Your Warming World: Climate change where you live 1894 – 2013

http://warmingworld.newscientistapps.com/

by osivertsson • 12 years ago

38 94 12 years ago

warmingworld.newscientistapps.com

caiob• 12 years ago

My city wasn't founded until 1934, how does NASA have stats from 1894?

fleitz• 12 years ago

Stop questioning, start panicking. If you want to make a difference start recycling, buy some solar panels, and think about how amazing it is to be poor in exchange for saving the planet.

If more people gave 10% of their income we can stave off the apocalypse, end of humanity, rapture, end times, whatever you want to call it. The rich will never inherit the kingdom of Mother Earth.

ars4• 12 years ago

If you recycle anything except metal you are making the problem worse not better.

Solar panels are a poor choice, they help somewhat but they are far too expensive for what they provide.

If you actually want to make a difference then agitate for more nuclear power. There is absolutely nothing else that will help.

altero• 12 years ago

And Prague has airport since 18th century...

I love statistics :-)

jerf• 12 years ago

Interpolation, probably. The location can still be estimated from other data, albeit with increasing loss as the number of independent samples decreases.

archgoon2• 12 years ago

From the about page:

http://warmingworld.newscientistapps.com/about.html

"Surface temperature measurements are not evenly distributed across the globe. So the NASA team interpolates from the available data to calculate average temperatures for cells in a global grid, with each cell measuring 2 degrees latitude by 2 degrees longitude. The analysis extrapolates up to 1200 kilometres from any one station, which allows for more complete coverage in the Arctic – where monitoring stations are sparsely distributed, but where the warming trend is especially strong."

polemic• 12 years ago

Very informative, and scary.

I'm pretty sure there should be an OSM attribution on this map.

https://www.mapbox.com/help/attribution/

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI

Look at the Dow Jones index. If you look at it today, it looks like a dramatic drop. If you look at it in the span of several years, that drop looks somewhat trivial.

Same thing goes for climate change. Go back 1 billion years, and you will find that the earth has warmed and cooled far more dramatically than in the last 100 years. I'm not denying anthropogenic global warming, I'm just saying that correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

(And for the record, I'm not pushing one political agenda or the other, I'm just trying to look at a given data set rationally).

Edit: either way, I encourage the pursuit of clean energy and reusable resources.

FollowSteph3• 12 years ago

Don't forget we're also near the end of a mini ice age so we should be expecting the earth to heat up. A lot of people forget this. Antarctica was once warm...

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

By some predictions we are going into another mini-Ice Age (Ice Ages are typically preceded by climbing temperatures, which might seem counter-intuitive but a similar phenomenon is when you experience several warm, sunny days and then it suddenly gets very cold).

prawn2• 12 years ago

Climate scientists are very well aware of this.

Loughla2• 12 years ago

Okay? Why even bring this up unless trying to cast a disparaging light onto global warming? You are, in fact, denying human caused global warming in your last comment, "I'm just saying that correlation does not equal causation." Every time I see this argument it's usually the first statement in the 'human's aren't really causing global warming, so we shouldn't try to fix it' circle-jerk.

What is the worst thing that happens if we try to address global warming, human caused or not? We get to keep the beneficial conditions that we've had since the beginning of humanity as we know it? Our children get to inherit a functioning and healthy planet? Society can continue on the way it has for many, many generations without plague or famine?

Stop it.

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

I encourage us to adopt clean energy and reusable resources either way. Please don't straw-man me without knowing my feelings on the matter. (I put this in the edit above for clarification).

ars4• 12 years ago

It's horrible how climate change is now a religion not a science.

"Deniers and believers".

theknown994• 12 years ago

The amount of time, energy and money wasted on this "problem" is staggering to me. Imagine if we put that time, money and resources to better use to solve real problems that affect peoples lives day in and day out.

kyrra• 12 years ago

And your parent post talked nothing about changing how humans use the resources of this earth. He was pointing that if you look at data a certain way, you can use it to fit conclusions that may be incorrect.

