:05 am

    It is colder today than yesterday, therefore you are wrong and right.

  2. alex 2
    23 June 2011 at 10:26 am

    well thats a relief

  3. Lord Zealand 3
    23 June 2011 at 10:43 am

    IMHO…
    I believe this graph is misleading. To gain a better perpective I would like to see the graph extended back in time for at least a few thousand years. (a geological amount of time, to see what cycles may come or fail to come due to the ‘capitalist raping’ of the world, and this mapped against sun activity and the temperature of the other planets in the solar system would be sublime).
    I was always taught in school that we are in a warming period, in between ice ages and that we will return one day. But science aside, this turned into a political debate of “let’s tax the very air they breath” or not. I say lets tax money, not air.

    Don’t get me wrong, I fucking hate polluters with a passion, have avoided buying a car for 35 years and used public transport to get around the globe twice mostly to prove “it’s possible” to all these petrol addicts who said I couldn’t. I just dont think we should Tax air when it would be much easier to tax money. It’s really does come across as a “non-industrilised” tax on the poor nations.
    If you tax money, instead of air, you can’t really rip of poor people (they got no moeny to start with), and that is my concern, these “energy taxes” will only further hurt the poor.
    Bad labour and the greens for not having the balls to look outside of what the USA’s telling them, but I guess Stalin was right, in order to control the opposition, you have to lead it.

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      23 June 2011 at 10:50 am

      Air has been taxed since before California introduced its smog preventing clean air regulations in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

      You better catch up with the times mate.

      (PS do you agree with taxing cows instead of money? Because very few poor people have more than one or two cows, so that’ll be a tax which protects poor people, right? Because poor people aren’t hurt by either taxes we have now, like GST, right?)

      • Lord Zealand 3.1.1
        23 June 2011 at 12:33 pm

        GST is a tax on goods and services, I think we should tax money, not goods or services.
        I don’t think we should tax cows, I think we should tax money.
        I guess you are next going to pooh pooh me with “thats overtly simplistic”, but I believe that it is the overtly complex nature of the fiat monetry system that has caused the major distraction while the bankers emptied the cash into their own pockets.
        Put it this way, from deep in your being answer me this?
        Taxing carborn will trully help raise the global worlds poor out of poverty? How exactly when they don’t already have the infastructre and we’ll tax the nuts off them if they think they dare raise their heads to mimic our polluters? Dude, I know you like to chuck insults around, but how about instead of trying to suppress my views by being derogatory you argue the point?
        The sun causes the weather here, proven everytime you say “what a nice sunny day!”, or “it’s cold and overcast”, stop only looking at the reciever and take a step back further and try to see the whole system as the dynamic equlibrium it is.

        • Blighty 3.1.1.1
          23 June 2011 at 1:05 pm

          “I don’t think we should tax cows, I think we should tax money”

          we’re not taxing cows, we’re taxing pollution.

          • Lord Zealand 3.1.1.1.1
            23 June 2011 at 1:20 pm

            If only! I wish! We are planing taxing CO2, a molecule that the dynamic equlibrium of the earth would take care of in approx two and a half years if all the generators were turned off. Pollution to me is the shit happening in Japan, shit that wreck the equilibrium by whole sale poisoning. By only looking at carbon dioxide, you are looking exactly where you are suppose to, forgive me for not wanting to stand on that lumpy rug with you, but I’d rather plant tree friends that guzzle CO2 and Tax the crap out of any money that want to refine radioactive materials! (or a whole host of equally deadly poisons/ industrial by products that simply do not get a mention).

    • lprent 3.2
      23 June 2011 at 1:53 pm

      I would like to see the graph extended back in time for at least a few thousand years.

      Impossible to do with this level of accuracy. The reason that it goes only back to the 70’s is because that was when they got weather observation satellites up. That was the first time that they could get global average tempatures with any accuracy. Older measurements are based on ground stations and proxy measurements. That means that they are local and clustered around land and deep sea drilling sites. The effective resolution pretty much drops to decades.

