Bent Faith
Says you...
See? I'm a gosh darned seer!
-
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See? I'm a gosh darned seer!
Bent Faith, I sense something as well, an emptiness coming from you..um no...more like a hunger for something. Hang on...
Schuyler
Misanthrope
I realize that the guy who wrote this below must be a right wing zealot in the pocket of Big Oil who has cherry picked all his examples, but it highlights one of my main objections to accepting anything a 'climate scientist' says as Gospel Truth to be accepted without question. The article talks of the 'Harry read Me' file that is part of the leaked files in Climategate. I've read through this file, which is quite lengthy. (Has anyone else done that? Jonah? Ahh! Somehow I knew that!) It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. Poor Harry doesn't know what he is doing, you see. He's been given the job to 'clean up the code,' but unfortunately, it's un-documented and full of errors. If it has input errors, it just keeps on going or, when it does crash, you can stick any old numbers you want in there! And a lot of the data is MISSING!!!!! But hey! All we want to do is change the behavior of 6 billion human beings to 'save the planet' based on this stuff. What could possibly go wrong? After all, Climate Scientists are always right!
Programs do more and more scientific work - but you need to be able to check them as well as the original data, as the recent row over climate change documentation shows
FROM-UK Guardian
One of the spinoffs from the emails and documents that were leaked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is the light that was shone on the role of program code in climate research. There is a particularly revealing set of "README" documents that were produced by a programmer at UEA apparently known as "Harry". The documents indicate someone struggling with undocumented, baroque code and missing data – this, in something which forms part of one of the three major climate databases used by researchers throughout the world.
Many climate scientists have refused to publish their computer programs. I suggest is that this is both unscientific behaviour and, equally importantly, ignores a major problem: that scientific software has got a poor reputation for error.
There is enough evidence for us to regard a lot of scientific software with worry. For example Professor Les Hatton, an international expert in software testing resident in the Universities of Kent and Kingston, carried out an extensive analysis of several million lines of scientific code. He showed that the software had an unacceptably high level of detectable inconsistencies.
For example, interface inconsistencies between software modules which pass data from one part of a program to another occurred at the rate of one in every seven interfaces on average in the programming language Fortran, and one in every 37 interfaces in the language C. This is hugely worrying when you realise that just one error — just one — will usually invalidate a computer program. What he also discovered, even more worryingly, is that the accuracy of results declined from six significant figures to one significant figure during the running of programs.
Hatton and other researchers' work indicates that scientific software is often of poor quality. What is staggering about the research that has been done is that it examines commercial scientific software – produced by software engineers who have to undergo a regime of thorough testing, quality assurance and a change control discipline known as configuration management.
By contrast scientific software developed in our universities and research institutes is often produced by scientists with no training in software engineering and with no quality mechanisms in place and so, no doubt, the occurrence of errors will be even higher. The Climate Research Unit's "Harry ReadMe" files are a graphic indication of such working conditions, containing as they do the outpouring of a programmer's frustrations in trying to get sets of data to conform to a specification.
Computer code is also at the heart of a scientific issue. One of the key features of science is deniability: if you erect a theory and someone produces evidence that it is wrong, then it falls. This is how science works: by openness, by publishing minute details of an experiment, some mathematical equations or a simulation; by doing this you embrace deniability. This does not seem to have happened in climate research. Many researchers have refused to release their computer programs — even though they are still in existence and not subject to commercial agreements. An example is Professor Mann's initial refusal to give up the code that was used to construct the 1999 "hockey stick" model that demonstrated that human-made global warming is a unique artefact of the last few decades. (He did finally release it in 2005.)
The situation is by no means bad across academia. A number of journals, for example those in the area of economics and econometrics, insist on an author lodging both the data and the programs with the journal before publication. There's also an object lesson in a landmark piece of mathematics: the proof of the four colour conjecture by Apel and Haken. They proved a longstanding hypothesis which suggested - but had never been able to show and so elevate to a theory - that in any map, the regions can be coloured using at most four colours so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour. Their proof was controversial in that instead of an elegant mathematical exposition, they partly used a computer program. Their work was criticised for inelegance, but it was correct and the computer program was published for checking.
The problem of large-scale scientific computing and the publication of data is being addressed by organisations and individuals that have signed up to the idea of the fourth paradigm. This was the idea of Jim Grey, a senior researcher at Microsoft, who identified the problem well before Climategate. There is now a lot of research and development work going into mechanisms whereby the web can be used as a repository for scientific publications, and more importantly the computer programs and the huge amount of data that they use and generate. A number of workers are even devising systems that show the progress of a scientific idea from first thoughts to the final published papers. The problems with climate research will do doubt provide an impetus for this work to be accelerated.
