
What's Really Warming the World? - cjdulberger
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
======
jasonkester
Cool visualization.

It's worth keeping in mind that the modeled data lines up with reality because
it's supposed to. That's how you calibrate your model, by making sure it fits
reality.

The real trick is to see how well your model extrapolates from the data you
have out into the future. As in, if you feed it data up to, say, 1990, will it
correctly spit out 2015 temperatures that fit the reality of 2015, or will it
spit out crazy 2015 predictions like the models that were built in 1990 did.
And, the bigger question: How will its predictions for 2040 (given 2015 data)
match up to the reality over the next 25 years.

We seem to be getting a lot better at the modeling side. That's a good thing,
since the first couple decades of watching people panicking and fighting each
other over whatever scary results came out of the first generation climate
models wasn't any fun to watch.

~~~
tosseraccount
Is there a scorecard for which models have performed well?

~~~
natermer
None of the models have performed very well. You probably won't find a
scorecard because it's embarrassing.

~~~
ThisIBereave
Citation needed.

~~~
jasonkester
Here's a good one:

[http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-
slowdown-...](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-
view-from-space/)

44 Climate Models all fighting to out-panic one another, not a single one
guessing low enough to predict the actual values for 2012 (when it seems the
dataset in question ended)

... and a seemingly more reputable one showing roughly the same thing:

[http://phys.org/news/2015-01-peer-reviewed-pocket-
calculator...](http://phys.org/news/2015-01-peer-reviewed-pocket-calculator-
climate-exposes-errors.html)

~~~
cholantesh
I wouldn't call a paper whose lead author is a well-established denier with no
scientific training
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Visc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley)),
and which is co-authored by a known practitioner of large-scale scientific
fraud for pay
([http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Willie_Soon](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Willie_Soon))
particularly reputable.

~~~
marcus_holmes
ad-hominem. Who cares who wrote it, what does it say?

~~~
thaumaturgy
Ad hominem fallacy fallacy:
[http://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html](http://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html)

Pointing out that someone is not trustworthy when considering whether or not
to trust their conclusions is not ad-hom.

~~~
Zuider
Attacking a persons 'trustworthiness' instead of dealing with their arguments
and evidence is pretty much the dictionary definition of the ad-hominem
diversion. It doesn't interest me to learn that he kicks cats or dresses in
lingerie and calls himself Marjorie at the weekends. If you believe that he is
wrong, then show where and how he is in error.

~~~
DanBC
You're right not to be intersted in whether he kicks cats or not when you're
thinking about whether he's honest or not.

But, when thinking about whether he's honest or not being given examples of
previous dishonesty is relevant.

~~~
Zuider
Just like the infamous Smathers campaign speech?

[http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_to...](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=101;t=000379;p=0)

"Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless
extrovert [pervert]? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to
practice nepotism [necrophilia] with his sister-in-law and he has a sister who
was once a thespian [lesbian] in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an
established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced
celibacy [???]."

~~~
cholantesh
No, because that was actually irrelevant. In this context, Soon's record
within the scope of climate research is what's being scrutinized, not his
personal life.

If Soon's opponents were attacking his love of Dune or his tendency to eat
falafel, there might be an analogue here.

~~~
Zuider
Irrelevant. The technique you used was the same as Smathers, and your intent
was the same - to damage someone's reputation by insinuations and smears. It
is low behavior.

~~~
cholantesh
Smathers' accusations related to issues that had no bearing on Peppers' merit
as a political candidate or his ability to carry out his official duties. My
'insinuations' (actually, again, statements of fact) are related to Soon's
behaviour within the context of climate science. If you cannot grasp this, you
are not qualified to engage in debate. If you do not wish to for whatever
reason, it makes it pretty clear that you are not interested in good faith
discussion of this issue and are not worth anyone's time in that regard.

~~~
Zuider
A damaging and false insinuation is a damaging and false insinuation, whatever
ground it purports to cover. Smathers chose smears that would do the maximum
damage to Pepper as a politician, you did the same for Soon as a scientist.

------
hackuser
This repeats some buried comments but I think it's worthwhile: I'm not a
climate scientist, but in my experience the absolute most reliable, most time-
efficient way to learn about climate change is the IPCC reports. I wonder if
there is anything written in any other field that compares:

[http://www.ipcc.ch/](http://www.ipcc.ch/)

Specifically, if you are short on time, read the 'Summaries for Policymakers',
written at the level and attention spans of non-technical politicians. They
are quite readable and as I wrote in another post, if they can understand it,
so can you. :) (The longer reports are fascinating, if you have an interest in
science and want to get lost in something.)

As I understand it the reports are prepared by a global team of hundreds of
scientists, and reviewed by thousands more.[1] (Seriously, has anything like
that existed in any other field?) They are meant to cover the breath of
climate science and the reports also are meticulous about the language of
probabilities.

Spend a little time reading them and it will save you the time of reading 99%
of what's written elsewhere, and you'll be much better informed.

\---

EDIT:

[1] Review process:
[http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml](http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml)
(scroll down to "The AR5 Writing and Review Process") -- for example, one
report had over 50,000 comments on two drafts from >600 experts.

\---

EDIT 2: Website interface help.

Can you believe this needs to be written, and for HN readers? I had JavaScript
off which makes the site usable (if not pretty). With JavaScript on,
apparantly the UX concept is 'Easter eggs':

There are 4 images arranged horizontally at the top; these are report covers
(with text too small to read even if you knew they were clickable). If you
click a report cover then the section beneath it changes to display a
description of and links to that report.

All that work making the reports accessible to the world, hamstrung by web
design.

~~~
narrator
A couple years back I read the IPCC reports trying to find out if global
warming was real or not. I noticed the Vostok ice core data in the earlier
reports showed the temperature rose first and then the CO2 rose. Likewise, the
temperature fell first and then the CO2 fell later on. They fixed this little
inconvenient data problem in the later reports.

~~~
crygin
Ugh. This is exactly the type of poorly-informed response you generally get
when people attempt to "read the data" for themselves with little to no
understanding of the science behind it. Seems to be a lot of that going around
HN today.

~~~
seizethecheese
Please try to be specific in your criticism. What misunderstanding does the
above poster have about the science or the data?