      I was always taught in school that we are in a warming period, in between ice ages and that we will return one day.

      We’ve in a world-wide inter-glacial starting about ten thousand years ago (10kya). Different from an ice-age. The ice age started when Antarctica drifted into the southern polar region and started building up ice sheets about 45 mya. We have have had repeated regional and worldwide glacial and inter-glacials since then.

      Based on the overall factors and past history it is likely that we should have been heading into another glacial thousands of years ago. No-one is exactly what puts us into glacials despite a pile of unproven theories. But this interglacial has been exceptionally calm and prolonged. The entirety of our agricultural based has risen within it because it makes farming relatively easy.

      There is a pretty good probability that the development of agricultural systems, in particular the cultivation of rice starting about 5 kya, has been keeping us out of the next rather overdue glacial by shifting the greenhouse gas ratios in the atmosphere.

      The problem is that we as a species has shifted to gradually changing our atmosphere to doing radical changes within very short periods of time. We have been able to do this by kicking vast amounts of fossil carbon into the atmosphere and shifting it from being about 280ppm to 390ppm in a bit over a century.

      Because the CO2 takes thousands of years to come out of the atmosphere we have already irrevocably changed our climate for the next few thousand years. The only real question is how much disruption this will have on the weather that we rely on to farm food.

      • Lord Zealand 3.2.1
        23 June 2011 at 9:14 pm

        Thank you for a polite answer. Are you familiar with the electric universe theory?

  4. nadis 4
    23 June 2011 at 11:06 am

    Where would 2010 be on the graph?

  5. Ten Miles Over 5
    23 June 2011 at 12:50 pm

    Yep, the climate has a general warming trend underlying a cyclical pattern. No reasonable person is denying this.
    What is in question is whether it is in accordance with the model projections that underpin the claim that it is catastrophic?

    Anthony, have you ever done or seen a comparison of Pro’s vs Con’s of various degrees of warming?

    • Oscar 5.1
      23 June 2011 at 12:56 pm

      The cyclical pattern is over 40 years.

      Not to mention the readjustments that have been made from 1990 with various other modelling information that hasn’t been extrapolated back to the 70’s making it seem like the 90’s onwards were the biggest leap in global warming.

      I say wait another 40 years and you’ll start to see that trend line come back down again.

    • lprent 5.2
      23 June 2011 at 1:29 pm

      The models used by the IPCC have a three possible outcomes from optimistic to pessimistic for reductions based on the data known when the last report (AR4) was written in the early-mid 00’s. This is in in the first part of the report. The other parts look at probable and possible outcomes based on those models.

      We appear to be running at a faster rate of greenhouse gas emissions than the optimistic projection even though is has slowed a bit in the last couple of years with the GFC. You’d have to regard their pessimistic projection then as being the optimistic one now.

      However, almost every person around climatology (apart from the few usual outliers) seems to think that that the IPCC’s model as a whole would now regarded be the optimistic based on the evidence collected to date. They are only based on the known science at the time. In particular the models didn’t look at the rates of ice mass wasting in Greenland, the arctic sea ice and even around Antarctica. This is a lot faster than was expected – the Arctic sea ice has been dropping in mass a lot faster than expected. I suspect that the feedback from the reduction in reflective area is going to do some interesting things to the models.

      • Carol 5.2.1
        23 June 2011 at 1:40 pm

        And combining the impact of global warming with other stressors on the environment, a panel of leading marine scientists claim that the world is on the brink of one of the earth’s periods of major extinctions:

        http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oceans-on-brink-of-catastrophe-2300272.html

        The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record, during each of which much of the world’s life died out.