So, if you are publishing research articles that use computer programs, if you want to claim that you are engaging in science, the programs are in your possession and you will not release them then I would not regard you as a scientist; I would also regard any papers based on the software as null and void.
I find it sobering to realise that a slip of a keyboard could create an error in programs that will be used to make financial decisions which involve billions of pounds and, moreover, that the probability of such errors is quite high. But of course the algorithms (known as Gaussian copula functions) that the banks used to assume that they could create risk-free bonds from sub-prime loans has now been published (Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street ). That was pretty expensive. Climate change is expensive too. We really do need to be sure that we're not getting any of our sums wrong - whether too big or small - there as well.
Darrel Ince is professor of computing at the Open University
Programs do more and more scientific work - but you need to be able to check them as well as the original data, as the recent row over climate change documentation shows
FROM-UK Guardian
One of the spinoffs from the emails and documents that were leaked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia is the light that was shone on the role of program code in climate research. There is a particularly revealing set of "README" documents that were produced by a programmer at UEA apparently known as "Harry". The documents indicate someone struggling with undocumented, baroque code and missing data – this, in something which forms part of one of the three major climate databases used by researchers throughout the world.
Many climate scientists have refused to publish their computer programs. I suggest is that this is both unscientific behaviour and, equally importantly, ignores a major problem: that scientific software has got a poor reputation for error.
There is enough evidence for us to regard a lot of scientific software with worry. For example Professor Les Hatton, an international expert in software testing resident in the Universities of Kent and Kingston, carried out an extensive analysis of several million lines of scientific code. He showed that the software had an unacceptably high level of detectable inconsistencies.
For example, interface inconsistencies between software modules which pass data from one part of a program to another occurred at the rate of one in every seven interfaces on average in the programming language Fortran, and one in every 37 interfaces in the language C. This is hugely worrying when you realise that just one error — just one — will usually invalidate a computer program. What he also discovered, even more worryingly, is that the accuracy of results declined from six significant figures to one significant figure during the running of programs.
Hatton and other researchers' work indicates that scientific software is often of poor quality. What is staggering about the research that has been done is that it examines commercial scientific software – produced by software engineers who have to undergo a regime of thorough testing, quality assurance and a change control discipline known as configuration management.
By contrast scientific software developed in our universities and research institutes is often produced by scientists with no training in software engineering and with no quality mechanisms in place and so, no doubt, the occurrence of errors will be even higher. The Climate Research Unit's "Harry ReadMe" files are a graphic indication of such working conditions, containing as they do the outpouring of a programmer's frustrations in trying to get sets of data to conform to a specification.
Computer code is also at the heart of a scientific issue. One of the key features of science is deniability: if you erect a theory and someone produces evidence that it is wrong, then it falls. This is how science works: by openness, by publishing minute details of an experiment, some mathematical equations or a simulation; by doing this you embrace deniability. This does not seem to have happened in climate research. Many researchers have refused to release their computer programs — even though they are still in existence and not subject to commercial agreements. An example is Professor Mann's initial refusal to give up the code that was used to construct the 1999 "hockey stick" model that demonstrated that human-made global warming is a unique artefact of the last few decades. (He did finally release it in 2005.)
The situation is by no means bad across academia. A number of journals, for example those in the area of economics and econometrics, insist on an author lodging both the data and the programs with the journal before publication. There's also an object lesson in a landmark piece of mathematics: the proof of the four colour conjecture by Apel and Haken. They proved a longstanding hypothesis which suggested - but had never been able to show and so elevate to a theory - that in any map, the regions can be coloured using at most four colours so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour. Their proof was controversial in that instead of an elegant mathematical exposition, they partly used a computer program. Their work was criticised for inelegance, but it was correct and the computer program was published for checking.
The problem of large-scale scientific computing and the publication of data is being addressed by organisations and individuals that have signed up to the idea of the fourth paradigm. This was the idea of Jim Grey, a senior researcher at Microsoft, who identified the problem well before Climategate. There is now a lot of research and development work going into mechanisms whereby the web can be used as a repository for scientific publications, and more importantly the computer programs and the huge amount of data that they use and generate. A number of workers are even devising systems that show the progress of a scientific idea from first thoughts to the final published papers. The problems with climate research will do doubt provide an impetus for this work to be accelerated.
So, if you are publishing research articles that use computer programs, if you want to claim that you are engaging in science, the programs are in your possession and you will not release them then I would not regard you as a scientist; I would also regard any papers based on the software as null and void.
