Hurricane Patricia - Most dangerous tropical cyclone ever recorded

[surtur]

plus, this storm is way down in Mexico!  Who cares about something does nothing to affect us here in Vancouver?  I think lots of people here welcome a bit warmer weather.  It means we can grow better food, and get new types of fish.  It all sounds good for us here. Screw the other beggars.

im not in van but up north we will take all the  warm weather we can get. 

[Alflives]

im not in van but up north we will take all the  warm weather we can get. 

that's my point exactly.  Why the hell should we care about burning FFs when this climate change stuff is benefitting us?  Too bad for those in those already hot spots.  That's life.

[MadMonk]

with varying degrees of change not ever a constant. show me some data that shows an ever constant change with out varying extremes in either direction localized over short amounts of time.  Just like short term weather long term suffers the same ups and downs. 

The point is that natural climate change occurs at a much slower pace: getting out of the last glacial period took 10,000 years, and the earth warmed 3 degrees in the process; we are looking at 3 degrees in 100 years.

 

Blue and green are historical temperature reconstructions based on proxies, the sharp increase is a combination of measured and  projected temperature increase up to 2100.

burning of fossil fuels is only credited with speeding this process up it was going to happen with human help or not and we are not at the level of intelligence and evolution that our technology can control the entire planets climate in either direction to prevent what would normally occure. we can help speed it up or slow it down but with our current technology we can not prevent or reverse the natural cycle.

You statement would be true for pre-1940, i.e. the planet was naturally warming and CO2 amplified it. However past 1940 the natural forces (sun + volcanoes) act to cool the planet, and thus the warming is almost certainly due to human activity alone:

The physics underlying global warming is pretty clear: while we may not be able to precisely control the global temperature, the amount of CO2 + other greenhouse gas is certainly sufficient to have a larger effect on climate (at least on 100-1000 year time scales) than some of the natural forces. 

 

 

[LaBamba]

Natural cycle or climate change.

What difference does it make?  

Just enjoy the ride. 

[John Tortorella]

And here we go again.

his statement is accurate

 

[John Tortorella]

plus, this storm is way down in Mexico!  Who cares about something does nothing to affect us here in Vancouver?  I think lots of people here welcome a bit warmer weather.  It means we can grow better food, and get new types of fish.  It all sounds good for us here. Screw the other beggars.

lol @ idea of balance. Warmer summers = warmer winters = warmer summers = warmer winters = water shortage. 

i imagine the equation is somewhat like that. 

[babych]

read A Mote in God's Eye.  It's very prophetic, and startling.

Is that Niven? If so, I recall reading it many years ago but honestly don't remember anything about it...

[MadMonk]

Natural cycle or climate change.

What difference does it make?  

Just enjoy the ride. 

If it on the whole it brings more harm than good, and it is within our powers to mitigate or reverse anthropogenic climate change, then of course there is a difference

[Alflives]

Is that Niven? If so, I recall reading it many years ago but honestly don't remember anything about it...

Niven and Pournel.  An Alien tells the tale of a great society that goes "crazy Ivan"; kills itself off, and then rebuilds.  If I remember the cycle was about every 10,000 years.  We are heading to a "crazy Ivan".  Then we'll rebuild and self destruct again.  

[Alflives]

lol @ idea of balance. Warmer summers = warmer winters = warmer summers = warmer winters = water shortage. 

i imagine the equation is somewhat like that. 

I'll be long dead and buried before any bad stuff happens here, while living here to reap the benefits.  It's win win for me!

[Mike Vanderhoek]

I'll be long dead and buried before any bad stuff happens here, while living here to reap the benefits.  It's win win for me!

very sad statement to hear.

 

So anybody actually have anything to bring to the table here on the actual storm or damage or loss of life ?

[Alflives]

 

very sad statement to hear.

 

So anybody actually have anything to bring to the table here on the actual storm or damage or loss of life ?

nope.  But warmer winters for us.  I don't see why this is bad, to want our country to do well?  We are the bread basket of the world, and we will add the fruit basket too.  More wealthy people from all over the world will flock here, and we will benefit from all that.  Why is this sad?

[babych]

Niven and Pournel.  An Alien tells the tale of a great society that goes "crazy Ivan"; kills itself off, and then rebuilds.  If I remember the cycle was about every 10,000 years.  We are heading to a "crazy Ivan".  Then we'll rebuild and self destruct again.  

That totally rings some bells now! Sounds very similar to Asimov's Nightfall. I may have to dig both out of storage and read them again!

 

[Alflives]

That totally rings some bells now! Sounds very similar to Asimov's Nightfall. I may have to dig both out of storage and read them again!

 

is there a better smell than an old book, when it's first taken out of the cardboard box?  

[surtur]

The point is that natural climate change occurs at a much slower pace: getting out of the last glacial period took 10,000 years, and the earth warmed 3 degrees in the process; we are looking at 3 degrees in 100 years.

 

Blue and green are historical temperature reconstructions based on proxies, the sharp increase is a combination of measured and  projected temperature increase up to 2100.