        • queenstfarmer 5.2.1.1
          23 June 2011 at 2:23 pm

          Yep. This to me is a more pressing, appreciable problem than broader arguments over climate change in 30+ years. The fact is mankind is overfishing the oceans to extinction, and trashing the seas in general. It truly is a tragedy of the commons. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons and while we can do what we can in our territorial / economic zone waters, unfortunately the ocean as a whole is beyond control.

          • Reality Bytes 5.2.1.1.1
            23 June 2011 at 9:08 pm

            Part of the problem is also acidification of the seas due to excessive carbon dioxide. Over-fishing is certainly an extremely serious problem, but acidification is yet more serious. If continued unabated (pretty much a given) it could lead to a knock on effect with extinctions of some species on whom other species rely, i.e. food chain collapse. This is an extremely serious problem for things like corals, crustaceans and mollusks and many other species, as the acid literally dissolves their hard structure, if they collapse, there will be massive global consequences in less than a generation that would probably make a nuclear world war III seem tame in comparison. This is the even more pressing issue than the greenhouse gas effect of CO2.

            I imagine there would be some desperate measures to introduce customised GE organisms in an effort to try and ‘save the global ecosystem’ but that opens the door to even bigger runaway problems. We are not that clever yet, I mean look how many diseases we don’t have a bloody clue how to solve even with our impressive technology, so how on earth could we bio-engineer the planet.

    • r0b 5.3
      23 June 2011 at 1:38 pm

      Anthony, have you ever done or seen a comparison of Pro’s vs Con’s of various degrees of warming?

      The cons are pretty devastating for much of the world. Dying sea from acidification. Rising sea levels. Massive crop failures. Flooding and extreme weather events. Parts of the globe get too hot to live on.

      The pros I’ve seen less on. Places like England (depends on gulf stream effects) and perhaps NZ may see a shift to a much warmer climate, without it being devastating. That’s little consolation if the rest of the world goes to hell though.

      • Ten Miles Over 5.3.1
        23 June 2011 at 2:02 pm

        I don’t want to seem unreasonable, but it does seem that your answer is no, you haven’t seen or done a comparison of Pro’s vs Con’s of various degrees of warming.
        What you’ve listed are cons for warming at the upper extremes, not for moderate warming of say around 1-2 degrees over the next century. Given the disparity in model projections vs observed temps to date, this scenario is seeming pretty likely.
        My concern is really that actions proposed to combat warming seem to be worse than the probable effects of warming. For example deaths in winter rising significantly among frail and elderly due to increased cost of energy (mostly due to subsidies for renewables, esp in the UK). Whereas with a warming of 1-2 degrees those deaths would reduce.

        • r0b 5.3.1.1
          23 June 2011 at 2:16 pm

          We are currently bang on course for warming at the upper ends of predictions.  We’re exceeding the worst of the “business as usual” climate models. The changes have begun.  The cons are huge.

          • Ten Miles Over 5.3.1.1.1
            23 June 2011 at 2:39 pm

            At the risk of this descending into an argument about what sources are reliable, I am reasonably confident that this source can be considered objective:
            http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/noaa-may-cooler-than-april/#more-15698

            • r0b 5.3.1.1.1.1
              23 June 2011 at 2:52 pm

              OK, and what do you want to conclude from that?

              • Ten Miles Over …
                23 June 2011 at 3:00 pm

                Someone with an open mind would reasonably conclude we’re not ‘bang on course for warming at the upper ends of predictions’.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  23 June 2011 at 3:05 pm

                  Indeed, any open minded climate denying astroturfer might.

                  BTW the worst case scenarios are not needed for major disruption to world economies and peoples

                • r0b …
                  23 June 2011 at 3:32 pm

                  I haven’t time to write you an essay TMO, but it’s not exactly news:

                  CHICAGO, Feb. 14 — The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

                  “We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,” Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

                  Field, a member of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have largely outpaced the estimates used in the U.N. panel’s 2007 reports. The higher emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in developing countries, he said.

                  Check out some of the many resources here. Ot just take a look around you at the extreme weather events going on.