~~~
jameshart
Well, for one, that their uneducated skim through the IPCC report found a
mistake which thousands of qualified scientists had missed, one so fundamental
that it undermines all of the rest of the work in the report and the
conclusions it leads to.

~~~
seizethecheese
The scientists say so, therefore the commenter is wrong? This still doesn't
explain _why_ the above is wrong. Attacking the premises of an argument is
sound logic, and should be welcome. Ad hominem arguments should be called out.

------
themgt
Helpful when reading this thread to keep in mind Michael Mann's six stages of
climate change denial:

1\. CO2 is not actually increasing.

2\. Even if it is, the increase has no impact on the climate since there is no
convincing evidence of warming.

3\. Even if there is warming, it is due to natural causes.

4\. Even if the warming cannot be explained by natural causes, the human
impact is small, and the impact of continued greenhouse gas emissions will be
minor.

5\. Even if the current and future projected human effects on Earth's climate
are not negligible, the changes are generally going to be good for us.

6\. Whether or not the changes are going to be good for us, humans are very
adept at adapting to changes; besides, it’s too late to do anything about it,
and/or a technological fix is bound to come along when we really need it.

~~~
bjt
Though I wouldn't accept #5 and #6 exactly as phrased, it does seem like
positive effects ought to be balanced against the negative, and the
uncertainty of future technological developments ought to inform our current
decision of how much to spend addressing climate change.

Does that make me a climate change denier?

~~~
Zuider
Your position is similar to that of Swedish environmentalist and academic,
Bjorn Lomberg who accepts that rising CO2 levels are the cause of warming, and
that this is a problem, but argues that the dangers are overstated and
resources would be better devoted to mitigation of climate change and
addressing other pressing issues such as global poverty.

Despite his relatively orthodox views, he was recently run off campus at the
University of Western Australia where he had set up a think tank, The
Consensus Centre, to which the Australian government had pledged $4 million.

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-08/bjorn-lomborg-uwa-
cons...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-08/bjorn-lomborg-uwa-consensus-
centre-contract-cancelled/6456708)

~~~
drostie
Bjorn Lomborg is a sad case. He titled his book _The Skeptical
Environmentalist_ and everyone got the message, without reading the book, that
he was a _climate-change skeptic_ \-- and for the most part labeled him as an
"enemy" and rebuffed him. It was just a public relations disaster.

For what it's worth, he's not a "skeptic" in any of the conventional ways. I
also remember looking at the IPCC reports once when I was a young physics
student and saying, "hey, it's only a couple degrees Celsius over many years?"
I was educated enough to realize that you could predict bad storms etc -- what
I like to tell people right now is that it's like having a really huge boulder
and, right next to it, digging a little ditch, only to cause the boulder to
smack you down: the small change in the height of an equilibrium can still
have a huge effect if a big enough system is relaxing to the new equilibrium.
Someone came up with a memorable name for it: it's less of a concern about
"global warming" and more about "global weirding." It took me a while to
appreciate that there is a small (but scary) probability that the slope that
the boulder is on might have a net incline one or the other way, so that the
boulder might not just hit us but roll over us if it gets disturbed far enough
from equilibrium. It makes a lot of sense for there to be a big scientific
research program about that, even though no IPCC model predicts runaway
climate change because the probability is so low and the possible causes are
typically unexpected.

With that said: though hurricanes, floods and tornadoes certainly can have a
massive economic impact, Bjorn has a good point of "the weather disasters that
we know will happen due to the warming that we know is happening are
important, but let's figure out how this compares to other things which we can
predict really well, and see where our money is best spent: climate-change
relief efforts, or climate-change mitigation, or general alleviation of
poverty, or what?"

What I think is most missing from all of this is: we're talking about so
little money, especially if we compare to governments' military expenditures,
going towards the science. What would be great is if a government said, "hey,
we're putting forward this huge grant to climate change research _just because
we think research is intrinsically good_ and want to support this huge project
of, y'know, _knowing more_."

------
macinjosh
Please don't take this as a denial of climate change, it is an honest
question. How do scientists learn the levels of ozone, aerosols, green house
gases, and the other data points going so far back at a global scale? Is the
data from before the latter half of the 20th century spotty? If so, why is it
considered good enough to use in a context of scientific research where
quality and correctness of data is paramount?

~~~
paulhauggis
I also question how we know the difference between nature/cycles and man-made
pollution.

Here is a good example:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

"Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation,
heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, an inherent
variability in global climate, or decreases in the human population."

It seems we don't even know how the little ice age happened. How do we know
these same forces aren't changing our environment now?

We've been having all these strange temperatures lately and also this:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/huge-solar-storm-hits-earth-power-grid-and-gps-could-be-disrupted-
but-auroras-might-be-seen-10338332.html)

The problem is that it's too political now. When claimed scientists are coming
out and saying the science is "settled", I know we have a problem. Science is
never really settled.

~~~
hackuser
> I also question how we know the difference between nature/cycles and man-
> made pollution.

It's a great question, one which has occupied many scientists. It has been
addressed in detail in the scientific research. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9772353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9772353)

> The problem is that it's too political now.

Remember that's a well-documented, established technique often used by people
who want to obstruct things; create so much noise (as in signal-to-noise) and
FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt) as to confuse the public about the facts.
In every field, you always can find someone to say anything on TV; heck, you
can find tax attorneys who will say you don't have to pay income tax (good
luck with that!).

> When claimed scientists are coming out and saying the science is "settled",
> I know we have a problem. Science is never really settled.

'Settled science' is jargon; it distinguishes theories that are still up in
the air (string theory) from theories that have proven themselves as very
reliable (gravity). Nothing in the world is ever "settled", but the evidence
is pretty certain about climate change:

IIRC, 97% of climate scientists believe it's happening and caused by humans;
the US National Academies of Science agree, as does the Royal Society in the
UK; the US defense and intelligence communities are planning on it, as is the
insurance and other industries. Sure, they all could be wrong, but so could
the deniers. Who seems like a better bet, the 3%, or the 97%?

~~~
loganu
It's become a politicized issue, and as such, the media has created a
narrative of 2 sides and a "debate." Take the 97% and put it into a different
context and it makes the situation seem absolutely ludicrous.

If you had a sore stomach, and asked 2 groups of people to help you figure out
why, would you trust the diagnosis from a group with 100 world-class doctors,
surgeons, dieticians, etc... or 100 random people? When the random people say
"Ya, but the doctor's don't know anything"... why would you believe them?

We've got global consensus from the leading experts in a dozen or so related
fields, all pointing to the same thing. I trust the people that landed on the
moon and can launch satellites to space to give me better information about
the Earth's macro trends than the guy next door that uses his bible and the
cold weather last week as his evidence of a trend.

~~~
Zuider
>If you had a sore stomach, and asked 2 groups of people to help you figure
out why, would you trust the diagnosis from a group with 100 world-class
doctors, surgeons, dieticians, etc... or 100 random people?