You statement would be true for pre-1940, i.e. the planet was naturally warming and CO2 amplified it. However past 1940 the natural forces (sun + volcanoes) act to cool the planet, and thus the warming is almost certainly due to human activity alone:

The physics underlying global warming is pretty clear: while we may not be able to precisely control the global temperature, the amount of CO2 + other greenhouse gas is certainly sufficient to have a larger effect on climate (at least on 100-1000 year time scales) than some of the natural forces. 

 

 

fictional made up numbers vs highly accurate documented data. Yet even the made up numbers show a trend in the increase of temperatures. What they don't know is the short term (10-100years) peaks and valley fluctuations prior to the last 100 years. So we don't know if we are in a continued trend or an anomoly that is sending us to our ultimate demise.

Historical temperature numbers are an educated guess at best and don't show us what we can now see with our current records and instrumentation. 

[babych]

is there a better smell than an old book, when it's first taken out of the cardboard box?  

Aside from a few sneezes, no.

 

I like you Alf, I really do.

[MadMonk]

fictional made up numbers vs highly accurate documented data. Yet even the made up numbers show a trend in the increase of temperatures. What they don't know is the short term (10-100years) peaks and valley fluctuations prior to the last 100 years. So we don't know if we are in a continued trend or an anomoly that is sending us to our ultimate demise.

Historical temperature numbers are an educated guess at best and don't show us what we can now see with our current records and instrumentation. 

Fictional made up numbers? I'm not sure if you understand what proxy temperature records are.

Many chemical and biological processes are strongly dependent on temperature, as thus if you can obtain historical records of these processes, you can quantitatively infer temperature in the past. To name a few, we can look at tree rings, coral growth, pollen, ice core (ratio of oxygen isotopes), and sediments; we can even drill into the ground, measure the temperature for various layers, and then estimate the historical record. There are effectively alternative thermometers, in the sense that when calibrated to modern thermometers, you can then use these calibrated thermometers to infer past temperature. These certainly have limitations, but they do provide a useful information; in particular each type of proxy acts as an independent check of another.

They are obviously not as good as modern instrumentation, but one cannot simply dismiss them as educated guesses, because they do provide useful information.

 

[Alflives]

Aside from a few sneezes, no.

 

I like you Alf, I really do.

hey thanks!  and bless you, btw

[surtur]

Fictional made up numbers? I'm not sure if you understand what proxy temperature records are.

Many chemical and biological processes are strongly dependent on temperature, as thus if you can obtain historical records of these processes, you can quantitatively infer temperature in the past. To name a few, we can look at tree rings, coral growth, pollen, ice core (ratio of oxygen isotopes), and sediments; we can even drill into the ground, measure the temperature for various layers, and then estimate the historical record. There are effectively alternative thermometers, in the sense that when calibrated to modern thermometers, you can then use these calibrated thermometers to infer past temperature. These certainly have limitations, but they do provide a useful information; in particular each type of proxy acts as an independent check of another.

They are obviously not as good as modern instrumentation, but one cannot simply dismiss them as educated guesses, because they do provide useful information.

 

They are extremely limited beyond living things. Like a tree that has an absolute birth date they can count to the year.  it's only relevant for the seasons and not really a daily account. When we start looking more then a thousand years or so things get a little more generalized  years become decades, decades become centuries and so on. 

All I am saying is there is not enough data to say the last 50-100 years is anything out of the normal. Perhaps this jump happens several times in a million years but is hidden in the data because it isn't accurate enough. 

Trends are fine but to compare the trends of thousands of years to the absolute data of only a few decades things will obviously jump out as abnormal. Add a thousand years after today and we just become a part of the trend and that big red imaginary jump on the chart (the one that uses projected temperatures from 2100) Becomes a minor little blip. 

But beyond the point I already agree the world is warming.

 

 

 

[MadMonk]

They are extremely limited beyond living things. Like a tree that has an absolute birth date they can count to the year.  it's only relevant for the seasons and not really a daily account. When we start looking more then a thousand years or so things get a little more generalized  years become decades, decades become centuries and so on. 

All I am saying is there is not enough data to say the last 50-100 years is anything out of the normal. Perhaps this jump happens several times in a million years but is hidden in the data because it isn't accurate enough. 

Trends are fine but to compare the trends of thousands of years to the absolute data of only a few decades things will obviously jump out as abnormal. Add a thousand years after today and we just become a part of the trend and that big red imaginary jump on the chart (the one that uses projected temperatures from 2100) Becomes a minor little blip. 

But beyond the point I already agree the world is warming.

That's a reasonable statement; however the mean resolution of the proxy data in those graphs is about 120 years, so large temperature excursions (several degrees) over several centuries in principle can be picked up. While we cannot rule out changes of several degrees in a century has not happened in the past, on the flip side it is not common either. Moreover, climate doesn't change randomly: it always has a physical cause, and as far as we know there is no natural physical mechanism by which such rapid changes can occur over 100 years.

Ultimately whether rapid climate change has occurred in the past is irrelevant, but the main conclusion we should draw from paleo-climate data is that if we continue doing what we are doing, we will very like bring on a change that is comparable to going from glacial to non glacial, but instead of giving the biosphere 10,000 years, there will be 100 years.

Moreover, unless we actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere, the warming will likely not be a blip in a thousands years from now, because removing the extra CO2 naturally is a process that takes thousands of years, and the warming will be here for a long time.