                  • Ten Miles Over …
                    23 June 2011 at 3:44 pm

                    Anthony, agree with the time issue. My general point was about what the empirical data is telling us, and whether we really want to be taking actions that are more likely to have negative than positive consequences. I’m not a denier (thanks CV), I’m looking dispassionately at what is really happening, particularly the experiences in the UK where their energy prices are soaring, largely because of subsidies for wind farms, which impacts the poorest hardest.
                    To take a line from your quote: “The higher emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in developing countries”
                    Carbon taxes in developed countries only serve to push more manufacturing to developing countries, which not only means no net global decrease in CO2, but also loss of jobs for those very people who we seek to support.

                    I’ll leave it there.

                    • r0b …
                      23 June 2011 at 3:49 pm

                      My general point was about what the empirical data is telling us,

                      As far as I can tell the empirical data and the real world are telling us exactly the same thing.

                      and whether we really want to be taking actions that are more likely to have negative than positive consequences.

                      I don’t see that doing nothing is an option.  And if “we” take action, we can validly pressure other countries to do so too.

                      Also happy to leave it there – cheers.

                    • jimmy …
                      23 June 2011 at 6:20 pm

                      Places like the U.K. are also heated by things such as the Gulf Stream. Even with whatever positive thing you can find about man-made climate change you are essentially placing taken-for-granted currents such as this on the line.

                      Yes our crops might like a little more CO2. But will they have rain?…

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      23 June 2011 at 6:29 pm

                      Carbon taxes in developed countries only serve to push more manufacturing to developing countries, which not only means no net global decrease in CO2, but also loss of jobs for those very people who we seek to support.

                      In that application of carbon taxes you are correct.

                      However in the application of carbon taxes combined with matched carbon import tariffs, you actually push manufacturing home by being more carbon efficient than other countries, and by setting those taxes and tarriffs at high levels.

                    • Ten Miles Over …
                      23 June 2011 at 11:52 pm

                      CV (hope this goes in the right order on the thread) – broadly yes, the action has to be the right action. I don’t think carbon import tariffs will work that well though, since the only actual loss to a developing country exporting to a developed country is loss of competitiveness through higher effective pricing for their product to the importing country. All the taxes/tariffs are still going to be collected ultimately from consumers in the importing country. I don’t think any solution is viable that causes price hikes to populations in that manner. Nor do I support any solution that potentially passes billions of dollars of fees to trading exchanges.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      23 June 2011 at 11:57 pm

                      Ultimately only a relatively low level of taxes/tariffs will be paid because high carbon foreign goods will tend not to be imported and NZ producers will tend to be low carbon producers.

                      Markets can be regulated or set up to be non-profit entities.

                      Outfits like the NYSE and the NZX used to be. Their role originally was to help make the market not leach off from the market.

  6. queenstfarmer 6
    23 June 2011 at 12:51 pm

    I think I can just make out a hockey stick…

    • Macro 6.1
      23 June 2011 at 1:56 pm

      If the chart was extended BACK over millions of years, you would see a hockey stick! The “arguments” around that have all been sorted and the science is settled. End of story. The current increase in temperatures is unprecedented, and will continue.

  7. Nick K 7
    23 June 2011 at 1:53 pm

    Sh*t, point4 – point5 of one degree over the period of 36yrs.

    If the world cannot handle that then it’s a big girls blouse.

    • Blighty 7.1
      23 June 2011 at 2:18 pm

      if one day is 0.5 degrees warmer than another, it’s no big deal.

      If every day is 0.5 degrees warmer than it used to be a couple of decades ago, it is a big deal. It’s a hell of a lot more energy in the climate system, it’s later snows, it’s more heatwaves, more rain. And that’s just some first round effects.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.2
      23 June 2011 at 5:15 pm

      One degree on average. At the poles, which are warming faster, that’s likely to be five or six degrees. The ice in the Arctic is already melting, add another 5+ degrees and that ice will be gone and the Earth heating faster as that large mirror won’t be there.