Not unless two of those 100 random individuals were Barry Marshall and Robin
Warren and the stomach pain was due to a peptic ulcer.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Barry_Marshall)

"Marshall and Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H.
pylori) is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical
doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much
acid."

The point being that a reasonable belief long held by experts was shown to be
false by careful scientific investigation. That said, I don't find this kind
of meta-rhetoric helpful as it serves only to steer attention away from the
pertinent matter at hand and to shut down discussion.

~~~
loganu
I get what you're saying, but Marshall was a doctor. He'd be in the 3% of the
group of informed scientists that are working to figure out this scenario. My
point is that the general public's opinion and perception of the issue
shouldn't carry as much weight as the experts.

------
mangeletti
The chart at
[http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501...](http://d1vn86fw4xmcz1.cloudfront.net/content/royptb/363/1501/2299/F11.large.jpg)
(put together by The Royal Society) shows that _most_ deforestation in Eastern
Canada occurred over 400 years ago. This one [http://mongabay-
images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1203all-time-defo...](http://mongabay-
images.s3.amazonaws.com/12/1203all-time-deforestation.jpg) shows a shift
starting about 300 years ago from temperate forest removal to tropical forest
removal. Together, they start to paint a picture of massive deforestation,
hundreds of years ago.

It's important to note that history didn't begin in 1880, and that some
effects lag their cause. Forests, along with oceanic flora, normally sequester
Carbon from CO2 and return O2 to the atmosphere. However, this effect only
takes place when the forests are actually there.

I don't have any religion, one way or another, about climate change and its
causes, but I think we won't learn anything from media propaganda like this.
It doesn't even bring up the possibility of albedo playing a role in climate
change?

~~~
munificent
> It doesn't even bring up the possibility of albedo playing a role in climate
> change?

Isn't that exactly what the "So If It's Not Nature, Is It Deforestation?"
slide is about?

~~~
mangeletti
No. The topic of deforestation covers a host of issues, but albedo can be
changed without regard for forests. For instance, covering all the empty land
black-top roads and parking lots, and putting black shingles on the roofs of
hundreds of millions of houses adds a lot of dark surface area to the planet.

------
posnet
Does it bother anyone else that only the Global temperate has its axis
labelled?

What is the orbital wobble measuring? What is the volcano line measuring? Is
that decreased forests or decreased land use? Should be be using more
aerosols? Is that meant to be suns temperature or sun activity, or sun colour?

I realise that the actual data is from reliable carefully measured models but
it makes this illustration so pointless.

~~~
jlebar
> What is the orbital wobble measuring? What is the volcano line measuring?

Read the bottom of the page; it explains that the colored lines measure the
modeled expected impact from orbital wobble/whatever on climate. That is, all
of the lines measure global temperature.

~~~
triangleman
All of the lines _model_ global temperature. Except the temperature line...
right?

------
nixy
In climate 130 years is not a long time. I wish these articles showed graphs
with historical data that go back thousands of years so that I could see how,
in a historical context, greenhouse emissions are affecting the world. I've
only ever seen data from the 1900's, and it looks pretty hockey stick, but
would be interesting to see fluctuations with the ice age(s) and local highs
included.

Edit: historical data is of course not available, but approximations must
exist?

~~~
flavor8
[http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-...](http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/ghg/ghg-
concentrations.html)

[http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html](http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html)

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract)

~~~
fexl
Are there any data on water vapor concentrations? I ask that because I have
read that the contribution of water vapor to the greenhouse effect is perhaps
two to four times greater than CO2.

~~~
dnautics
Not only that, all greenhouse models require a 'water feedback loop'.

Of course there are plenty of anthropogenic water emissions to go about. When
you irrigate, you are effectively throwing water into the air - by increasing
the surface area of water evaporation through plant transpiration networks.

I have never seen anyone talk about this alternative hypothesis.

A disclaimer - I am all for reducing CO2 emissions strictly on principle (this
is not dependent on the effects of CO2) and have put my money behind my
beliefs - I have driven hybrid vehicles to support technology towards that end
since 2003. But in my judgement as a scientist in general (and to some degree
as a chemist who has done advanced spectroscopy including IR spectroscopy) I
am losing confidence in climatology.

~~~
chris_va
It's a reasonable question. While I am not a climatologist...

Anthropogenic evaporation is probably minuscule next to deviations in natural
evaporation due to small changes in temperature. A single hurricane, for
example, dumps more power (as heat) than all human power generation.

Also, unlike CO2, I would also guess that atmospheric water probably reaches
equilibrium much faster (half life ~1 year instead of ~30 years).

~~~
dnautics
There is basically no equilibrium condition here. If you mean that there is a
more 'inelastic' equilibrium constant, then keep in mind that the
concentration level governed by such a constant is dependent on rate in versus
rate out, and there are certainly ongoing inputs of ag water. We've completely
drained several seas and underground aquifers as a result of human activity in
the last 50 years.

~~~
chris_va
The amount of water used globally (approx 10^13 m^3) is only about 2.5% the
total yearly evaporation off of the ocean (approx 4*10^14 m^3).

I suspect small changes in climate have a much greater effect on net
evaporation.

------
rza
This graphic really just plays into the hands of climate change deniers. No
labelled axis, a timeline of only 100 years (you could also argue the
dinosaurs caused global warming), and the quite proud declaration at the end
the argument is really "no contest" under the assumption that correlation ==
causation. I could also make a graph that shows the increase in global
temperature correlating with the rise in the Latino population, could I then
declare it a "no contest"?

~~~
IvyMike
> under the assumption that correlation == causation

Except we do have a pretty good understanding of the chemisty/physics of the
greenhouse effect, too. So there's a prediction ("increased CO2 will lead to
warming") and a validation. What more do they want?

~~~
rza
Is this increase in CO2 a significant amount on the scale of Earth's history?
How much of it was caused by humans vs natural cycles? A cursory search
informed me C02 levels and average temperature was much higher during the
dinosaur ages[0], what was the cause then? Note I'm playing devil's advocate
here and I haven't studied climate much, but my point is the graphic wouldn't
persuade someone who is already biased against human-driven climate change,
and only encourages equally primitive arguments from their side.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic#Climate)

------
crimsonalucard
This article only serves to stroke the ego of people who already believe that
CO2 emissions cause global warming. It does nothing for people who already
deny it.

Evidence, no matter how strong doesn't serve to change the nature of a man.
People would rather bend the logic and the evidence to fit their convenient
perception of reality.

Which brings me to the question: "What can change a nature of a man?" Imminent
danger? If an assailant had a gun pointed at your head, it'd be impossible to
deny. How can this evidence about global warming be presented so that it can't
be denied?

