NOAA: last decade was warmest, global warming "undeniable"

[dawman]

I am not surpised to see your interest in the great state of Wisconsin, where Welfare recipients were actually required to get a job after years of mooching. If I were you I would be worried too. On the brighter side though.....
I hear they're auditioning Avant Garde " Pianists " in DC at various CIA facilities to use as Psychological Warfare experiments.
I can see the Marquis now ............
" Braincell .... The Ultimate Object Of Desire.............A Mountain Of Molten Lust.............
Live At Guantanamo Bay, " Playing his latest hits from the album.....Barney Frank.... Song For My Father.
Hands faster than the Human Eye, and elbow strikes spanning several octaves.

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[garyb]

yeah, funny and all, but you still haven't explained how the climate has changed in the past without humans using petroleum.

[valis]

The sun affecting the earth's weather, what a daft concept....?

[netguyjoel]

I'm all out of breath on this one fellas......since I'm causing global warming by breathing....

[siriusbliss]

The sun affecting the earth's weather, what a daft concept....?

Yeah, let's selectively discount endless correlated scientific data just because a Republican says it's a possible factor.

Selective denial and amnesia doesn't help the argument when the best you can do is just put people in your little 'hate box'.
It's too bad that most of science is so far outside BC's lexicon, that he'd rather just take sides with the liars and profiteers.

Diversion and distraction from the real question again....

Sitting in your mother's basement smoking pot and blaming 'Rethuglicans' is not an argument.

[braincell]

Sitting in your mother's basement smoking pot and blaming 'Rethuglicans' is not an argument.

I usually don't reply to personal attacks but I live in a 6 year old house with 3 bedrooms and 2 floors which I bought new with my own cash, no mortgage. You don't even know me so STFO. What is the point of personally attacking me? [-beeeeeeeep (moderator edited out drivel)-]

What question was I supposed to answer? I don't play these stupid games.

[the19thbear]

First of all: congrats on the house! Wish it was me!
Second:You are supposed to answer the question that garyb asked you
Hé posted a Nice little graph a couple of pages back that we All would love you to answer instead of ALLWAYS closing your eyes.... But hey, its just because you cant answer it, dont worry, we All know

[braincell]

I have to just differ with you on "NASA is filled with Liars." They are objective, thorough and competent scientists. If you don't think this is true so be it.

[Mr Arkadin]

And he still dodges the question like a seasoned pro...

[garyb]

[siriusbliss]

I have to just differ with you on "NASA is filled with Liars." They are objective, thorough and competent scientists. If you don't think this is true so be it.

Again....you obviously don't understand, refuse to educate yourself beyond what you've been hand-fed, and obviously haven't even bothered to read anything posted here. If you did, you'd realize that the scientists at NASA (and NOAA) are FED UP with how/where the funding is being directed into the organization. These ARE true scientists, and there ARE whistle-blowers. Just because you don't see it bludgeoning you over the head in the media doesn't mean that it's not happening.

You're more intent on ripping yourself off by not awakening to what'all is really going on, and obviously not even taking the time to read what's been posted here, and would rather cut-n-paste what MSNBCNNFOX and Reuters' 'press releases' hand-feed you.

Media companies like MSNBCNNFOX are owned by the largest military contractors on the planet that in turn are due to gain enormous profits by pushing the carbon tax/cap-n-trade agenda - and yes, it's an agenda that will only hurt the poor and middle class under the burden of deeper taxes, while doing NOTHING to heal the planet. If you simply continue buying into this, then you're just going to be part of the problem.

Calling me an asshole and a dick (I've been called much worse, so I really don't care) just shows how exasperatingly ignorant and even AFRAID you've become to the truth.

You've been called out as an unwitting tool of this agenda, so good luck in the future when you find yourself paying more and more while gaining no personal benefit whatsoever.

[netguyjoel]

HERE HERE!
All in favor say "I"

[braincell]

There is no global warming conspiracy. Don't be paranoid about everything.

[dante]

Hmmm braincell & others, don't wanna spoil anyones fun here, but theres probably a common thread.

EG - the planet DOES need some fixing. There IS pollution thats man made.

Why not focus on that instead of head bashing each other over whose making what conspiracies about it ?