      And what Blighty says – even one degree is a huge amount when you multiply it throughout the entire atmosphere. Stronger winds carrying more water doing a hell of a lot more damage to crops and cities.

      You may not notice a 1 degree change in your room but you will notice a one degree rise in global temperatures. We’re on course for around four degrees. Go watch this to get an idea as to what four degree temperature rise means.

      If the world cannot handle that then it’s a big girls blouse.

      The world can handle it, life will still be here after, it’s more a question of which life that will be and it may not include humans.

  8. Robert Atack 8
    23 June 2011 at 3:43 pm

    +4 by 2050? http://guymcpherson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Austin-1.9.11_Guys-Talk-1a.mp3
    3.5 x 2035 ……………… we are gona fry

    The above link is to part one of Guy McPherson’s talk , for the rest of the talk.
    http://guymcpherson.com/2011/01/talking-about-oil-in-oil-city-usa/
    Talking about oil in Oil City, USA

    Tue, Jan 18, 2011

    I presented in Austin, Texas, 9 January 2011 under the title, Durable Living: Preparing for Climate Change and Energy Decline. Free and open to the public, the event was sponsored by Design~Build~Live and Crude Awakening Austin, and attended by about 30 people.

    30 out of a population of 901,756 that is a good turnout.

  9. Afewknowthetruth 9
    23 June 2011 at 4:21 pm

    30.6 billion tonnes of CO2, the record level of emissions reported by the IEA for 2010, should help render the Earth largely uninhabitable by mid-century, as per the agenda of all governments around the world and all mainstream political parties in NZ.

  10. Meg 10
    23 June 2011 at 4:24 pm

    Environmentalists and green supporters have joined the cause of supporting climate change. At the same time, they oppose geo engineering which is the science said to counteract climate change. Their reasoning is that we cannot predict the consequences of geo engineering, yet they continue to support climate change forecasts in which consequences remain unknown. Greens have never supported capitilalism and industrailization and as climate change holds these as the primary causes it has been logical for them to become avid followers. Climate channge is like religion, no more than a beleif system that continues to recruit and grow based on beleif (fear) rather than true scientific evidence. Science is not value free!
    Climate change has become a worldwide social phenomenon and is the wrong focus. Yes we need to protect our environment and prevent pollution – but whats the driver of this? Consumption so rather than climate change think population and consumption, corruption and greed.
    Afterall America is not having more tornados – once where there was no cities in tornado valley there is now five, its not that queensland has never flooded before what changed is they built brick and tile in favour of the traditional queenslander (Pole house) Climate change is predominately manmade – a way of the elite putting the fear of god into you. For interest visit climatescience international.org/kiwigate, (also a new zealand website available)

    • Robert Atack 10.1
      23 June 2011 at 4:55 pm

      Greens have never supported capitilalism.

      Kiwi Saver is capitalism.

      And if you have a computer, then to about 3 billion people you are one of the so called ‘elite’

    • Draco T Bastard 10.2
      23 June 2011 at 5:30 pm

      Science is not value free!

      Yes, it is. The RWNJs and deniers are value free though.

      • NickS 10.2.1
        23 June 2011 at 8:17 pm

        …Ah, actually science isn’t value free, because stuff like not falsifying data, sharing research methodologies and ye olde objectivity are all “values”. Though I suspect Meg has seriously screwed up perceptions of what science is.

        /philosophy of science

    • Reality Bytes 10.3
      23 June 2011 at 9:46 pm

      I think when issues this serious are discussed (i.e. global ecosystem, fate of mankind) sometimes it’s more enriching to focus more on the actual science than the politics. In 2071 NO-ONE is going to give the slightest crap who the fuck the leader of the bloody national party was 60 years ago, or what the Greens stance was on bioengineering and GE. These people will probably be one of the last human generations, fighting against all odds for their very survival, and just hoping against all odds to live to the ripe old age of 20s. Well hopefully this isn’t how things pan out. But things could go downhill pretty fast under some scenarios. Even if runaway climate change only has a 1 or 2% chance of occurring, why not discuss the issues like sensible adults, around the scientific issues, instead of in the context of political mantras and popular sheepism.