~~~
CurtHagenlocher
People of all stripes have the tendency to weight the believability of the
evidence based on how well it matches their beliefs instead of weighing their
beliefs based on how well they match the evidence.

~~~
dnautics
So, here was something that bothered me this year. This peer-reviewed article
was published:

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/05/science.a...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/05/science.aaa5632.full)

Which claims that the 'global warming' hiatus doesn't exist and is a surface
measurement artefact. Adjusting a subset of the surface measurement data
removes 'this artefact' and shows that global warming has still been on the
rise. Sorry, it's paywalled, if you want a review of it perhaps try:

[http://www.npr.org/2015/06/04/411998275/scientists-cast-
doub...](http://www.npr.org/2015/06/04/411998275/scientists-cast-doubt-on-an-
apparent-hiatus-in-global-warming)

But when I heard this NPR article, I thought to myself, "Hold on. Aren't there
non-surface measurements that have agreed with the existence of the last 10
year 'global warming hiatus'?" Indeed, the various satellite measurements
(which do not suffer from as many methodological concerns) agree that the last
10 years have been relatively stagnant in terms of global warming.

Adjusting data in this fashion is extremely dangerous, and climate scientists
are certainly not immune from the "tendency to weight the believability of the
evidence".

~~~
Brakenshire
> Indeed, the various satellite measurements (which do not suffer from as many
> methodological concerns) agree that the last 10 years have been relatively
> stagnant in terms of global warming.

I can't engage with the rest of what you're saying, but FWIW a 10 year period
is just not a reasonable time period to attempt to draw conclusions about
changes in temperature. There are multiple ten year periods of falling
temperatures which can be taken out of the obvious increases in temperature
which have happened over the last 60 years. Looking at a ten year period,
you're going to get much more noise than signal.

------
curiousgeorgio
Not trying to argue against manmade climate change here, but the conclusion is
inconsistent with the stated point/headline.

The main question is whether or not humans are the primary driving factor in
the changes observed. Graphs show lack of correlation with various manmade
causes and some natural causes, but then the conclusion is reached with the
graph of "the influence of greenhouse gas emissions." In other words, the
"nail in the coffin" evidence is simply showing the _effects_ of the problem
graphed against the problem itself; it doesn't prove one way or another
whether the _cause_ of the rise in greenhouse gasses is manmade.

Downvote as you will, but that doesn't seem like science to me; it feels like
proving a point by simply restating the point.

~~~
Brakenshire
> it doesn't prove one way or another whether the cause of the rise in
> greenhouse gasses is manmade.

Does anyone seriously doubt that rises in CO2 are not principally driven by
human activity? I have never even seen that as a talking point.

~~~
curiousgeorgio
Does the popularity of a doubt or idea even matter here when we're supposed to
be discussing science?

~~~
7Z7
Brakenshire didn't question the popularity of the topic, rather whether it had
been convincingly postulated by anyone worth mentioning.

------
drjesusphd
Since I seem to be repeating myself all over this thread:

It is basic physics (the optics of IR and visible light and thermodynamics)
that trace amounts of CO2 and methane can significantly warm the atmosphere.

We know physics pretty damn well, and if you do not accept this, there is no
conversation.

Sure, one should look at the data to see to what extent this is happening and
there are all kinds of questions one can ask. But all this talk of
"correlation is not causation" is nonsense.

~~~
scarmig
The science around climate change is well established--it's happening, it's
man-made, and it will continue--but it's a bit more complicated than that. The
physics suggests a relatively small increase in temperature (<1C); it's the
positive feedbacks, particularly water vapor vapor feedbacks, that make
climate change so potentially costly.

~~~
contravariant
It doesn't help that estimates of the climate sensitivity seem to be all over
the place.

~~~
webXL
I think being "all over the place" is what skeptics and "denialists" have a
problem with. Let's get more data before making drastic changes to our
regulations that may hurt hard-working people.

------
mseebach
> "No, it really is greenhouse gasses." .. "See for yourself."

Being patronising has such a great track record in turning hearts and minds,
I'm glad they didn't stoop to such decadent clap track as "engaging with
opposing arguments".

~~~
matthewmacleod
With the greatest respect, there are no opposing arguments with which to
engage at this point. The issue is political, and not scientific.

------
gtrubetskoy
What's always been puzzling me is why the relationship between man-produced
emissions and climate is considered important in the fossil fuel debate.

As if it's not enough that the air in major cities and vast parts of entire
countries is literally toxic.

~~~
triangleman
Because it's not a debate about science, it's a debate about policy.

Imagine you are a Los Angeles politician looking to promote one of two
policies:

1) Clean up the air in Los Angeles at a measurable cost of X, most of which
will be paid by Los Angeles taxpayers (including said politician).

2) Reduce CO2 emissions worldwide at an unmeasurable cost of Y, most of which
will be paid via the inflation of consumer prices. The air in Los Angeles will
probably remain just as dirty, but the politician gets to say that he "did
something".

Which of these policies would the hypothetical politician be more likely to
support?

~~~
npsimons
> Because it's not a debate about science, it's a debate about policy.

Bingo! The science is settled, as much as any science ever can be. The problem
comes in with people "just asking questions", the same questions, over and
over again, that have been answered so many times, but people don't want to
change their beliefs. Reminds me a lot of tactics used by certain other groups
with deeply held beliefs.

I have to commend people like hackuser, whose patience is not only
commendable, but astounding! I truly hope the sealions don't wear him down.

------
istvan__
Well correlation is not causation.

is it y=f(x) or y=x(f)? aka is is warmer because of the higher greenhouse
gases or is there more greenhouse gases because of the warmer climate (that
could have been caused by things like leaving an ice age and approaching a
warm period in Earth's life)

Just to clarify, i support green technology and I think this is definitely the
way to go but I don't like the unjustified crusade using proofs that can be
ripped apart in minutes.

~~~
vlasev
So, where would you think the greenhouse gases came from?

~~~
istvan__
Which one?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gase...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gases)

~~~
istvan__
There is nothing ironic here, humans add more CO2 sources and kill the most
CO2 sinks (forests) these activities would put any system off balance. People
like to talk about how CO2 production is bad but they forget to mention that
killing rainforest is equally bad.

------
beatpanda
It's really depression to see such a large aggregation of smart people
applying their abilities to nitpicking details of global warming instead of
coming up with solutions.

------
bcheung
Very cool visualization and great way to display it.

As someone who refuses to trust authority and wants to understand things for
myself before making a decision, global warming is very frustrating because
nobody will answer my questions without personal attacks or appeals to
authority. I don't have an agenda either way, I just have a very inquisitive
mind. Have any of you felt the same?