Here in Australia we have a hung parliament. The independants are pushing the major parties which are now faced with a dilemma. Maybe the election results could reflect that Australians are SICK of the left vs right political model, and may have to instead focus on something called 'national interest' instead of political point scoring and beating each other over the head.

The parties might have to WORK TOGETHER !! A RADICAL CONCEPT !! but hey what if it works ? What if 'teamwork' actually works ?

[garyb]

that'd be the WORST thing that could happen. the reason for different political parties is the creation of gridlock. when the government gets to busy and friendly with itself, tyranny is always the result. the government can't save us and there are certainly plenty of laws. if laws were the savior, this would already be a perfect(or nearly so) society.

it'd be better to be less greedy and wasteful and more watchful and distrusting of power. ALL of the things that are wrecking the environment were the implementation of relatively harmless ideas by the greedy and powerful, the same guys making the commercials to buy, and setting up the carbon trading schemes to punish those who fell prey to advertising and popular culture.

being scared of "global warming" is to miss the boat entirely. being a little cleaner in our everyday activities wouldn't be so hard, and would bring the biggest benefit in the form of a more pleasant environment. being more responsible, personally, and a little nicer and less selfish in general is key to a happy planet. the rulers believe the opposite, that they are to be hard, cold, psychopathic and self-centered, the better to manage the herd. the proof of this is in the world we live in.

to say that we should be scared of the temperature and of things like lost ice caps because of automobiles is just stupid when the temperatures 400 years ago were much higher than now, as high as the temps we are told will mean the end of us(with roughly the same shorelines!), followed by a mini ice age, followed by another warm period. the weather has ALWAYS been variable and disaster has ALWAYS followed fragile short-lived creatures like humans(400 years geologically is like 2 seconds of our life).

jmho.

[valis]

Well it also implies a fundamental 'belief' in the 'facts' as we know understand them, that misses the whole point of the concept of a 'scientific method'. A method isn't a system of belief to be fought over, it's just a tool that can be used for investigation and potential/temporary confirmation.

What I find here on the Z is actually contrary to much of what I see elsewhere online & off. I don't personally see a group of people calling anything a conspiracy, just aware that a tool can be used for agendas as well as 'fact finding'. So the politicians see fit to use that tool to further their own agendas, and the corporate behemoths and financial entities that use their wealth to amass more wealth again use that tool to further their own agenda... Those are obvious due to their largesse...

I think the reason that the Z runs contrary to this discussion elsewhere is in the percentage of income here (versus elsewhere) that comes from 'the system'. I've noticed the closer people's financial ties are to military/industrial or large corporate/financial bodies, so too is their point of view on litmus tests like "global warmongering". Dismissive hand-waving ("silly conspiracies!") and appeals to the experts (but "scientists" are "right") abound... Perhaps when you don't want the fundamental tenants of your comfort challenged....?

[garyb]

yes, perhaps...

[valis]

Ok I'll go one better....talk about 'faith' in our timekeeping and record keeping as it pertains to certain...fundamental assumptions we have in physics atm. While I could stick with the current fad and wax lyric about Relativistic speeds of one computer's position in the cosmos versus another, wrap in some century old quantum psychobabble and call it something vaguely scientifically new ages sounding...

Or I could talk about how computers may not always be able to accurately track time and bring up many well known examples (y2k, 8bit overflows, 16bit overflows, leap year adjustments that result in system crashes.) But in doing that I'm not perhaps attacking the tenants of scientific 'belief' that goes into trusting our machines, as we're talking about human-created software that has man-created & man-fixable bugs. Still, bringing up potential bugs in mental models (software) that are used to compute/predict things....we would say this is unlikely to go unchecked because of the degree of agreement that our models have with 'what scientists say' (according to braincell and certain media outlets.)

Instead let's talk now about something related to computers and time but something that can't be a product of man's imperfection, right? Computer clocks derived from SCIENCE aka. PHYSICS.

Today, cesium clocks measure frequency with an accuracy of from 2 to 3 parts in 10 to the 14th, i.e. 0.00000000000002 Hz; this corresponds to a time measurement accuracy of 2 nanoseconds per day or one second in 1,400,000 years. It is the most accurate realization of a unit that mankind has yet achieved. A cesium clock operates by exposing cesium atoms to microwaves until they vibrate at one of their resonant frequencies and then counting the corresponding cycles as a measure of time. The frequency involved is that of the energy absorbed from the incident photons when they excite the outermost electron in a cesium atom to jump ("transition") from a lower to a higher orbit.