    • Frank Macskasy 10.4
      24 June 2011 at 12:33 am

      Meg…

      “Climate channge is like religion, no more than a beleif system that continues to recruit and grow based on beleif (fear) rather than true scientific evidence.”

      Really?

      I guess NASA are wasting all that cash on satellites which are using sensors to monitor Earth’s atmosphere, temperature, gas-content, Etc?

      I guess all the ice-core samples that’ve been taken and analysed – just to make a few Scotch-on-the-rocks drinks?

      The science IS there. It’s just that many people can’t or won’t study it.

      Considering that most Americans don’t even accept evolution as a branch of biology, but choose to believe in flying saucers and conspiracy theories, should tell you plenty.

      Instead of telling us that the science is not there – why not spend time looking for it? Here is your first port-of-call: http://climate.nasa.gov/

      With regards to your statement,

      “Environmentalists and green supporters have joined the cause of supporting climate change. At the same time, they oppose geo engineering which is the science said to counteract climate change. Their reasoning is that we cannot predict the consequences of geo engineering, yet they continue to support climate change forecasts in which consequences remain unknown.”

      Damn right we have no idea what the consequences of geo-engineering might be.

      Just as some bright spark couldn’t begin to imagine the consequences when this little critter was released in the South Island around 1838… http://tinyurl.com/6cfwfuj

      So before the Human Race goes off half-cocked and tries to re-engineer the surface of this planet – it might be a tad easier, cheaper, and SAFER, to simply cut back on the green gas emissions that are foulling our atmosphere.

  11. Nick K 11
    23 June 2011 at 7:47 pm

    Science is value free, but AGW is not science.

  12. NickS 12
    23 June 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Nick K
    /facepalm

    I do love it when the ignorant make evidence free claims.

    aka provide the history and philosophy of science stuff that your using to demark science from “non science” and how it applies to climate change science and prepare to have your gaping intellectual cavities filled with hot steaming knowledge when you provide the failtastic explanation I’m expecting.

    That’s if you aren’t a drive by troll.

    Which I’m assuming at this stage you are.

    • Draco T Bastard 12.1
      23 June 2011 at 9:56 pm

      No, despite the fact that he does act like one I suspect it’s more from total ignorance rather than actually being a troll. Doesn’t matter either way – you’ll never change his mind.

      PS, I suspect he went off and watched the videos on the second link I posted further up and has now come back with the No, it’s not truuuuue, It’s not science as a defence over the rather terrifying possibilities as to what could happen if the Earth heats up.

  13. burt 13
    23 June 2011 at 10:00 pm

    deleted

    [I commented and posted on this blog for years burt without ever making reference to being “an academic”. So I’ll thank you, now that I’m out, not to start using that kind of nonsense in your boring, repetitive, and frankly pretty obsessive attacks on me.

    Consider this a friendly warning, next time I’ll just ban you for a month. Cheers. r0b]

    [lprent: 😈 As an observation, I never understand why people want the moderators and authors to come out. People misunderstand what happens. People under pseudonyms are actually more tolerant than those (like me) who blog under their own names. ]

    • Reality Bytes 13.1
      23 June 2011 at 10:07 pm

      No harm considering the data though aye, this isn’t some kind of a sport mate. Your attitude is akin to:

      “If I don’t put smoke alarms in my house, and I don’t have a house fire, then I win, and you guys were all losers for putting smoke alarms in your houses. You didn’t have a fire either so you guys are all losers!!! I called it, we didn’t need to worry about fires afterall YEEEAHHH-FISTPUMP!!!”

