[Uchuujinsan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate

Climate(from Ancient Greek klima, meaning inclination) is commonly defined as the weather averaged over a long period of time.[2] The standard averaging period is 30 years

(emphasis added)

What's your point?  At no point did I say that temperature was the only factor in climate, and frankly an averaging period of 30 years when discussing changes in global climate is absolutely ridiculous.

Ehm, why is that ridicolous? It's basically the definition of climate, and if we talk about climate change we talk about that average.
So, 11 years ago was a particularly hot year? What has that to do with climate?

Climate change doesn't mean that a year has to be hotter than the one before. And that's why the article isn't an argument against the existence of (manmade) climate change at all.

That was my point - a single year says nothing about climate.

[Bobboau]

it's ridiculous because it's such a small sample.

[Uchuujinsan]

Why is 30 years a "small sample"?
[edit]
I'm really confused now..

[Flipside]

Mainly, I think, because weather is fractal in nature, take a tiny snip of behaviour, such as 30 years, and you can get all sorts of results out of it that tell you nothing of the general trends, however, take ten thousand years of it via Core-Samples etc, and you can start to get a picture.

That's why climate is such a massive cause for debate, because it's very difficult to argue that the weather isn't doing what it should be doing, because no-one's actually certain what it should be doing.

[The E]

In terms of climate, you are dealing with cycles that can be measured in decades, or centuries. Just looking at the data from the last 30 years is generally insufficient to make good long term predictions or observations.

[Uchuujinsan]

You are misunderstanding what that averaging means:
It means that I can't compare the temperature of 1998 to the temperature of 2009, but I have to compare the average temperature of 1968-1998 to 1979-2009 (or to 1870-1900 if I want to look at some time in the past - or 1000-1030 etc)

[Liberator]

What they're saying is that the sample isn't large enough for a system as large and variable as global climate is.

[Bobboau]

Why is 30 years a "small sample"?
[edit]
I'm really confused now..

because the earth (and it's climate) is 5,000,000,000 years old. 30 <  5,000,000,000.

[Spicious]

I don't think science works when you decide that nothing can be concluded without a complete picture of everything.

[Nuke]

only 9?
that's unusually humane of you.

i need some slaves to grow my dope and build my shrine

[Uchuujinsan]

Why is 30 years a "small sample"?
[edit]
I'm really confused now..

because the earth (and it's climate) is 5,000,000,000 years old. 30 <  5,000,000,000.

So you want to average a period of time of 5,000,000,000 years?
And then you have a SINGLE data point, and what are you planning to compare it to?

It seems like you think climate means comparing values WITHIN a 30 year interval - that's wrong.
It means in a 5,000,000,000 year period we got 166,666,667 data points, and not 5,000,000,000.
If someone is talking about climate change it's supposed to mean the average of the temperature in the years 2010-2039 is higher than the average between 1980-2009.

[Bobboau]

we have 10 of those 166666667 data points. saying the temperature in the last hundred years is higher than the last thousand means nothing if you don't have a clear picture of if the last thousand years was hotter or colder than the last million.

[Uchuujinsan]

we have 10 of those 166666667 data points. saying the temperature in the last hundred years is higher than the last thousand means nothing if you don't have a clear picture of if the last thousand years was hotter or colder than the last million.

I have no idea what you are trying to tell me.
Or to be more precise, what any of that has to do with my initial argument.

Maybe to help me understand you, answer the following questions:
1.What would be your suggestion for an averaging period? Why?
2.If there is not enough data with the current averaging period, how will your intervall be more helpfull?
3.How does the fact, that million of years ago the temperature depending on a certain averaging period had a certain value affect the fact that the averaged temperature currently increases? (I'm not talking about the implications, I'm asking how it is supposed to make that fact somehow wrong)

[Liberator]

It doesn't make it wrong, it's just not enough information to come to the conclusion that is attempting to be thrust upon us...that the Earth's climate is getting warmer and it's our fault.

[Turambar]

It doesn't even matter, emissions reduction and renewable energy are worthy goals.  If they can convince people that we're all going to die unless we do it, that only means that we get there faster.

[Janos]

It doesn't make it wrong, it's just not enough information to come to the conclusion that is attempting to be thrust upon us...that the Earth's climate is getting warmer and it's our fault.

BLAAAA BLAAA BLAAA

My morning's off to great start! First, I find a relatively new article: Axford et al. 2009: Recent changes in a remote Arctic lake are unique
within the past 200,000 years. - PNAS 42(106).
Then I surprisingly find Liberator rejecting scientific consensus. What do you really think? Why do you do such a thing? What level of cognitive dissonance is required to reject everything everyone says and believe otherwise? You're a paleodenier, since you seem to reject the idea that climate is even becoming warmer. I'd like you to point out how this could happen, since this is so ageless denialist stuff that I find it rather amusing. What do you base your assumption on - I can point out mine, which is IPCC and, well, let's be gracious and say this study I cite right here:

The Arctic is currently undergoing dramatic environmental transformations,
but it remains largely unknown how these changes
compare with long-term natural variability. Here we present a lake
sediment sequence from the Canadian Arctic that records warm
periods of the past 200,000 years, including the 20th century. This
record provides a perspective on recent changes in the Arctic and
predates by approximately 80,000 years the oldest stratigraphically
intact ice core recovered from the Greenland Ice Sheet. The
early Holocene and the warmest part of the Last Interglacial
(Marine Isotope Stage or MIS 5e) were the only periods of the past
200,000 years with summer temperatures comparable to or exceeding
today’s at this site. Paleoecological and geochemical data
indicate that the past three interglacial periods were characterized
by similar trajectories in temperature, lake biology, and lakewater
pH, all of which tracked orbitally-driven solar insolation. In recent
decades, however, the study site has deviated from this recurring
natural pattern and has entered an environmental regime that is
unique within the past 200 millennia.
chironomids
climate change
diatoms
paleolimnology
polar

[...]