- http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

The uncertainty of NIST-F1 is continually improving. In 2000 the uncertainty was about 1 x 10-15, but as of the summer of 2005, the uncertainty has been reduced to about 5 x 10-16, which means it would neither gain nor lose a second in more than 60 million years! The graph below shows how NIST-F1 compares to previous atomic clocks built by NIST. It is now approximately ten times more accurate than NIST-7, a cesium beam atomic clock that served as the United State's primary time and frequency standard from 1993-1999.

- http://www.nist.gov/physlab/div847/grp5 ... ndards.cfm

Now if you ask me the problem with both bolded sections is due to the author's improper phrasing. So impressed we are (sometimes) with 'how far we have come' in our 'modern era' that the don't recognize our statements for the egocentric tautologies they often are. Simply by containing a form of the verb To Be the implicit statement about the inherent belief in the fundamental & unchallengable 'truthiness' of the subject goes unnoticed.

Implying the fundamental and unchallenged nature of atomic processes according to modern science as surely the rate of electron decay/excitation (and inner nucleus decay/excitation) is so clearly defined by our models, no? After all we have newtonian ideals of thermodynamics to uphold here as well. And the proof is in the pudding right? It has helped us build many wonderful computers, amazingly powerful atomic bombs and incredibly small personal 'information/media' devices. So surely while man might make mistakes, the physics is 'fact'.

In fact so scientifically "accepted" that not only do we use it for cesium clocks but the same physics also applies to time in the other direction via Carbon 14 dating and other ways of 'scientifically predicting the past' based on observation and *computational science* which makes extrapolating our observations out to hundreds, thousands and even millions & billions of years easier and possible even for kids in their remedial classes. Now this is all well & good, and still largely unchallenged. But recently a similar process thought to be similarly 'fundamental' and subatomically precise has come into question with new data...

Let me quote another recent article:

The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.

AH hah! Yes it's good that kids are being taught these things, so they can grow up to know their 'truthiness'

[valis]

...on to more from the article:

Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.

Surely that must be experimental error?....well the article does mention that. In fact I'll just let the rest of the article speak for itself from that point on:

On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.

If this apparent relationship between flares and decay rates proves true, it could lead to a method of predicting solar flares prior to their occurrence, which could help prevent damage to satellites and electric grids, as well as save the lives of astronauts in space.

Ah nice, science doing 'sciency' stuff to save scientists. Well at least that reaffirms Nobility & Truth in Science.

All of the evidence points toward a conclusion that the sun is "communicating" with radioactive isotopes on Earth, said Fischbach.

But there's one rather large question left unanswered. No one knows how neutrinos could interact with radioactive materials to change their rate of decay.

"It doesn't make sense according to conventional ideas," Fischbach said. Jenkins whimsically added, "What we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."

"It's an effect that no one yet understands," agreed Sturrock. "Theorists are starting to say, 'What's going on?' But that's what the evidence points to. It's a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too."

If the mystery particle is not a neutrino, "It would have to be something we don't know about, an unknown particle that is also emitted by the sun and has this effect, and that would be even more remarkable," Sturrock said.

Ok what the heck, theorists don't know what's going on. The sun may actually be 'communicating' with the things we took to be 'true' and 'fundamental' after all and the physicists even acknowledge that fact! Crazy world we live in when scientists challenge truthiness & facts based on new data...

How's that for a tangent? The idea that the Sun may be at work for more than we're aware of is directly applicable (or that there may be other factors and flaws etc). And so is recognizing our mental models & abstractions for the simplifications they are... To quote Alfred, "The Map is Not the Territory"

[garyb]

no doubt.
isn't it easier to just extrapolate the currently seen data and assume that no variable could ever exist when making scary predictions?

it's even goofier, when to simplify things for the unthinking, the words "may" and "might" are used as virtual synonyms for "will" and "shall". all of the scary predictions say "if..., then...", meaning that if the scary prediction turns out to be hogwash, the predictor can say, "i never said...".