It's all over but for the sweating?

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Cough.



Note the captions - reconstructed vs observed.

Jeebus sliced.

So what exactly is the problem with using the data that's available today to reconstruct the past? I mean, that's basically the whole of archeology & paleontology, isn't it? Not to mention geology, parts of astronomy, &c.

Note that there is part of the graph where the reconstruction and observed data overlap, and they match fairly well. Are you suggesting that whoever did this research just made things up? Or are you just knee-jerking because it's telling you something you don't want to acknowledge?

[cfg83]

Arragonis -

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Sometimes in science you have to think beyond the idea of current ideas and ponder the ethics behind the research. This is the kind of thought that troubled Oppenheimer until his death - that he had invented the perfect way to end the world, he battled it until he died.

...

Just saw this recently on UCTV :

Oppenheimer's Shadow: His Nuclear World and Ours - UCTV - University of California Television

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y_WPMCZy74

Martin Sherwin, author of American Prometheus, a devastating biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who oversaw the creation of the atomic bomb, was the recipient of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award. He discusses his book with Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of UCSB's History Department. Series: "Voices"

CarloSW2

[Arragonis]

Can you think of an issue comparing reconstructions to instruments - think about the sudden loss of ice last summer.

[NeilBlanchard]

Reconstructed data using proxies is not the same as modeling projections. Temperatures in the past can be known to within a range of uncertainty - but we do not know all the factors that may have contributed. We know the major factors, but we don't always know how the various feedback effects worked.

And that is probably why the models of the future are *underestimating* the rate of warming, and as we move forward, the models will get more and more accurate.

The *most* concerning thing to me is that as dire as the projections were 10-20 years ago - *all* the revisions have underestimated the rate of change. They were correct in the general overall trends, but in fact as we see more and more direct data - it is always worse than even the most pessimistic models.

On the Arctic ice melting, it is the projections based on the *area* that are proving to be grossly underestimating what will happen - but the projections based on the *volume* of ice and the age of the ice that are much more accurate.

[radioranger]

I think the only way to approach this from a few different angles is to have the western nations team up and resist the asian influx of goods by having them certify that their products are produced in an enviromentally sound way and humane to the workers as well it does little good for us to call for American companies to provide all these things like health care , clean water and air and no one else does , it would be better if the companies were helped , perhaps paying no corporate taxes or whatever since the workers already pay so much . , especially since they go out of business trying to comply or move overseas. Good luck doing this of course as their are so many people who are now just salesman for these goods from china, we could be cooked already on many different levels.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Reconstructed data using proxies is not the same as modeling projections. ...

Good points, but not the one I was after - it is about resolution.

We have measurements now which are almost in real time - at the lowest resolution it is day by day. A worked example is the "record" ice reduction in the Arctic last summer - we could watch that figure all the time via satelites.

Reconstructions don't do that. At best they give us year by year values, maybe even season by season but more likely measurements which are decades long. Ice cores are a clear example - some don't record any measurement under 300-500 years in length.

So there could have been a similar ice breakup maybe in 1937 but we don't know, there could have been a really bad melt in 1930 - we don't know. There could have been a really bad freeze in the 1920s - we don't know.

Another worked example - take that map from 1938 - "From Observations" - that means ships navigating around the ice and radioing others at sea, ships arriving at port and reporting what they saw, and maybe even aircraft being sent out to map the ice. This did not happen in one day, it was months long - so the map is an average.

Today we just go to a web page and can get a map of the ice right now, which is what the second map is.

So it is comparing apples and bananas.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by radioranger

I think the only way to approach this from a few different angles is...

Personally (and maybe others might) I see this as more an argument against globalisation from the US standpoint and not really an AGW thing.

Globalisation means winners and losers on both sides of the "deal". Since the 1990s it means we in the West pay less for our "stuff" because it is made in cheaper production centres elsewhere, the downside being we have "exported" those jobs.

For "them" it means more money, and perhaps other benefits like healthcare and child education. The downsides include importing our resource usage, and disposal and perhaps polution.

Whilst we might say they should choose not to have those problems, most of them would prefer that money, education and healthcare.

It is coming full circle now - a lot of stuff is moving back from the cheaper markets to the 2nd and 1st worlds because those economies are becoming more expensive and transport costs are getting higher. It is a cycle though, that will reverse.

On the positive side of globalisation, those people now working in a factory are not looking to move into an extra bit of wilderness to hunt a rare animal for food and profit.

[radioranger]

I still think we should have a setup that values better manufacturing in terms of pollution etc, in other words say in a car from china if over half the pollution in the cars life is in producing it in the first place,whereas maybe here its only 10 % or less. we should consider the cars total impact on the environment and tax or regulate it according to that, that way people with smaller cars would still have transportation and other could pay more if they wanted , but the net result would be less pollution Etc,

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

So there could have been a similar ice breakup maybe in 1937 but we don't know, there could have been a really bad melt in 1930 - we don't know. There could have been a really bad freeze in the 1920s - we don't know.

Yeah, and the fairies might come out to dance a minuet at the bottom of the garden when you're not around. Or maybe the ice all fell down the giant hole that leads into the hollow interior of the Earth where the Atlanteans have been hiding out: Secrets of the Hollow Earth - A Look Into the Secrets of the Hollow Earth :-)

But you know what? There were and are people living all around the shores of the Arctic Ocean. If there were severe melts or freezes, they likely would have remembered and passed on the stories. It sure appears as though you're just rejecting fairly solid evidence because you don't want it to be true.

[radioranger]

I think its a big fallacy and trick to think the rest of the world will follow us , they will just grow and grow till its all gone if you believe in it in the first place,, all the money is made selling us this stuff and without a logical discussion , which will never happen it aint getting fixed . the left is using this stuff to control us thru fear, take the money out of it and do the free stuff first which no one and I mean no one will talk about, The United States is being overrun and invaded and the left is worried , protection thru enviromental rules AKA zoning has been going on a long time ,and getting worse, now since everybody has a car, the only way to stop the rif raf, is to raise the price thru fake rules , thus the new allcohol fuel , face it newer cars last too long for some people, if I could keep my truck running forever the system gets all messed up . this new fuel will fix that, most new cars can handle it but older ones, will be gone and it willl keep us in the cities . and the left can act proud as they build busways from city to city and never near their neighborhoods. The left doesnt realize that they wouldnt exist without industrial progress in the first place, history shows the social movement started with the factories and went from there, without mass production there isnt enough value added to support a lot of people not working , thus our decline. just my 02