      What’s the harm in considering what could potentially be a very serious issue, even if the chances of it occurring are very small? This isn’t the TAB.

      • burt 13.1.1
        23 June 2011 at 10:43 pm

        I have wired in smoke detectors that trigger the alarm monitoring and I have house insurance thanks.

        There is no harm in considering anything with sufficient data. 30 years of climate data is ridiculous, shameful actually.

        • Reality Bytes 13.1.1.1
          23 June 2011 at 11:30 pm

          Good on you for paying attention to that, and using smoke alarms. I was merely illustrating the absurdity of paying attention to one risk, and yet ignoring other comparable risk factors such as THE POTENTIAL for runaway climate which could potentially have massive damaging effects for us all even if the risk of it occuring is similar to that of being personally affected by a house fire. I mean even if it’s just a fraction of 1% it would be silly to not treat the potential risk solemnly and seriously. So my point is why do we personally take fire alarms and fire safety seriously, and yet we joke and trivialise more serious issues of a global scale.

          • Reality Bytes 13.1.1.1.1
            23 June 2011 at 11:41 pm

            Yeah I know there’s some grammatical errors in that, please excuse. I tried to fix them, but I think the standard.org web server got pissed off with my endless indecisive edits 🙂

      • burt 13.1.2
        23 June 2011 at 10:45 pm

        Oh and BTW Reality Bytes, I think the priest has ordained talking about the Medieval warm period now so rOb could have used data back that far… lets hope the unadjusted data hasn’t been lost eh.

        • Reality Bytes 13.1.2.1
          23 June 2011 at 11:47 pm

          I never said I believed anything was conclusive, I just think it is a worthwhile topic to discuss. 40% increase in a particular gas in our atmosphere over a very short period is something worthy of consideration. You are doing your part, we all are. Good shit.

  14. burt 14
    23 June 2011 at 11:12 pm

    rOb

    If I may more politely rephrase. Your warning has been heeded.

    You are certainly not illiterate with regard to climate science so it surprises me that you are posting a graph that you claim debunks the theory that there is a “cooling trend” over the last 5 years using only a 30 year frame of reference.

    I would imagine that many learned people of scientific method who understand the purpose of using graphical presentation would consider this an unreasonably short run graph for any meaningful analysis of climate.

    See what surprises me is that from an analytical perspective your posts are normally much more astute. 5 years of consistent direction in a 30 span is indeed a trend.

    • Draco T Bastard 14.1
      23 June 2011 at 11:40 pm

      Is being that stupid natural or do you have to work at it?

      The trend is set by the entire 40 year period, not the small bits that go down and the entire 40 year period shows a warming trend. Which, of course, was what r0b was showing and which you missed.

      • burt 14.1.1
        24 June 2011 at 12:18 am

        40 years indeed. Dooh. But seriously is my 10 year oops changing the equation at all? We can’t infer any overall climate trend using a 40 year span.. However it’s not rocket science to infer a position on a pattern.

        Please tell me, has the graph of historic ice core temperature estimations changed from that patter or just shifted it up or down a bit to hide the decline?

  15. Frank Macskasy 15
    23 June 2011 at 11:19 pm

    Something that Bomber Bradbury said tonight on his show (Bomber’s Blog, Stratos, 10pm) regarding climate change deniers, has led me to change my views about them.

    At a time when C02, methane, and other greenhouse gases are being pumped faster and faster into our atmosphere; ocean temperatures are rising; polar ice caps are melting; glaciers and the Greenland iceshelf is retreating – there is a valuable role for climate change deniers in our society.

    Because as storms become more violent and sea levels rise, I am sure that they are the ones who will no doubt be buying beachfront properties as their owners have second-thoughts about their coastal lifestyle choices.