Some of the questions I have that never seem to get an adequate answer:

1) How are the models validated? Is it like backtesting a trading strategy?
Come up with a hypothesis that seems to fit historical data, then let it run
with actual data, and see how accurate it is? If so, how have the models held
up?

2) How do they account for confounding factors and how do they separate causal
correlations from mere correlations?

For example, at 95% of fires firemen were present. Firemen and fires are
strongly correlated. But nobody would say firemen are the cause of fires.

Cholesterol was thought to be a causal factor for heart problems because it is
strongly correlated but they later found it is not a causal factor. Something
else causes the heart disease and cholesterol raises when heart disease is
present. They can use it as a predictor of heart disease but it is now
understood that cholesterol doesn't actually cause the problem.

3) It seems to me that for a model to be trusted it must have predictive
capability, and it must fit a physical model of our current understanding. How
do the various models hold up with these criteria? It seems like climate is
still a very complex field that we don't fully understand.

------
thadd
My only problem is that the planet is over 4 billion years old and as this
shows, we've been collecting climate data for a little over 100 years. The
natural skeptic in me isn't ok with establishing a trend based on 1/40,000,000
of the available data, the sample size is simply too small. Am I completely
off-base with this?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its actually irrelevant whether this has happened before. Its happening now,
impacting us, and maybe we can do something about it. The Pollyanna approach
"Its natural" doesn't help us when cities are going underwater.

~~~
DougWebb
Maybe we can do something, but what? Do we build walls around the cities so
they don't flood, or do we set up a scheme where developing countries pay a
ransom to rich countries so they can continue to pollute, while rich countries
starve their poor citizens of affordable energy while funnelling tax money
into companies owned by rich citizens to do R&D work on energy sources that
won't be viable on a large scale for decades, if ever?

I'm all for the walls, but the money that drives governments don't seem to
agree.

~~~
Aloha
The issue that I have with the folks who advocate anthropogenic climate change
is that near as I can tell there is no way to preserve the standard of living
on the planet (feed, clothe, power, etc) and end climate change soon enough,
the only way to get even a 50% cut of emissions within a decade is effectively
managing to reduce the population of the planet by a similar number.

I think we'd be better off figuring out how to cope with climate change and
generally reduce our consumption of natural resources, rather than focusing to
tightly on one evil (carbon).

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and just let it continue. How convenient. Pretend nobody's responsible, and
its inevitable, and just insulate your house and hunker down I guess.

------
lordnacho
Reading (audio book) Nate Silver's book on prediction, he looks at the
predictions made by James Hansen in 1988 and IPCC a few years later.

He says the predictions were generally pretty good, maybe IPCC was a bit on
the high side compared to what happened.

------
Sapient
It would be a really nice visualisation of the factors if it worked properly.
It was impossible to read and navigate for me.

~~~
mikeash
On my MacBook Pro using Chrome, it was even worse. Impossible to read at least
tells me that something is wrong, but using the trackpad to scroll through the
options in a natural flicking way actually skips over multiple entries at a
time with only the barest flicker to indicate that it happened. I got almost
to the end before I realized I had only seen about one third of the
information they were trying to present.

I have nothing against clever visualizations like this, but god damn it web
designers, stop co-opting standard UI interactions to make it happen. There is
_no_ reason to hijack window scrolling here. None. All you accomplished by
doing this was make it harder to figure out how to read the thing, and break
it badly for a lot of people. What's wrong with buttons? You can even look for
swipes on touchscreen devices. That's pretty standard! But quit stealing the
scrollers!

~~~
CountSessine
Eccch. This is the second Bloomberg article in as many days (the first was on
Paul Krugman) to co-opt scrolling. I read a BBC article yesterday that did the
same thing.

Jesus, webdevs. Stop this shit now.

------
zdw
It's impressive to see the size of the spikes that volcanic activity causes in
this graph, as an event that has no correlation with human activity.

------
beshrkayali
Real question: how did they observe land-ocean temperature in 1880?

Edit: and how does it compare to how it's observed now?

~~~
jcarreiro
"The period for which reasonably reliable instrumental records of near-surface
temperature exist with quasi-global coverage is generally considered to begin
around 1850. Earlier records exist, but with sparser coverage and less
standardized instrumentation.

The temperature data for the record come from measurements from land stations
and ships. On land, temperature sensors are kept in a Stevenson screen or a
maximum minimum temperature system (MMTS). The sea record consists of surface
ships taking sea temperature measurements from engine inlets or buckets. The
land and marine records can be compared.[13] Land and sea measurement and
instrument calibration is the responsibility of national meteorological
services. Standardization of methods is organized through the World
Meteorological Organization and its predecessor, the International
Meteorological Organization.[14]"

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_recor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#Global_record_from_1850)

------
csentropy
After reading these comments, it is clear that the ones who have their mind
made up and are not open to debate are the warmists. The fact that merely
asking questions incites such aggression suggests only one thing. They just
don't know and are scared to admit it to themselves. This is the exact same
behavior seen among religious cultists. They have not read all the evidence or
most of it themselves, but follow the high priests unquestioningly because 1)
It makes them feel better and morally superior and 2) The burden of proof is
not on them. They can always evade and say "all the experts/high priests
agree" or "read the IPCC" etc

~~~
moultano
Have you read the IPCC report? There's nothing I can write in an HN comment
that would make a better argument than that.

~~~
csentropy
Which draft of which assessment? Be more specific.

~~~
moultano
Any of them? I'm certainly not going to give you flak for being a year or two
out of date. If you want an argument, that's the canonical one.

------
songshu
Agreeing on the provenance of the warming seems to be a red herring when we
urgently need to figure out how climate change affects us. Which areas will be
flooded, which areas will become inhabitable, will we be able to grow more
food or less, how many more people can we expect to starve, how many jobs will
be created and lost, how will it affect life expectancy? I realize such
research is going on -- I'd like it to be promoted better. The world is
already an inhospitable place for many people and we already don't respond
well enough. Currently I don't see why we would respond any better if things
get worse.

------
gmarx
Wasn't the start of this timeline the end of the little ice age?

------
graycat
From all the credible data I've been able to find, the main global warming is
just from the coolest times of The Little Ice Age.

For the past 100 years, I see little credible evidence of any significant
warming, and what there is may just be that we are still pulling out of The
Little Ice Age, e.g., slowly warming the oceans from the cooling they got in
The Little Ice Age.

The best data I found is in

Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years,
National Research Council, _Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last
2,000 Years_ , ISBN 0-309-66264-8, 196 pages, National Academies Press, 2006,

available at

[http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html](http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html)

There as I read the graphs, as of 2006, the temperature was essentially the
same as in the year 1000, and the increase in temperature over the past 100
years was much like that from year 900 to year 1000.

