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JASON COLEMAN

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A structural engineer with a love for tech, politics, science, and culture.
Articles Posted: 8  Links Seeded: 1601
Member Since: 1/2006  Last Seen: 8/04/2011

Family Albums Highlight Climate Change

Seeded on Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:50 AM EDT
Read ArticleArticle Source: News at Nature
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Seeded by Jason Coleman
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Experts turn to old notebooks and photos to press home global warming message.

Climate researchers and ecologists are usually known for using complex computer simulations to study environmental change. But Boston University researchers are using more humble sources to determine the effects of climate change on local flora and fauna.

For the past three years, Richard Primack and Abraham Miller-Rushing have asked Massachusetts residents with long memories and a record-keeping habit to show how rising temperatures over the decades have changed the nature around them.

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Jason Coleman

Similar proxy methods are used to make qualitative assessments of past earthquakes. Historical written and photographic accounts of damage are correlated to present day observations which accompany quantitative measurements. Seismologists can then sort earthquakes by approximate intensity. Of course it's highly subjective on a small scale, but over a very large data set, it can show some reliable trends.

  • 1 vote
Reply#1 - Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:53 AM EDT
egonDeleted
rockman

Has anyone ever noticed how all these articles on "global warming" threaten dire consequences, yet none of those consequences have been observed? For example, today there was an article about how fast the Greenland glaciers are melting. "Sea level will rise 20 feet if this continues!" Notice anything missing? For starters, they don't say how long that will take, but more to the point, they don't say how much sea level has risen as a result of all this sudden melting. Why not? Well, because sea level isn't rising any faster than it has over the last ten thousand years. We are coming out of an ice age, folks!

Al Gore makes this same mistake in his infamous joke of a slide show. Except he gets it all wrong on top of that. First, he says if the "Arctic ice cap" melts, sea level will rise 20'. Well, the Arctic ice cap is actually the ice that covers the Arctic ocean, not Greenland's ice. And the Arctic ice is floating. In fact, about 20% of it has melted in the last 50 years. Sea level did nothing because sea ice, like ice bergs, floats. When it melts, it leaves a hole in the ocean which fills up with the melt water. Second, if you have seen Al's travesty of a show, you may have noticed that during his lecture on the Arctic ice cap, his illustration was actually a map of the Antarctic!

As for the melting of Greenland's ice cap, the truth is that these people are looking at the part of the ice in contact with the ocean. Other studies have shown that the glaciers in Greenland are actually thickening. And so are the Antarctic glaciers.

The press is so committed to global warming that they completely ignore any evidence to the contrary. That's not science, that's politics. Al Gore isn't a scientist, he's a politician - and a very poor one at that. Anecdotal evidence like family albums are absolutely NOT scientific evidence.

  • 1 vote
Reply#3 - Fri Aug 11, 2006 2:49 PM EDT
Jason Coleman

Well, because sea level isn't rising any faster than it has over the last ten thousand years. We are coming out of an ice age, folks!

Ironic that you would fault such articles for a lack information and then provide none yourself for what appeared to be a far less specific claim.

I fully understand that there are discrepancies in the reports of the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland ice sheets (the mistakes in the Al Gore film do not significantly detract from the overall point, regardless). Thickening ice in one region due to increased snowfall does necessarily indicate more ice (think of a cone with less total volume than a shorter disc) and sea level rise is still very much an issue. As for your issue with anecdotal evidence, data points are data points and should be considered. They should be weighted accordingly. However, the issue of anthropological climate change is still sound science without using that one avenue of evidence, just as it is sound science with or without Al Gore (also ironic, I find, is to claim that this is not sound science most global warming contrarians are non-scientist op-ed writers). Taking issue with the messenger does not dispel the issue at hand. There is a mountain of evidence, from many different and corroborative sources, that show we are warming the earth. Far more evidence than anything that indicates your statements to the contrary.

  • 3 votes
#3.1 - Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:06 PM EDT
Cyron

For starters, they don't say how long that will take, but more to the point, they don't say how much sea level has risen as a result of all this sudden melting. Why not? Well, because sea level isn't rising any faster than it has over the last ten thousand years

The second article you linked to actually does suggest how long it will take (roughly 1000 years) . They also suggest that "The panel that advises the United Nations has predicted that global sea levels might rise by almost a metre by 2100 because of a warming climate".

They also make a mention of the fact that the ocean levels have only risen "slightly" so far because of melt offs. Finally, they also mention that thickening ice sheets are consistent with global warning.

I'm not saying any of this is right, accurate or whatever else, but just pointing out that the very things you were suggesting were not being talked about were in the very article you linked to.

  • 4 votes
#3.2 - Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:06 PM EDT
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K.Hodge

i can see them showing massachusetts warming...

rockman, show us evidence of the contrary?

  • 1 vote
Reply#4 - Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:38 PM EDT
Johblogs

A clever way to involve the wider community in discovering and acknowledging from real (to them) experiences, as well as collect more data. Surely now we are in the let's change our ways phase rather than still needing to be convinced of the damage we are doing?

  • 3 votes
Reply#5 - Sat Aug 12, 2006 1:05 AM EDT
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