Through the mid to late Holocene, declining summer insolation
has caused progressive cooling in the Northern Hemisphere
(23) and under natural forcing, climate would on average be
expected to cool over coming centuries. Indeed, chironomids
record cooling through the late Holocene at Lake CF8, as
cold-tolerant taxa became increasingly dominant. But after
approximately AD 1950, chironomid taxa with cold temperature
optima abruptly declined (Fig. 2), matching the lowest abundances
of the past 200,000 years. The two most extreme cold
stenotherms, Oliveridia/Hydrobaenus and Pseudodiamesa, disappeared
entirely (14). At the same time, aquatic primary production
(inferred from chlorophyll-a and C:N) increased, as has
been documented at other lakes in the region (16). Such
evidence for 20th-century warming at Lake CF8 adds to mounting
evidence from high-latitude northern sites suggesting that the
natural late-Holocene cooling trajectory has been preempted in
the Arctic (2, 24).
Although 20th-century warming is clearly recorded in the
proxy data, Lake CF8 is not simply returning to the environmental
regime seen during past warm periods (i.e., the early
Holocene and MIS 5e). Rather, recent warm decades are
ecologically unique.

And guess what - this is but one study out of the hundreds that yield similar results, and this one has an advantage of looking even further back and yet coming up with the idea that "hey, **** is happening quite fast".

[Liberator]

Then I surprisingly find Liberator rejecting scientific consensus.

The only part I reject is the part that the racial fatalists are trying to push, that it's our fault.

Also, I'll remind you that the "scientific consensus" also said the world was flat, that Earth was the center of the universe and that stars are torchlights hanging in the sky.  Consensus in this argument means bupkis.  This is a religious argument, except instead of you guys denying the existence of a my deity, I'm denying the existence of yours in the form of man-cause global warming.  And you are deluded if you think it isn't.

[General Battuta]

Don't be dumb.

A 'deity' is constructed from whole cloth. It cannot be disproven.

A scientific consensus is based on data. It could be wrong. That happens when better data comes along. (All those 'scientific consensuses' you pointed out weren't exactly the product of rigorous scientific investigation; in fact, the merest investigation knocked them right over.) Global warming is going to turn out to be right or wrong. It's fundamentally falsifiable, by its very nature.

If the data we have right now points to global warming, which it apparently is believed to, then that's not a fabrication. It could be a broad misinterpretation, it could be that we're missing something - some key we need, some long-term perspective - but it is no way comparable to religion.

Personally, I don't know what I think about global warming, but if a large number of climate scientists seem to believe that it's a problem, I'm going to give that real weight.

I'm going to take a post from the above Janos post (a good one) and modify it slightly:

The world is currently undergoing dramatic environmental transformations, but it remains largely unknown how these changes compare with long-term natural variability.

I can't imagine you disagree with that. And I don't see how there's any 'racial fatalism' in there.

Stop getting your science from talk radio, dude.

Now read this and explain your data or methodology-based critique of it, please:

In recent
decades, however, the study site has deviated from this recurring
natural pattern and has entered an environmental regime that is
unique within the past 200 millennia.
chironomids
climate change
diatoms
paleolimnology
polar

[...]

Through the mid to late Holocene, declining summer insolation
has caused progressive cooling in the Northern Hemisphere
(23) and under natural forcing, climate would on average be
expected to cool over coming centuries. Indeed, chironomids
record cooling through the late Holocene at Lake CF8, as
cold-tolerant taxa became increasingly dominant. But after
approximately AD 1950, chironomid taxa with cold temperature
optima abruptly declined (Fig. 2), matching the lowest abundances
of the past 200,000 years. The two most extreme cold
stenotherms, Oliveridia/Hydrobaenus and Pseudodiamesa, disappeared
entirely (14). At the same time, aquatic primary production
(inferred from chlorophyll-a and C:N) increased, as has
been documented at other lakes in the region (16). Such
evidence for 20th-century warming at Lake CF8 adds to mounting
evidence from high-latitude northern sites suggesting that the
natural late-Holocene cooling trajectory has been preempted in
the Arctic (2, 24).
Although 20th-century warming is clearly recorded in the
proxy data, Lake CF8 is not simply returning to the environmental
regime seen during past warm periods (i.e., the early
Holocene and MIS 5e). Rather, recent warm decades are
ecologically unique.

[karajorma]

Also, I'll remind you that the "scientific consensus" also said the world was flat, that Earth was the center of the universe and that stars are torchlights hanging in the sky.

No it didn't. The ancient Greeks figured out that the world was round ages earlier using science and then the Christian church came along and hid/burnt all that knowledge and then denied it every single time someone actually did something scientific.

There was very little science and a whole lot of religion in the denials that the world was round. Funnily enough that seems to be exactly what happens when people deny global warming too.

[TrashMan]

Does anyone actually really think anymore that we are UNCAPABLE of affecting the climate?

I cna immagine no greater blindness or state of denial than that.

There's 6+ billion of us and we're using advanced technology. This isn't the stone age anymore. We really have the power to affect things on a large scale.
Heck, we divert rivers, make lakes, drill trough mountains, even make islands for fun.
With all the explosives we have, we could level Mnt. Everest - and if that wouldn't affect flow of air currents and the climte globably, then I don't know what will.
Just do a little research into the total energy output of the human race. And energy is pretty much heat.

There's no question if we can affect things ...the question is just how much are we affecting them right now?

And here comes the second part of hte mental excercise - take a little gander at nature. You'd notice a pattern called balance. And the funyn thing about balance is that it doesn't take much before you loose it.

so even if we werent't doing much, it only takes a little for everything to go fubar.