I find it sobering to realise that a slip of a keyboard could create an error in programs that will be used to make financial decisions which involve billions of pounds and, moreover, that the probability of such errors is quite high. But of course the algorithms (known as Gaussian copula functions) that the banks used to assume that they could create risk-free bonds from sub-prime loans has now been published (Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street ). That was pretty expensive. Climate change is expensive too. We really do need to be sure that we're not getting any of our sums wrong - whether too big or small - there as well.
Darrel Ince is professor of computing at the Open University
Bent Faith
Says you...
[FONT=times new roman,times]Ain't life just grand sometimes?
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States." has been cancelled because of the over 100 year record breaking snow storm in D.C.
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The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States." has been cancelled because of the over 100 year record breaking snow storm in D.C.
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Attachments
ikez78
curious skeptic
I don't really understand why people, Biedney included, start off talking about this topic by saying that it's "not partisan" and then just ripping conservatives and skeptics of global warming (whose numbers continue to make up a growing majority on this topic). THAT is partisanship and ideological. Glad the last show skipped over this stuff because...again...the hosts and listeners of the show are most often not scientists and noone is talking about the distorted or flatout manufactured source data.
Bottom line: This topic needs transparency and open discussion before billions of dollars are put into it. It is up to the alarmists to CONVINCE PEOPLE why THEIR money is needed and the science is legit before you spend it, not just shouting them down for wanting to have an explanation for where their money is going. Not explaining to them is flatout unAmerican.
Bottom line: This topic needs transparency and open discussion before billions of dollars are put into it. It is up to the alarmists to CONVINCE PEOPLE why THEIR money is needed and the science is legit before you spend it, not just shouting them down for wanting to have an explanation for where their money is going. Not explaining to them is flatout unAmerican.
Schuyler
Misanthrope
Here's an interesting piece. It seems that way back in 2005 we were being conned. A point of clarification. Lacis was commenting on a draft, which is the only way you could comment. His commentary has been criticized because he was speaking 'only about the draft.' That's stupid. Once the report is Final, it's done. The comment period is over. Hansen is the scientists who testified before Congress in 1998 assuring them his model for temperature increases was rock solid. The graphs of how far off he was are in a previous post above.
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While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS. Lacis’s is not a name I’ve come across before but some of what he has to say about Chapter 9 of the IPCC’s report is simply breathtaking.
Chapter 9 is possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report – it’s the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made.
Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:
-----
While perusing some of the review comments to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, I came across the contributions of Andrew Lacis, a colleague of James Hansen’s at GISS. Lacis’s is not a name I’ve come across before but some of what he has to say about Chapter 9 of the IPCC’s report is simply breathtaking.
Chapter 9 is possibly the most important one in the whole IPCC report – it’s the one where they decide that global warming is manmade. This is the one where the headlines are made.
Remember, this guy is mainstream, not a sceptic, and you may need to remind yourself of that fact several times as you read through his comment on the executive summary of the chapter:
There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department. The points being made are made arbitrarily with legal sounding caveats without having established any foundation or basis in fact. The Executive Summary seems to be a political statement that is only designed to annoy greenhouse skeptics. Wasn’t the IPCC Assessment Report intended to be a scientific document that would merit solid backing from the climate science community – instead of forcing many climate scientists into having to agree with greenhouse skeptic criticisms that this is indeed a report with a clear and obvious political agenda. Attribution can not happen until understanding has been clearly demonstrated. Once the facts of climate change have been established and understood, attribution will become self-evident to all. The Executive Summary as it stands is beyond redemption and should simply be deleted.
I’m speechless. The chapter authors, however weren’t. This was their reply (all of it):
Rejected. [Executive Summary] summarizes Ch 9, which is based on the peer reviewed literature.
Simply astonishing. This is a consensus?
jkoci
Watcher of the Skies
Here is a an abstract of a journal article they wrote together in 1990. Lacis apparently studies the effects of aerosols on climate.
Pubs.GISS: Abstract of Hansen and Lacis 1990</title>
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Hansen_Lacis.pdf
Here are their final comments from the article. It was scanned so I am showing them as an image.
P
pixelsmith
Guest
Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data
FEBRUARY 10, 2010 · 18 COMMENTS
contributed by John O’Sullivan
In this article we look at the findings of two independent climate researchers who analyse climatic data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show warming of two degrees per century for Australia without explanation. We find that an earlier study by Willis Eschenbach in an article on What’s up with That (WUWT) is wholly substantiated by Kens Kingdom’slatest analysis of Ken Stewart at his ‘kenskingdom’ blog. As a consequence, absent any other justification from NASA, we must conclude that the NASA data has been fraudulently cooked.
