
Decoding Climate Change with Perl, gnuplot and Google Earth - Anon84
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/12/decoding-climate-change-with-p.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+oreilly%2Fradar%2Fatom+%28O%27Reilly+Radar%29
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patrickgzill
I'm sorry, isn't the elephant in the room the admission that the HadCRUT data
was shown to be corrupted/inaccurate?

And that a few lines of Perl automated the error checking to such an extent
that the errors just popped up?

How exactly am I to have confidence in the rest of the numbers?

~~~
Tichy
Have a link about the inaccuracy of HadCRUT data? Or are you referring to the
small problem mentioned in the article? As it was fixable, I would assume it
is not a problem anymore - it shows the scientific process worked for once.

~~~
patrickgzill
Characterizing it as a small problem, and "fixable" seems to minimize the very
obvious fact that a few lines of Perl caught problems that should have been
caught well before the data was released.

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Tichy
The data is public, so anybody could have double checked it and found that
error. Somebody now did. This is how it should work - it is the only way it
can work. Errors can always happen, but scientists are supposed to double
check.

If the error was deliberate, it would have made no sense to publish the data
in such a way that the error could be caught easily.

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azgolfer
There were 877 new snowfall records set this week. That would be rather
unlikely if we are experiencing catastrophic warming. Also there is this (from
Watts Up With That) "Keep in mind, everyone sorta has to admit that CO2 by
itself doesn’t do much. Even at current concentrations, it’s a teensy weensy
bit of the atmosphere (.00038) that soaks up only a teensy weensy bit of the
sun’s long-wave radiation at a particular high altitude in the tropics (the
tropics account for about 80% of the Earth’s energy budget). Moreover, we have
long since passed CO2 concentrations which are more than sufficient to flag
down 99% of that wavelength."

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ajross
Sigh. Snowfall tracks atmosphere water content, not temperature. In almost all
climates, the "coldest winters" are uniformly the dryest. Oddly, it seems like
the people who parade this canard (despite constant refutation by those who
know what they're talking about) are also the least likely to be alarmed by
heat waves...

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azgolfer
So blizzards have nothing to do with cold temperatures ? The week of December
15th - 815 new snowfall records, 304 new cold records, and 403 lowest maximum
temperature records. Seems like they go together to me.

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jrockway
_Seems like they go together to me._

Why yes, it seems like the climate is changing.

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motters
Comparing to the average temperature between 1961 and 1990 seems spurious. If
this window of time were changed you would probably get substantially
different anomaly results.

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shawndumas
Can someone run the numbers using a different time frame as the baseline? Can
someone who is not an uneducated ignoramus like myself explain why it matters?