For the climate model predictions, all the data I've seen have the predictions
very significantly different and all significantly higher than the actual
temperatures.

For the title here "What's Really Warming the World?", from all I can tell
from credible sources, so far, to any significant extent, nothing.

------
Shivetya
CO2 is not strictly human emissions and to imply so is so dishonest is
ridiculous. of course any gross simplification of the environment as done in
this presentation is explicitly to deliver a message decided before the
numbers were assembled.

the primary co2 process is ocean to atmosphere exchange, the earth to
atmosphere, and then to mammals respiratory activity. So then you get down to
how much CO2 is man pumping into the atmosphere beyond that point and which
sources are direct versus indirect.

finally since their numbers only are observable to 1880, how accurate can we
assume them to be? If were are extrapolating we could do it further back than
1880 to periods where man was present in significant numbers and thew world
was warmer

There is climate change, never has been a period of time where it hasn't, but
junk presentations are just that. Take numbers out of context, put in easily
to dismiss arguments along side, and it appears to make your point beyond
reproach (its like say, the sky is blue and you agree, don't you? the going
off to explain why something indirectly related is bad or good)

~~~
tocf
> CO2 is not strictly human emissions and to imply so is so dishonest is
> ridiculous.

That was never implied. In fact, they made a point of comparing human driven
emissions (which includes things like transportation and agriculture) to
natural sources (eg volcanoes).

> the primary co2 process is ocean to atmosphere exchange, the earth to
> atmosphere, and then to mammals respiratory activity

Well, you're missing some stuff in there. Like plants n stuff.

> finally since their numbers only are observable to 1880, how accurate can we
> assume them to be?

This chart has data back to 1880. Ice core samples, tree rings, whole hosts of
other parts of science go back much farther than 1880. All of it seems to
corroborate each other.

> If were are extrapolating we could do it further back than 1880 to periods
> where man was present in significant numbers and thew world was warmer

> Take numbers out of context, put in easily to dismiss arguments along side,
> and it appears to make your point beyond reproach

Hm, sort of like simplifying the CO2 cycle to a few words, missing a bunch of
it, and then somehow pretending to think that that explains things much better
than hundreds of scientists who have given us the science that shows that this
is mainly due to human causes.

Head up to the Arctic. Talk to people whose families have lived there forever
and see for yourself. I think that's the only way to convince people like
yourself.

~~~
Shivetya
yet today we also have articles noting that "natural cooling" of the sun will
not be sufficient to offset other sources of warming, the same sun this
article here dismisses as having any real influence.

this is the problem with the current climate science industry and don't
mistake for a moment, this is an industry with great profits at stake for both
government researchers and private industries.

They never have a consistent message. We had dire declarations since the turn
of the century and many lined up behind those. This particular article is a
gross simplification that attempts to dismiss common arguments against by
associating them with frivolous arguments. It seeks to minimize without
informing. Its pretty but not accurate. There are hundreds if not thousands of
scientists who all apparently have different views on what contributes, how
much it does, and so on.

So yeah the climate is changing, but it has been doing so forever and there
have been historically proven changes greater that what we are seeing now and
with man here as well.

Simply put, we don't know all the variables and those who declare we do are
more ignorant than those who deny any effect.

~~~
loganu
"...don't mistake for a moment, this is an industry with great profits at
stake for both government researchers and private industries."

Do you really think that there is a wide-reaching global conspiracy for
environmentalists, researchers, and scientists to propagate a myth solely for
their own well-being and job security? That no one would blow the whistle?

"Simply put, we don't know all the variables and those who declare we do are
more ignorant than those who deny any effect."

Who has said "we know all the variables"? The current scientific consensus is:
A) the climate is changing (you and everyone agrees) B) We're the most likely
cause (most denialists and the IPCC conensus agree) ... and C) we have reason
to believe that carbon dioxide / greenhouse gases are the leading contributor.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who all apparently have
different views on what contributes, how much it does, and so on."

Wikipedia lists 27 scientists that have published studies claiming natural
causes for climate change. (A very quick search shows that at least 2 of them
were paid/funded by the Heartland Institute) A couple dozen others fall into
"the concerns are overstated" or "we don't know the causes." On the other
hand, the 2007 IPCC report had 619 contributors lending their support. A small
amount of scientists working on different theories, or being paid to discredit
others shouldn't negate a global scientific consensus.

------
phkahler
Deforestation? They reject this because we replace forest with light
reflecting materials which they claim causes slight cooling. Last time I
checked, it's way cooler in a forest than standing in a parking lot. Nature
uses the energy from sunlight to create biomass. Anything else either reflects
it or turns it to heat.

~~~
asgard1024
> Last time I checked, it's way cooler in a forest than standing in a parking
> lot.

Perhaps you forgot to account for the shade and humidity? (As an aside, I
believe forests generate heat, just like any biological system. The best it
can be seen during spring, the snow patches around plants will melt sooner.)

~~~
phkahler
Nope. From a thermodynamic analysis, the energy is either reflected, turned
into heat, or used to do work. Forests use more for work than any static
object. The only open question in my mind is how much so. You do raise the
point of emitting water vapor which adds a lot to the complexity. Also the
rotting biomass will produce a lot of heat. But the production of dirt is
probably still a net use of the energy. Remember, coal is old biomass and
contains a lot of energy that came from the sun.

>> As an aside, I believe forests generate heat, just like any biological
system.

You would be wrong in that. All chemical processes in the forest are
ultimately powered by sunlight. Your body produces heat, but that's due to
chemical reactions that primarily amount to burning fuel (fats are essentially
hydrocarbons and the primary products of their "burning" is CO2 and H20 which
exit through the lungs). Animals turn chemical energy into heat, but plants
turn energy from light into chemical energy.

~~~
asgard1024
> Animals turn chemical energy into heat, but plants turn energy from light
> into chemical energy.

They do, but the heat is byproduct of that conversion. From the 2nd law of
thermodynamics there will always be some residual heat (probably quite a lot,
efficiency is given by the ratio of absolute temperatures between the heater
and cooler, which is quite low in plants). And don't forget that plants also
burn sugars to feed their processes. As I said, you can see for yourself in
early spring that plants do indeed generate more heat than surrounding dead
objects, such as rocks.

In any case, forests have, I believe, lower albedo than deforested landscape,
so deforestation should cool the planet if anything. And one of the big
arguments for global warming is that we observe more warming during the night,
during the winter, towards poles and stratospheric cooling, which is again
indicative that the problem is outgoing radiation being recaptured rather than
more incoming radiation being reflected.

