Reddit’s science forum banned climate deniers.

[Wilikon]

Interesting article.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-not-settled-1411143565

For instance, global climate models describe the Earth on a grid that is currently limited by computer capabilities to a resolution of no finer than 60 miles. (The distance from New York City to Washington, D.C., is thus covered by only four grid cells.) But processes such as cloud formation, turbulence and rain all happen on much smaller scales. These critical processes then appear in the model only through adjustable assumptions that specify, for example, how the average cloud cover depends on a grid box's average temperature and humidity. In a given model, dozens of such assumptions must be adjusted ("tuned," in the jargon of modelers) to reproduce both current observations and imperfectly known historical records.

One part of this entire process that is worth mentioning is the use of "ensembles" of computer models.  For example, the recent IPCC reports use an "ensemble of 55 models."

Now, is that better, or worse?  Is that like picking 55 Republicans, to get a "True" feeling for what a Republican is?  Because obviously that would give the power of picking the results to the person picking the 55.

And why would some sort of "ensemble" be better than a single, correct model, anyway?   Or if they are all wrong, is it okay to average the wrongness?

Why are you such racist? Is it because planet earth has a blue skin? Do you want mother earth to have a Red Skin like mars? Those 55 computer models create jobs for a lot of people. Why do you want those jobs to be taken away by oversea workers, killing the economy? Don't you love your fellow citizen more than them? A lot of adjusted maths went into creating a perfect hockey stick curve, proving it is time to stop the madness of wrong thinkers. We need to share the wealth but also the misery we created to mother earth. Our joy of life kills mother earth. We need to make mother earth happy again, and bluer than ever. With a rejuvenating skin. The 55 computer models are the Nivea cream of planet earth. Why are you breathing the air mother earth gives you without a just compensation to her? A tax to help compensate all those hard working people on those 55 computer models needs to be created.

Our 56th computer model is working on a tax solution right now....

 

Now that "they"ve succeeded in taxing the air you breathe how's the sunlight tax coming along?

I am shocked, shocked I am, and humiliated.  That my errors would be shown so very fast and easily.  Yet it remains for me to seek redemption by helping.

I suggest a combined climate and tax model as the next step, one which would tax based on the adjusted temperatures, and which would forecast accurately into the future, accuracy of forecasts being judged by closeness to adjusted numbers.  These important aspects of our lives would be handled by Government Adjusters, who in their professional capacity had acquired the knowledge and skill to tweak. 

We couldn't just have any old twit or twat tweaking the tweaks.

The saddest part is: everything I wrote was met with a "Wow! So true! Why didn't I think of that?" by all the Algoreans reading this thread... If you ever see anyone mentioning racism against planet earth in the future then you'll know...


 

[galdur]

Can We Give Everyone A Smart Phone And Still Stop Global Warming?

Maybe, but it’s going to be impossible without using all the low-carbon energy sources we have available. Information and communication technologies require a lot of power.

The world’s population is rapidly gaining access to the internet via smartphones and various new devices. According to Greenpeace, global mobile data increased by over 60% in 2014 alone, and is expected to maintain this level of growth for the next several years. The human online population topped 3 billion in 2014, but should exceed 7 billion by 2020.

Along with this increase, comes a parallel increase in online’s carbon footprint. Most of our electricity still comes from fossil fuel, and the developing world is increasing the use of coal faster than ever.

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and more zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/06/01/can-we-give-everyone-a-smart-phone-and-still-stop-global-warming/

[Wilikon]

Can We Give Everyone A Smart Phone And Still Stop Global Warming?

Maybe, but it’s going to be impossible without using all the low-carbon energy sources we have available. Information and communication technologies require a lot of power.

The world’s population is rapidly gaining access to the internet via smartphones and various new devices. According to Greenpeace, global mobile data increased by over 60% in 2014 alone, and is expected to maintain this level of growth for the next several years. The human online population topped 3 billion in 2014, but should exceed 7 billion by 2020.