He was just making the point that you need to have context when looking at data. Framing data to prove your point doesn't make your point correct (though, it doesn't make it incorrect either). Weather at a macro level is extremely complicated. Knowing if we understand all the variables involved is a very difficult task.

Be careful to the conclusions you jump to on such a small data set. Even 1000 years of perfect weather data when a planet that is billions of years old may not be as helpful as one would hope.

RivieraKid4• 12 years ago

What is the worst thing that happens if we try to address global warming, human caused or not?

It costs money. And why should we? If humans are really able to have a significant impact on the climate, we should try to warm the planet. I would personally prefer about 3 C warmer climate (central europe).

Stop it.

No, you stop being so fucking patronizing.

Geee• 12 years ago

You think we should 'try to fix it' even if it's not human-caused (CO2)? Even if it's caused by sun or natural cycles or something else? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

unsigner• 12 years ago

This is basically Pascal's Wager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager), and I don't think it resulted in many Christians recently. Why do you think it would work better wrt attitude towards global warming?

glasz2• 12 years ago

man-made global warming is a joke. but if you like to try and keep the (always dynamic) climate in a near constant state, good luck. and feel good paying the tax.

theknown994• 12 years ago

Also wouldn't it basically be unprecedented if the climate didn't change?

Of course the climate is changing. Like it has done for millions of years. Big whoop.

pippy• 12 years ago

This is a ignorant response. The nature of climate change isn't the empirical data; that's simply validation of the various scientific models of the earths climate. To date our models have been fairly accurate and we've been predicting this as far back as the 1800's.

redthrowaway4• 12 years ago

I'm not denying anthropogenic global warming, I'm just saying that correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

Sounds a whole lot like you're trying to cast doubt on it. There's as close to a scientific consensus as you're likely to ever get that the Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate, and we're the cause of it.

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

Doubt is very good. Doubt is the foundation of science (the consensus used to be that the earth was flat). Not doubting is when something becomes faith or religion. I don't care what side the coin lands on, I only care that the methods used to predict the coin toss are sound.

brc10• 12 years ago

Consensus means nothing. If anything it encourages groupthink and makes doubt and scepticism unfashionable - which is the exact opposite to what you need for doing good science.

What matters is predictions, hypotheses and observations. These are the essence of science. You should be making arguments based on how a hypothesis has been tested against real world observations, not how many people agree with a particular position.

The parent quite rightfully points out that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, and you want to ping them for casting doubt. What you should be doing, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, is trying to find out how, in this case, causation can be disproven, to better advance knowledge.

Trying to throw someone from the temple for casting doubt belongs to religion, not science.

anodari8• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, in this case there is a correlation: "In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused primarily by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.[2][3][4] No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[5]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

Yes, the question of "Is there AGW?" is not a debate, at least among scientists. The important question is "how much do humans affect the warming of the earth?" To date, we have not been able to determine this accurately because there are so many factors (our CO2 emissions, emissions from cows, volcanoes, under-sea vents, emissions reduced by trees and plants, increased output from the sun, etc - let alone measuring one of these accurately across the globe). A million variables, no way to isolate any two of them. There might be a "consensus" but that does not guarantee accuracy - I encourage you to write a computer program that will determine the global temperature next year, and see how accurate your prediction is - you will likely find it impossible, because among other things you do not know which volcanoes will erupt and how much more radiation the sun will output. 10-20 years ago, the consensus was that sea levels would rise by a few meters, but that has not happened.

brc10• 12 years ago

Argument by consensus is simply argument by headcount. It isn't an argument.

I can point out a long laundry list where the 'consensus' was completely wrong, yet every person with a letter behind their name supported it.

Consensus doesn't prove anything but the fact that a bunch of people agree on something. It doesn't make that thing true or false.

ridicter3• 12 years ago

Yes, the climate has fluctuated over geological time. Scientists know this.