------
savanaly
I don't deny man made climate change, but this argument seems to be weak. Just
because two factors go up at the same time doesn't mean one caused the other.
See [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations). It is
necessary but not sufficient to show that greenhouse gases went up in concert
with global temperatures.

Not that one expects them to lay our a sweeping, thorough case for man made
climate change in such an article, which would be an unfair expectation. It
seems more like a showcase for the bit of javascript razzle dazzle than
anything else, as other commenters pointed out, surely no one involved with
this article expected it to change anyone's mind one way or the other.

~~~
drjesusphd
The fact that trace amounts of greenhouse gases can heat the atmosphere is
physics. With numbers and everything.

------
phkahler
Notably absent is con-trails. The jury is still out, but there is strong
evidence that they can have a significant effect. The rise of jet travel has
also coincided with hydrocarbon use. Water vapor is also a much stronger
greenhouse gas than CO2.

~~~
IanDrake
Con-trail data would match the CO2 and temperature line. It would show another
correlation that might call into question the validity of the absolute
undeniable fact that CO2's correlation is causation.

There are people with simple minds that would then question CO2's role in
Global Warming. We can't give those deniers anything else to hang their hat
on.

It's the same reason we need to use the "Land Use" data instead of
deforestation data. It would just confuse the non-believers. It's better to
keep it simple and stay on message.

~~~
buckbova
> We can't give those deniers anything else to hang their hat on.

Is this sarcasm? I can understand this kind of nonsense on r/politics but we
should be speaking plainly and of facts at HN. I hope HN isn't turning into
another propaganda machine hivemind.

~~~
IanDrake
Sarcasm? Yes it was; I was just testing a social hypotheses I had.

------
de_Selby
The deforestation graph only seems to account for the difference in emissivity
between forest and grassland.

Surely the CO2 absorption and the effects of forestation on cloud cover would
have a non-negligible effect.

------
cletus
There are three things that bother me about climate science.

1\. Certainly in years past, anyone who even dared question that global
warming wasn't real or wasn't man made was lambasted. That's not science.
That's religion. Even just asking questions gets you labelled a denier. These,
to me, have been and are reasonable questions to ask:

\- On what basis are we saying the earth is warming? Datasets for the last 1-2
centuries are still pretty narrow compared to how old the earth is and how hot
and cold it has been at various points;

\- Is that warming, if proven, man-made? It's reasonable to investigate other
possible factors that may well add to the effect caused by man;

\- Can we even do anything about it if it is? How expensive will it be?

\- What, if any, are the good effects of climate change? It can't be all bad
but it just bothers me when I see things talking about how it will hurt, say,
North America. But will it makes other parts of the world, currently largely
uninhabitable, more hospitable?

I'm actually genuinely curious about these and other questions and it bothers
me that even asking them is a problem.

2\. The lack of transparency. This goes beyond climate science actually but
any published thesis or study on the subject should make data sets publicly
available and--this one is really important--make any code for any computer
models open source. Transparency and reproducibility are at the heart of
scientific method are they not?

There have been incidents (eg climategate) where no scientific misconduct was
found but the text of certain emails really leaves a bad taste in my mouth
because it reads very much like "here's the conclusion, now let's prove it".

3\. The history of climate predictions has been pretty terrible and each time
we're told "no trust us, this time it's totally different".

It's not that I don't believe in man-made climate change. I actually think
whether or not it's true it's probably largely irrelevant. There are simply
too many of us and we're running out of too many things in the coming
centuries that this will be corrected one way or another in such a way that
climate change--true or not--will be the least of our problems.

One of the interesting and depressing explanations for the Fermi Paradox is
that the sphere of influence of life is ultimately capped by the speed of
light, which is geometric, and life expands exponentially. Life always catches
up eventually.

You see this in nature where algae blooms for example will explode in rivers
killing all other life until they themselves can't survive and they all die.
In more balanced ecosystems there are other factors to keep any one species in
check. It really seems like nothing is keeping up in check now so are we just
another algae bloom?

~~~
drjesusphd
> On what basis are we saying the earth is warming?

Physics.

> Can we even do anything about it if it is? How expensive will it be? > \-
> What, if any, are the good effects of climate change? It can't be all bad
> but it just bothers me when I see things talking about how it will hurt,
> say, North America. But will it makes other parts of the world, currently
> largely uninhabitable, more hospitable?

These are great questions, but they have nothing to do with the reality of
what's happening. Unfortunately, we're distracted from this very important
conversation if we do not agree on the basic facts.

------
dnautics
What about agricultural water output?? Inverse of the deforestation curve
already shown is also potentially convincing.

If you want to go spurious, you could also run a correlation between wind
power generation.

------
alecco
The documentary Merchants of Doubt (2014) provides a great look into paid
shills on US media. They aim for confusion and they've been doing this kind of
work for a long time.

------
Benjamin_Dobell
By no means suggesting CO2 isn't responsible for global warming - quite
frankly I have zero idea, I just try listen to what the experts say. However,
this article in particular is pretty offensively stupid. It shows some graphs
that indicate a correlation between CO2 and heat increase. That's by no means
scientific evidence for a _cause_. Again, not saying there isn't any evidence
CO2 is the cause, it's just this article is incredibly misleading.

------
warcode
So what they are saying is that we should be pumping large amounts of Aerosols
into the atmosphere?

I think we need less confirmations that there is a problem and more solutions
to the problem.

------
donatj
I am not a scientist but I've always had a sneaking suspicion that blacktop
converting light from the sun into heat had something to do with it. I'd
actually LOVE to hear what a scientist thought of this hypothesis.

I also wonder if all the coal we material we burned for heat (coal and such)
didn't have a cooling effect - particularly in the cities where a lot of the
accurate temperature measures were taken. Again, not a scientist - truly
curiously.

------
stillsut
GHG seems to match Temperature quite well. But GHG is cut-off at the year
2000. I wonder if the closeness of the fit continues?

Also, what's up with the error bars around GHG's? Is there really that much
uncertainty surrounding CO2 concentration in the atmosphere? I thought
readings were accurate to ~1ppm where the trend is currently +3ppm/year so why
are the observations (in the modern sensor era) uuncertain by about ~45ppm?

------
fasteo
I am not negating the global warming issue here, but what I see is just a
correlation of two time series, much like the correlation between "US Spending
on science, space and technology" and "Suicides by hanging, strangulation or
suffocation" [1]

[1] [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

~~~
Daishiman
This is going to sound harsh, but what you are doing is _exactly_ what climate
denialists do.

You question on correlation of variables has not only been asked; it has been
reformulated tens of thousands of times by climate scientists and experts in
all sorts of related fields.