    So, if I was a beachfront property-owner (and thank the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster that I am not), I would be keeping note of climate-change deniers’ names. They could be the ones to contact at some future date and offer them a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to buy my home; complete with fine harbour views and private boat-ramp just across the road – just in time as octopii were crawling in through the catflap.

    Of course, they might have a devil of a time getting house insurance…

    http://www.landlords.co.nz/read-article.php?article_id=2678

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/560221/The-cost-of-wild-weather-50-million-font-size-1-video-font

    But never mind. Insured or not, they can purchase a much sought-after beachfront property and enjoy the prospect of the beach at your doorstep.

    Literally at your doorstep.

  16. Colonial Viper 16
    23 June 2011 at 11:20 pm

    Wow none of you complaining about the short graph time seem to get the fact the post is about lame-ass climate change deniers using such graphs as proof that “GLOBAL WARMING’S OVER!!!”

    Thought it was obvious fellas

    😈

    • burt 16.1
      23 June 2011 at 11:28 pm

      Yes get that CV, but to counter that with the same ! Really!

      This is climate and you are saying “your 5 is bolix – here look at my 30”. FFS!.

    • burt 16.2
      23 June 2011 at 11:39 pm

      The thing is CV

      This might add some perspective, long run ice core graphs are also presented on this site.

      See: Climate Change: New Antarctic Ice Core Data.

      So what’s rOb’s graph showing us again ? What’s the longer run pattern inferring ?

      • Draco T Bastard 16.2.1
        23 June 2011 at 11:56 pm

        This page was last updated on May 30, 2000.

        So new it’s out of date.

        Actually, I’m not sure what the point of that page is or, perhaps, that is the point – to be so confusing as to increase doubt.

        • burt 16.2.1.1
          24 June 2011 at 12:32 am

          40 years indeed, oops sorry my bad. But seriously is my 10 year oops making any difference to the picture here. 40 years is a ridiculously short time period to infer any overall climate trend. It not rocket science however to plot our position on a longer repetitive pattern.

          But hey if the graphical presentation for 400,000 year old temperature and CO2 data has changed; has it changed it’s overall pattern or just moved up or down a bit here and there to hide the decline ?

          • Draco T Bastard 16.2.1.1.1
            24 June 2011 at 3:23 am

            What decline are you talking about? You haven’t shown a decline anywhere.

            The overall trend for the last 100 years has been up – rapidly, ie, faster than it has ever occurred in such a short time before.

            • queenstfarmer 16.2.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2011 at 9:24 am

              “faster than it has ever occurred in such a short time before”. In recent times sure. But how can you say fastest ever, when there is not detailed data for thousands and 100k’s of years ago? It is *possible*.

          • Afewknowthetruth 16.2.1.1.2
            24 June 2011 at 11:22 am

            What was happenning 400,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 1,000 years ago, even 200 years ago is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT, since practically all the coal and oil that industrial civilisation has converted into CO2 was safely stored undergroud until 200 years ago …. sequestered!

            It is unscientific to attempt relate trends from the distant past to the present when the composition of atmosphere is now so drastically different … CO2 up around 40% so far.

            Humans have put huge amounts of a known absorber and re-emitter of IR into the atmosphere.

            And they just keep doing.

            But that’s only half the story. Acidification of the oceans [due to CO2] will fundamentally alter the habitiability of the entire Earth very soon. But humans just keep on acidifying the oceans.

            If wrecking the atmosphere and wrecking to oceans is not lunacy, I don’t know what is.

  17. johnm 17
    24 June 2011 at 12:56 pm

    Hi AFKTT
    Yes what you have said is 100% correct. This crisis is so immense we humans are totally incapable of effectively addressing it. By the end of this century there’ll be a lot less of us than now also,of course due to the end of the oil age. We hoped the time of tragedy and drama was over post WW11 as we settled into dull comfortable suburban existence ignoring the rapacious system that supported us, but no! the time of drama and tragedy is here again! It seems the human condition can never escape it.