The difference is a) the rate at which it is warming and b) the fact that all living things have adapted to a completely different climate.

Climate change means mass famines and suffering, mass disruptions in commerce as whole industries implode, increased conflicts over dwindling resources, and mass extinction. It's a big deal.

As far as agriculture, crops have evolved to certain soil types and climactic conditions. For examples, yield rates are going down for grains like wheat due to warmer nights, and the soil in Iowa in 2012 was too hot for seeding corn! It won't be a simple as moving the crops northward as the world gets hotter: soil types and ecological conditions are important for crops too.

As far as mass famine and suffering: whole countries will be wiped off the map. That means refugees. It means fewer resources for more people.

As far as more more violence associated with climate change: see dwindling resources and refugees. The US Department of Defense predicts that there will be armed conflicts over desertifying regions, especially Africa, which experience some of the worst climate change [1]. The USDOD is not made up of hippies.

As far as mass extinction: it's already happening. Due to CO2, the ocean is 30% more acidic than it was in the 70s, and the shell fish industry on the wet coast is dying [2]. (Shellfish are particularly sensitive to ocean acidficiation.) This is just the beginning, and the great coral reefs of the world are dying too.[3]

Basically, in my view, climate change is the single most consequential event in human history, and its scope will extend beyond humans too. The aggregate pain and suffering and the unimaginable loss will have a profound effect on the human psyche.

If anyone reading this is concerned, I urge them to join 350.org [4], which is a climate change activist organization. 350 is named after NASA scientist James Hansen's estimate for the upper bound of acceptable CO2 PPM for humanity to thrive in. We passed 400PPM in 2012; humanity evolved in the upper 200's. James Hansen was head of NASA's Goddard Institute before he retired to organize against climate change full time [5].

350.org's main initiative at the moment is divestment: getting major educational institutions to divest from fossil fuels as a social statement. To sign the petition for your school, go to http://gofossilfree.org/ [6] .

The climate change movement desperately needs conscientious, scientifically aware individuals to stand up!

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.ht...

[2] http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/...

[3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-acidificatio...

[4] http://350.org

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen#Research_and_publi...

[6] http://gofossilfree.org/

gavanwoolery8• 12 years ago

I agree - climate change is a big deal. In fact, it doesn't even matter what our CO2 output is with respect to this problem -- even if we cut it off completely we still have to brace for the threats of climate change. Coming Ice Ages and warm periods could have potentially devastating effects, and we need to be ready. That said, I don't think the temperature will change significantly overnight so we have some time to prepare.

brc10• 12 years ago

I appreciate that you're clearly a passionate activist, but your statements are alarmist and counterproductive.

'Whole countries wiped off the map'..'mass famine and suffering'...'yield rates going down'...

These are unsupported by real world observations. I understand you wish to alarm people into joining your activist groups, and the more dramatic language, the better (I assume this has been A/B tested). But I think the dramatic language undermines your cause.

The last report I saw was that grains harvest have recently broken records, despite a smaller overall percentage of land devoted to crops. This is mostly due to technology improvements in farming and grain types.

Climate change is an ongoing process which humans have had to, and will have to, deal with. They will use ingenuity, technology and skill to deal with whatever arises.

So you're free to say and believe whatever you want, but I don't think this was really the place for a long recruiting ad.

brc10• 12 years ago

What you are saying is that the observed climate sensitivity to co2 has been much lower than the modeled climate sensitivity to co2. And that the earlier, alarming models showing large temperature rises are most likely to be incorrect for a variety of reasons.

And on that basis the case for punitive taxation no longer makes sense, and attention should be focused on the development of alternative, efficient and productive energy sources. This should be regarded as a technology challenge, rather than a public policy crisis whereby the blunt instruments of taxation and regulation should force the use of inefficient and costly energy sources.