Along with this increase, comes a parallel increase in online’s carbon footprint. Most of our electricity still comes from fossil fuel, and the developing world is increasing the use of coal faster than ever.

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and more zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/06/01/can-we-give-everyone-a-smart-phone-and-still-stop-global-warming/

Does anyone knows what the carbon foot print of bitcointalk.org is? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't forget to adjust the equation with a .04 multiplier for my threads  

[galdur]

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

Yes, and all the attention is on those evil greenhouse gases from all that coal and about none obviously on the goody goody healthy stuff like Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen oxides,  soot, Mercury and Arsenic.

[hdbuck]

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

Yes, and all the attention is on those evil greenhouse gases from all that coal and about none obviously on the goody goody healthy stuff like Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen oxides,  soot, Mercury and Arsenic.

you forgot nuclear mother-of-all radiations.

[galdur]

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

Yes, and all the attention is on those evil greenhouse gases from all that coal and about none obviously on the goody goody healthy stuff like Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen oxides,  soot, Mercury and Arsenic.

you forgot nuclear mother-of-all radiations.

Nuclear radiation comes from burning coal? Wasn´t aware of that. I guess it can be possible. Is that something meaningful at all anyway?

[Wilikon]

Climate change means rain is returning to previously drought-stricken areas of Africa exactly 30 years since Live Aid raised £150million to help starving people there, a new study has revealed.

A severe lack of rainfall during the 1970s and 80s led to a persistent drought and famine, killing more than 100,00 people in countries such as Ethiopia.

The crisis prompted singers Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to organise the Live Aid concerts in July 1985 to raise cash for the relief fund.

But now research by scientists at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading, has shown how increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have caused climate change, have triggered a return of crucial seasonal rains to the Sahel region.

The researchers used a supercomputer climate simulator to study different influences on North African rainfall.

And when they examined the increases in rainfall since the 1980s, they found around three-quarters of the additional rain was caused by rising greenhouse gas concentrations.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3105940/Climate-change-bringing-rain-Africa-30-years-Live-Aid-tried-help-end-famine.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer model #69

[hdbuck]

Yes, contrary to what we would like, the use of coal worldwide is increasing more than all other energy sources combined (!) – much faster than renewables – and even faster than natural gas, the number two growing source. .......

Yes, and all the attention is on those evil greenhouse gases from all that coal and about none obviously on the goody goody healthy stuff like Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen oxides,  soot, Mercury and Arsenic.

you forgot nuclear mother-of-all radiations.

Nuclear radiation comes from burning coal? Wasn´t aware of that. I guess it can be possible. Is that something meaningful at all anyway?

ah no, i was not talking about coal plants. just the radiations amongst them rich nuclear plants. toxic wastes et al.

[tvbcof]

Nuclear radiation comes from burning coal? Wasn´t aware of that. I guess it can be possible. Is that something meaningful at all anyway?

ah no, i was not talking about coal plants. just the radiations amongst them rich nuclear plants. toxic wastes et al.

IIRC, quite a lot more radioactive material is put into the atmosphere from coal than from nuclear...until the nuclear plant has an accident at that is.  Unfortunately such an event sometimes makes the surrounding land unsuitable for human habitation.

I'm not sure if that figure includes the processing required to mine and refine nuclear fuel, deal with the nuclear waste, etc but I would expect that coal continues to lead the race by some margin one way or another.  Another issue is that different elements and isotopes are more and less dangerous due to their half-lives, bio-availability, etc.

That said, so what?  Even if coal puts radioactive material into the atmosphere that in and of itself does not constitute a reason to be alarmed.  One would have to look at the numbers.  The number of person-years increase by having access to affordable energy from coal outweighs the decrease from cancer due to the excess radiation by a giant margin I am sure, and especially so in the developing world.  Of course this is not necessarily a good thing to someone who thinks there are already to many people and wishes the human population to decrease, and that sentiment is hardly unusual in some circles.