By asking a question like this you're directly undermining the quality of
reasearch that has been _extremely_ solid on the matter. Correlation of
variables would be an issue if we were just looking at data to infer an
explanation. Physicists have known the effects of radiative forcing of CO2 and
methane because it has been observed in laboratory settings, and that
knowledge has been extrapolated to models of the entire world.

The equation of "heat in, heat out" corresponds exactly as predicted. Of
course, the Earth's atmosphere and ocean are so complex that this effect is
not seen uniformly. The challenge is in accounting what heats up and how
quickly. We know, for example, that the oceans hold far more heat than the
atmosphere. We're in the process of understanding how ocean currents affect
and are affected by that. But overall there is no possibility of debate as to
how CO2 affects the atmosphere and oceans. The thing is that the nuances are
so significant for having a useful understanding of climate that many details
are still missing. What we _do_ know has been extremely useful and clarifying
of how these events are going to play out.

~~~
fasteo
>>> This is going to sound harsh

By no means.

Note that I am not a climate denialist, but I generally find very little
critical thinking when scientists presents climate forecasts for the next 20,
or 50 or 100 years.

Please see my response to drjesusphd below for a more balanced response to
this particular NASA chart.

------
justsaying1
[http://i.imgur.com/NZbqqEl.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/NZbqqEl.jpg)

------
Plough_Jogger
It would be helpful to know more specifically what the final green line is
actually representing; 'shows the influence of greenhouse gases' is a pretty
major divergence from the specific quantitative measurements used in every
other line.

------
Geee
Note that these graphs explain the factors of the simulation model, and is not
comparing data to data.

From the FAQ:

"The colored temperature lines are the modeled estimates that each climate
factor contributes to the overall temperature."

------
mathattack
Slightly off-topic - can anyone explain the tool utilized for these graphics?

------
upofadown
Unrelated, but this part amused me in that it was probably intended to be an
argument _for_ the quality of the model:

>ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, ...

------
Pxtl
Scroll-to-page for this vis is horribly broken on Firefox - there's a very
narrow gap in the scrolling where the header paragraphs are visible.

~~~
ubercow13
Agreed, I can't actually read this article at all using my mouse scroll wheel.
There's no way to get some of the text on the screen.

------
galois198
Re the past proxy data, and possibly the recent data, why is the assumption
that causation follows gas->temp and not temp(unknown_var)->gas?

------
wdr1
Honest question: This data is correlational, and I always thought it was
important to distinguish between correlation & causation?

~~~
Faint
Generally causation and correlation can only be distinguished by running
experiments. Given that we only have 1 earth climate, long time needed to
gather reliable results, and the quite apparent correlation, which experiment
would you like to run for next 50 years, slow down co2 output to see if
climate warming slows down, or continue increasing co2 output, and see where
that leads?

Infact, increasing co2 output would be kind of boring experiment, we've tried
that already.

------
jgrowl
What exactly are they measuring for the sun's data? Observed temperature? Is
the frequency/intensity of CME's included?

~~~
hisabness
my question too. a small change in the measure for solar could be more
impactful than a large change in greenhouse gases.

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beastman82
So CO2 it is. Can we use nuclear power now? Surely its problems are easier to
solve.

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williesleg
I'm just so utterly amazed that they could measure temperature with such
precision for so many years. I'd imagine rooms full of temperature calculator
people crunching numbers from their precise temperature measuring instruments.
Bravo!

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darkstar999
At this point, any rational person understands the problem. Ok. We get it.

So how do we fix it? It seems like everyone is focusing on proving that it is
caused by humans, but where is the solution?

~~~
buckbova
With taxes of course.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading)

~~~
darkstar999
Ok, so they collect a massive amount of taxes. Then what?

~~~
joeclark77
Enact the rest of the left's policy goals, of course. Don't ask why. IT'S THE
SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS you denier.

~~~
darkstar999
Oh come on. I'm trying to have a legitimate conversation here.

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random28345
That's one way for NASA to lose funding.

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cdoelling
This is a great simple UX to have the conversation.

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nlake44
How can mankind, overnight stop exponential (that famous hockey stick everyone
likes to see) oxygen growth? Very suspicious. There are some pretty bad
sources of information out there about oxygen over time. Here is one I trust:
[http://dk6qunh1hkthr.cloudfront.net/content/nips/25/5/272/F1...](http://dk6qunh1hkthr.cloudfront.net/content/nips/25/5/272/F1.medium.gif)

------
lerpa
So, a graph and no units. Wonderful. As far as I know we're talking squirrels
per cubic meter equivalent production of CO2 lol

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carsongross
And, since we are allowed to use graphs rhetorically rather than discuss
complicated topics like adults... what's _really_ causing the murder rate to
decline?

[http://gizmodo.com/5977989/internet-explorer-vs-murder-
rate-...](http://gizmodo.com/5977989/internet-explorer-vs-murder-rate-will-be-
your-favorite-chart-today)

~~~
coldpie
Are you really going to suggest that data suggesting causation that has been
contributed by hundreds and reviewed by literally thousands of scientists
shares equal validity as an obviously facetious graph created to make a point
about not suggesting causal relationships lightly?

------
moubarak
i read an article a while back on the economist which suggested that if you
look at a longer span (much longer than 1880) you will find that this is a
natural cycle that the Earth/Sun go through. We just happen to be at that
point in the cycle. i really doubt we humans can affect climate changes in any
way. An interactive colourful plot doesn't convince me.

~~~
batou
Indeed.

Didn't Feynman say that the real measure of science is experiment?

Show me the experiments otherwise we have merely observations and conjecture.

They might be right, but at the moment we've established hypothesis and
nothing more.

~~~
yequalsx
We humans are right now conducting the experiment. Despite empirical evidence,
data, modeling, and application of our knowledge the effects of green house
gases we continue to pump them into the atmosphere on a massive scale. In
another 30 - 40 years the experiment will yield conclusive results. Then I
suppose global warming deniers like Rush Limbaugh will shrug their shoulders
and say, "Well, we now have our experimental evidence."

~~~
batou
I look forward to the results however I'm not sure they stand as an unbiased
controlled experiment and are as factually devoid as the methodology.

Many things are observable but the difference between correlation and
causation are somewhat more subtle.

Please note, I'm no denier and think that we should reduce our emissions as
they have secondary benefits, fully acknowledge that there is a slight raise
in global temperature but to assign a cause is a little premature.

Add to that the incidental political involvement, funding and the 'facts' (of
incidentally we have none, nor many viable theories) leads to a logical
conclusion that "mu" (neither yes or no) is a better stance to take.