And you'd be correct. You shouldn't be so shy about stating your position. I understand that stating a realist position has become unfashionable, but in the spirit of the PG essay 'What you can't say' [1] - I always make a point of saying the unfashionable thing. And that is that early models or climate sensitivity were wrong, and the public policy positions generated from those are counter-productive and ineffective.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/say.html

ankitml• 12 years ago

Does the rate of temperature change matters? In all those billion years, the rate has never been so steep.

lutusp• 12 years ago

Go back 1 billion years, and you will find that the earth has warmed and cooled far more dramatically than in the last 100 years.

You're confusing a wide range of historical temperatures with a rate of change. Today's rate of change is unprecedented. A temperature change of 10 or 20 degrees Celsius over ten million years isn't likely to wipe out species, but that same change over 500 years is much more likely to greatly reduce populations of species that cannot adapt fast enough -- including us.

Jehar• 12 years ago

This doesn't seem to have a lot of granularity in color around the 0 mark. Above 0 we have a warm color, below 0 we have a cold color. Would it paint a more informative picture to give +/-(relevant fraction) a distinct color?

RivieraKid4• 12 years ago

I think that global warming is a positive phenomenon and we should try to accelerate it. Most people would prefer a to live in slightly warmer climate than they do now.

Eupolemos• 12 years ago

It doesn't work like that. It is not a nice, evenly spread warm breeze. It is rising oceans and extreme weather.

Don't think of it as an increase in warmth, think of it as increased pressure in a closed system.

RivieraKid4• 12 years ago

and extreme weather

Sounds like fun to me.

graycat2• 12 years ago

It's cold and snowing outside, and the 'climate change' alarmists are still going and going and going.

I was assuming that the climate change scam would go away with today's headlines, but maybe it will be like the Loch Ness monster -- forever some people still think it might be real.

jgamman• 12 years ago

so if i point out that it's really #@#!@# hot all over Australia at the moment, you'll concede that it's true? FFS the weather responds to the energy balance, it's not a nice +2 deg added to everyone's location.

anodari8• 12 years ago

South Brasil here, I did not know having so much heat before...

graycat2• 12 years ago

Good! Now we agree: Anecdotal evidence is junk! I mentioned the snow as a parody, giving back in kind to a lot of such evidence from the global warming alarmists, e.g., their pictures of polar bears, remarks on Arctic sea ice in the summers (blown around in unpredictable ways by winds and currents), snows on Mt. Kilimanjaro, video clips of glaciers calving, etc.

"Energy balance"? Sure, but that's close to just a tautology. The 'rub' is working effectively with the collection of all the fine details that determine energy balance.

For how to predict the weather 50 years from now, when we can't predict it five days from now, is a bit much to swallow.

Actually, the global warming alarmists are no closer to good science and have nothing better than the Lock Ness Monster devotees.

Maybe 50 years from now the temperature of the earth will be higher, lower, or just the same as now, and no one knows the answer, no matter what within the realm of reason we assume about CO2, methane, water vapor, sun spots, volcanoes, ocean currents, snow cover, deforestation, etc. E.g., the IPCC's Ramaswamy's 'radiative forcing' fills a much need gap in the literature and would be illuminating if ignited.

There has been a big crowd of global warming alarmists: Some see global warming as not a problem but a way to talk the public into other things that they like such as 'renewable' energy. Some are using global warming alarms as a way to raise money, get government funding, sell books, do venture capital deals, get attention, get a professorship, etc. Some people want to get some new taxes they can use for whatever. Some want to 'stick it' to the oil companies or whomever would get hurt by attempts to respond to global warming. Some people want subsidies for high speed trains, wind farms, solar panels, biofuels, high 'feed in tariffs', etc. The list of reasons some people find to go alone with the alarms is endless and with next to nothing actually to do with science. So, the whole thing is looking like, say, the people who stand to make money off the Lock Ness Monster. That was my main point -- global warming alarms will continue for much the same reason as the Lock Ness Monster.

hamax• 12 years ago

I haven't realized how anti science HN is. Scary.

Your Warming World: Climate change where you live 1894 – 2013

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