I did a brief search to see if I was remembering things about right.  Seems so:  http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/do-coal-plants-release-more-radiation-than-nuclear-power-plants

[hdbuck]

Nuclear radiation comes from burning coal? Wasn´t aware of that. I guess it can be possible. Is that something meaningful at all anyway?

ah no, i was not talking about coal plants. just the radiations amongst them rich nuclear plants. toxic wastes et al.

IIRC, quite a lot more radioactive material is put into the atmosphere from coal than from nuclear...until the nuclear plant has an accident at that is.  Unfortunately such an event sometimes makes the surrounding land unsuitable for human habitation.

I'm not sure if that figure includes the processing required to mine and refine nuclear fuel, deal with the nuclear waste, etc but I would expect that coal continues to lead the race by some margin one way or another.  Another issue is that different elements and isotopes are more and less dangerous due to their half-lives, bio-availability, etc.

That said, so what?  Even if coal puts radioactive material into the atmosphere that in and of itself does not constitute a reason to be alarmed.  One would have to look at the numbers.  The number of person-years increase by having access to affordable energy from coal outweighs the decrease from cancer due to the excess radiation by a giant margin I am sure, and especially so in the developing world.  Of course this is not necessarily a good thing to someone who thinks there are already to many people and wishes the human population to decrease, and that sentiment is hardly unusual in some circles.

I did a brief search to see if I was remembering things about right.  Seems so:  http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/do-coal-plants-release-more-radiation-than-nuclear-power-plants

mymy interesting, i did not know.

tho i live in a country leading the nuclear industry. so im more concerned about it (i am not a antinuclear nerd tho), but having friends working there.. seems next radioactive meltdown is to be on France's soil because all them bureaucrats refuses to lead change and close the 40+ years plants. instead they are patchworking, because, well, profit.. idiots.

edit: speaking of which, have you ever heard of "cold fusion"? i'm just diggin some stuff around the internet but i'd appreciate your inputs on it.
also, i heard scientists working on "duplicating" the sun somehow to investigate new energy streams.. this is scary.  

[Spendulus]

Nuclear radiation comes from burning coal? Wasn´t aware of that. I guess it can be possible. Is that something meaningful at all anyway?

ah no, i was not talking about coal plants. just the radiations amongst them rich nuclear plants. toxic wastes et al.

IIRC, quite a lot more radioactive material is put into the atmosphere from coal than from nuclear...until the nuclear plant has an accident at that is.  Unfortunately such an event sometimes makes the surrounding land unsuitable for human habitation.

I'm not sure if that figure includes the processing required to mine and refine nuclear fuel, deal with the nuclear waste, etc but I would expect that coal continues to lead the race by some margin one way or another.  Another issue is that different elements and isotopes are more and less dangerous due to their half-lives, bio-availability, etc.

That said, so what?  Even if coal puts radioactive material into the atmosphere that in and of itself does not constitute a reason to be alarmed.  One would have to look at the numbers.  The number of person-years increase by having access to affordable energy from coal outweighs the decrease from cancer due to the excess radiation by a giant margin I am sure, and especially so in the developing world.  Of course this is not necessarily a good thing to someone who thinks there are already to many people and wishes the human population to decrease, and that sentiment is hardly unusual in some circles.

I did a brief search to see if I was remembering things about right.  Seems so:  http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/do-coal-plants-release-more-radiation-than-nuclear-power-plants

Coal is worse than nuclear power, even including the history of nuclear accidents.

[galdur]

Well, I guess hell will freeze over before corporate media and corporate-owned politicians are much concerned about pollution from coal. Except those horrible greenhouse gases of course. Which they call pollution to divert attention away from the real thing.

[tvbcof]

Coal is worse than nuclear power, even including the history of nuclear accidents.

I'm guessing you didn't own a farm in the Fukushima prefecture or on the border between Ukraine and Belarus.  Probably didn't spend much time working as a 'liquidator' (aka, 'bio-robot') either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkbVsGUtACs

I have always been tentatively pro-nukes, and to some degree I still am.  I've spent a fair amount of time studying the topic because it interests me.  My stance toward nuclear energy is tempered by my belief that most current civilian nuclear programs are probably more about stratigic military needs than about energy production, and the observation that regulatory oversight in most political systems has some very big weaknesses.