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pixcavator
The shape of the graph should be exactly the same only shifted up or down.
That's the good news. The bad news is that this is only true for a single
station. The shape of the curve for the global average could be seriously
affected by the fact that hundreds of new stations were being open around the
world.

~~~
shawndumas
excellent. thank you.

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dubcomesaveme
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles> Global warming WILL occur,
regardless of man.

The question is what is the value of the subcomponent of temperature variation
caused by man. I would argue that it is nearly impossible to isolate this
value. It would require models of every other natural cause of temperature
variation, from the galactic position of the solar system to the water cycle,
and confidence estimates of these models. Weather is a prototypically complex
and chaotic system.

Rather than allocating resources based on an answer to a nearly impossible to
answer question, we should tackle questions that are more solvable like
"relation between cancer rates and environmental pollution" (aka things that
could have the same policy effect i.e. curbing emmisions) and remember that
acute, immediate events can have a far more deleterious effect on global
temperature <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter>

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Tichy
THe Milankovitch cycles don't seem very relevant here, don't they appear
across hundred thousands of years (I just skimmed the Wikipedia article)?
Also, if Milankovitch can predict cycles, wouldn't it contradict your
assumption that we can't infer anything about climate at all?

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hendler
There are debatable aspects of climate change - but I hope these clear, data-
driven, illustrative works help convince the tech community that if you can
trust the science in the papers provided, that the outcome is clear.

I also like to mention the decision matrix - I forget the term in game-theory
- but the possibility space is 2x2 - either global warming is man made or
isn't on one axis, and on another axis is that humanity acts on this
information is doesn't.

In the case that there is no man made global warming and we act, then the
outcome is still good. Moreover - even if the warming is from natural causes,
trying to understand and alter the global climate is an important skill to
have for a species with ambitions to survive for thousands more years, at
least.

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dantheman
Your analysis of the 2x2 possibility space is simplistic and wrong. I'll
attempt to quickly illustrate this.

We assume the desired goal of mitigating global warming is to save the lives
of poor of those in poor countries. An argument can be made that the
relatively rich will face changes, but will be able to adapt.

So the do nothing and no global warming scenario, while on its surface may not
seem to have any negative effects, its effects in fact are quite devastating.
The money and attention that we are focusing on global warming could be used
to address problems that are actually killing people today. Some simple
examples, are vaccination, education, disease research, building
infrastructure etc.

So the question is best phrased as giving what we know now, what can we do to
mitigate risk and save the most people. Some solutions are:

0\. Family Planning & Birth Control

1\. Nuclear power

2\. Research into drought resistant crops and crops that can grow in warmer
environments.

3\. Improved monitoring of the earth

4\. Research into new energy technologies, so that they can be deployed when
they are mature enough.

So I'm not advocating any action over any other, I'm merely pointing out that
your analysis is heavily flawed.

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DougWebb
I agree with everything you say, except for "Family Planning & Birth Control".
The last thing we want is government enforcement of birth rates; prosperity
takes care of that without taking away anyone's freedom. Most prosperous
nations have lower-than-replacement birth rates among the wealthy citizens,
and that's actually going to become a serious problem unless we can make more
poor people wealthy.

By 'wealth', I don't mean just money, I mean everything that goes into a
better quality of life: Freedom, food, water, housing, education, and energy.
In my opinion the first and last are the keys: people must be free to pursue
activities which will improve their lot in life, and energy must be abundant
and inexpensive to enable people to act on their freedom. With plentiful
energy, food can be produced with minimal labor, water can be cleaned,
materials for housing can be produced cheaply, and all of the above can raise
people up from struggling for subsistance so that they have the time to devote
to education.

Finally, in a world full of industrious, well-educated, and free people who
have plenty of energy at their disposal, the problems caused by global warming
can be tackled and solved whatever they may be. Dikes can be built, farms can
be moved, even whole populations can be relocated.

~~~
dantheman
I completely agree with you that the government enforcement of birth rates is
immoral and should not be attempted. When speaking of birth control, I'm
talking about mitigating the population explosion that's happening in the
third world by providing, making accessible for little or no money, modern
birth control methods. Providing free or low cost birth control is relatively
inexpensive and would have significant increases on quality of life and on the
overall state of humanity in the world. Of course it should be optional, and
it doesn't need government involvement -- this an issue non profits can
successfully attack.

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DougWebb
Modern birth control methods cost money; someone's got to pay for them if the
third-world people you want to stop making babies aren't going to. I believe
that money can be better spent on improving the lives of those people. Better
food, water, and housing will help make those people healthier, which will
improve the infant mortality rate, which will naturally lead to a reduction in
the birth rate. One reason poor people make a lot of babies is because many of
the babies don't survive and a higher birthrate is necessary to ensure the
survival of the next generation. With a lower infant mortality rate, it
becomes an economic burden to have too many babies, so most families cut back
to just one or two children. This is a trend that can take a couple of
generations to become widespread, but large changes like this should be slow
so they're not disruptive.

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DanielBMarkham
If I see another article thread that I am unable to downvote any of the
comments I'm going to start thinking seriously about leaving HN.

Not a threat, simply pointing out that somebody is getting a little too heavy-
handed with the social engineering for my comfort.

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nice1
This guy's amazing! He managed to get data up to year 2020! I wonder if he can
get information on other things to come in the next 10 years ...

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hendler
What are you referring to? Maybe I'm missing something, but the chart stops at
2020, but the data graph stops at 2009...