I was flat out lied to about boiling water reactor technology of the type used at Fukushima (and all over the place here in the U.S.) and I mostly believed it.  That hurts and I do not forgive nor forget such insults easily.

[tvbcof]

...
edit: speaking of which, have you ever heard of "cold fusion"? i'm just diggin some stuff around the internet but i'd appreciate your inputs on it.
also, i heard scientists working on "duplicating" the sun somehow to investigate new energy streams.. this is scary.  

My knowledge is not at all deep.  I believe that the Pons-Fleschman stuff was a result of simple poor science or scammery.  Nothing viable there.  Muon catalyzed cold fusion took a hit in the fiasco.  There was progress being made on that front, but they probably don't have the potential to amount to anything terribly useful insofar as energy production.  I hold some hope that something else more promising along these lines may come up but am not holding my breath.

It probably is the case that more-or-less conventional fission or non-cold fusion can be made pretty safe and solve our energy needs, but there are certain economical and political reasons why the 'problem' and 'solution' are not as clearly defined as man-on-the-street logic might indicate.

I never bought the environmentalist's BS about nuclear waste being much of a problem.  To the extent that it is a problem this is because most countries need to keep it around to keep our nuclear weapons stockpiles healthy and we do so on the cheap (e.g., storing it in pools on the top floor of a reactor building for many years.)

[galdur]

Blame it on The Blob.

Australians shiver through coldest winter morning in 30 years

Sydney was blanketed in frost on Wednesday as the city shivered through the coldest June morning in nearly 30 years, with temperatures at just 4C (39F). ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/7863227/Australians-shiver-through-coldest-winter-morning-in-30-years.html

[galdur]

The Blob also wreaking havoc on the other side of the world

“I’ve been in this job for many years, and in my time we have never had to close because of bad weather in June, but today we had no choice,” says Tor Helge Tveit, who has coordinated plowing service on Hardangervidda many years. Snow driver: “Never experienced anything like this before”:

http://www.nrk.no/buskerud/broytesjafor_-_-aldri-opplevd-maken-1.12387642

Drivers stranded in snow on the first of June:

http://theforeigner.no/pages/news-in-brief/june-snow-stranded-39/

http://www.nrk.no/sognogfjordane/har-broyta-sognefjellet-i-25-ar---aldri-opplevd-liknande-kaos-1.12389379

German couple stuck in snow for 9 hours:

http://www.nrk.no/sognogfjordane/sat-fast-i-ni-timar-pa-tindevegen-1.12389549

[galdur]

Could this be the beginning of a new glacier in Boston?

Filthy snow piles remain, even as temperatures climb

By Steve Annear GLOBE STAFF  MAY 27, 2015

They’re unsightly, filled with garbage and debris, and serve as a daily reminder of just how awful the winter really was — and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Lingering snow piles from the historic New England winter continue to plague municipalities in Greater Boston, even as temperatures creep toward the 90s and spring makes way for summer.

In Boston, what was once a 75-foot-high snow mound on a parcel of land on Tide Street in the Seaport District has been reduced to a three-story pile of dirt and discarded household items that remain encrusted in solid ice. But even with the beating rays from the sun, nothing seems to be powerful enough to zap away winter.

“The fact that it’s still there is a science experiment waiting to happen,” said Michael Dennehy, commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Works. Dennehy said the snow mound, which dates to January, looks more like a landfill, thanks to all of the objects left on the streets and scooped up by plows before being dumped.

Crews have been working for six weeks to clean away the trash as it breaks free from the mound. So far, they have pulled 85 tons of debris from the pile, he said.

“It’s vile,” he said. “We’re finding crazy stuff; bicycles, orange cones that people used as space savers — the funniest thing they found was half of a $5 bill. They’re looking for the other half still.”

The snow has lingered so long that crews even started a pool to guess when it will finally vanish. Dennehy is losing.

“I said by May 30, but that’s this weekend,” he said. “It’s still weeks away from melting.”

Somerville also has remnants of the winter haunting the city. Over by Assembly Row, on a state-owned piece of land, two piles of snow stand, looking more like small, ash-covered volcanoes.

“It’s like a wintertime snow pile’s evil twin. It’s dirty, and there’s a reasonable amount of trash there,” said Denise Taylor, spokeswoman for the city.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/27/filthy-boston-snow-piles-remain-even-temperatures-climb/GM4kEb7LvyycXEvF1XyCXK/story.html?p1=Article_InThisSection_Bottom

[galdur]

Senator: Use RICO Laws to Prosecute Global Warming Skeptics

1:45 PM, JUN 2, 2015 • BY MARK HEMINGWAY

Writing in the Washington Post, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, offered a curious suggestion for dealing with global warming skeptics:

In 2006, Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decided that the tobacco companies’ fraudulent campaign amounted to a racketeering enterprise. According to the court: “Defendants coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of a shared objective — to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes through a scheme to deceive the public.” zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz more...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sen-whitehouse-d-ri-suggests-using-rico-laws-global-warming-skeptics_963007.html

[hdbuck]

Could this be the beginning of a new glacier in Boston?

Filthy snow piles remain, even as temperatures climb

By Steve Annear GLOBE STAFF  MAY 27, 2015

They’re unsightly, filled with garbage and debris, and serve as a daily reminder of just how awful the winter really was — and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Lingering snow piles from the historic New England winter continue to plague municipalities in Greater Boston, even as temperatures creep toward the 90s and spring makes way for summer.

In Boston, what was once a 75-foot-high snow mound on a parcel of land on Tide Street in the Seaport District has been reduced to a three-story pile of dirt and discarded household items that remain encrusted in solid ice. But even with the beating rays from the sun, nothing seems to be powerful enough to zap away winter.

“The fact that it’s still there is a science experiment waiting to happen,” said Michael Dennehy, commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Works. Dennehy said the snow mound, which dates to January, looks more like a landfill, thanks to all of the objects left on the streets and scooped up by plows before being dumped.

Crews have been working for six weeks to clean away the trash as it breaks free from the mound. So far, they have pulled 85 tons of debris from the pile, he said.

“It’s vile,” he said. “We’re finding crazy stuff; bicycles, orange cones that people used as space savers — the funniest thing they found was half of a $5 bill. They’re looking for the other half still.”

The snow has lingered so long that crews even started a pool to guess when it will finally vanish. Dennehy is losing.

“I said by May 30, but that’s this weekend,” he said. “It’s still weeks away from melting.”

Somerville also has remnants of the winter haunting the city. Over by Assembly Row, on a state-owned piece of land, two piles of snow stand, looking more like small, ash-covered volcanoes.

“It’s like a wintertime snow pile’s evil twin. It’s dirty, and there’s a reasonable amount of trash there,” said Denise Taylor, spokeswoman for the city.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/27/filthy-boston-snow-piles-remain-even-temperatures-climb/GM4kEb7LvyycXEvF1XyCXK/story.html?p1=Article_InThisSection_Bottom

considering the carp they've been sparying up their heads, no wonder snowflakes turn ciment when drying.

[galdur]

Another global warming catastrophe:

Manitoba freeze damages 50 to 60 percent of canola fields

JUNE 3, 2015

Last weekend’s cold weather has caused significant damage to canola fields across southern Manitoba, leaving many area farmers filing insurance claims and reseeding.
Seeding in the southwest region was close to complete Saturday when frost blanketed the area. Temperatures across the province dropped below zero early Saturday morning with several areas, including Brandon, recording a temperature of -4 C. Most of southwest Manitoba experienced temperatures between -1 and -3 C.

http://www.brandonsun.com/local/frost-forces-farmers-to-reseed-canola-305938271.html