GISS, based at Columbia University in New York City, has adjusted over a century’s worth of temperature records from the vast Queensland State (the Sunshine State) to reverse a cooling trend in one ground weather station and increase a warming trend in another to skew the overall data set.
continued here-----> Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data | CLIMATEGATE
FEBRUARY 10, 2010 · 18 COMMENTS
contributed by John O’Sullivan
In this article we look at the findings of two independent climate researchers who analyse climatic data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show warming of two degrees per century for Australia without explanation. We find that an earlier study by Willis Eschenbach in an article on What’s up with That (WUWT) is wholly substantiated by Kens Kingdom’slatest analysis of Ken Stewart at his ‘kenskingdom’ blog. As a consequence, absent any other justification from NASA, we must conclude that the NASA data has been fraudulently cooked.
GISS, based at Columbia University in New York City, has adjusted over a century’s worth of temperature records from the vast Queensland State (the Sunshine State) to reverse a cooling trend in one ground weather station and increase a warming trend in another to skew the overall data set.
continued here-----> Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data | CLIMATEGATE
Plant Life
Skilled Investigator
[FONT=times new roman,times]The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing entitled, "Global Warming Impacts, Including Public Health, in the United States." has been cancelled because of the over 100 year record breaking snow storm in D.C.
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Bad evidence there. That's the kind of thing only republican senators fall for , and they're the ones promoting it. You do know that the unusual snowfall in DC, does not not disprove anything right? , If anything it proves that the weather is more extreme lately ( which goes against your argument) so don't use that in your arsenal of "evidence" . After all the real name of the phenomenon is "Climate Change" not "Global Warming". There's a difference between weather and climate.
Good bye.
[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times][/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]
Bad evidence there. That's the kind of thing only republican senators fall for , and they're the ones promoting it. You do know that the unusual snowfall in DC, does not not disprove anything right? , If anything it proves that the weather is more extreme lately ( which goes against your argument) so don't use that in your arsenal of "evidence" . After all the real name of the phenomenon is "Climate Change" not "Global Warming". There's a difference between weather and climate.
Good bye.
[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times][/FONT]
Bent Faith
Says you...
Oh of course I know that. But the irony was just too much to pass up.
P
pixelsmith
Guest
Plant life, please explain the difference between weather and climate. I know the difference but i would like to hear your explanation.
Plant Life
Skilled Investigator
Plant life, please explain the difference between weather and climate. I know the difference but i would like to hear your explanation.
Don't play stupid, you're not talking to a kid. Since we both know it, i don't need to recite it for you.
Instead , read this if you care to. It's even handed and sums up a lot http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8511780.stm I dont have the time or patience to keep up with this thread.
Don't play stupid, you're not talking to a kid. Since we both know it, i don't need to recite it for you.
Instead , read this if you care to. It's even handed and sums up a lot http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8511780.stm I dont have the time or patience to keep up with this thread.
Schuyler
Misanthrope
Here's a very interesting article just published in Science (peer reviewed and very prestigious mag). What this shows is the danger of current climate scientists pretending to understand climate change. Here we have a situation where the sea level was a meter higher, showing the earth was warmer because of melted ice, yet CO2 concentration was lower.
This Week in SCIENCE, Volume 327, Issue 5967
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5967/twis.dtl You must sign up to view.
Abstract:
Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca
Jeffrey A. Dorale,<sup>1</sup><sup>,*</sup> Bogdan P. Onac,<sup>2</sup><sup>,*</sup> Joan J. Fornós,<sup>3</sup> Joaquin Ginés,<sup>3</sup> Angel Ginés,<sup>3</sup> Paola Tuccimei,<sup>4</sup> David W. Peate<sup>1</sup>
Global sea level and Earth’s climate are closely linked.<sup> </sup>Using speleothem encrustations from coastal caves on the island<sup> </sup>of Mallorca, we determined that western Mediterranean relative<sup> </sup>sea level was ~1 meter above modern sea level ~81,000 years<sup> </sup>ago during marine isotope stage (MIS) 5a. Although our findings<sup> </sup>seemingly conflict with the eustatic sea-level curve of far-field<sup> </sup>sites, they corroborate an alternative view that MIS 5a was<sup> </sup>at least as ice-free as the present, and they challenge the<sup> </sup>prevailing view of MIS 5 sea-level history and certain facets<sup> </sup>of ice-age theory.<sup> </sup>
<sup>
</sup>
<sup>1</sup> Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, 121 Trowbridge Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
<sup>2</sup> Department of Geology, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, SCA 528, Tampa, FL 33620, USA; and Department of Geology, Babes-Bolyai University, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology Cluj, Romania.
<sup>3</sup> Departament de Ciències de la Terra, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain.
<sup>4</sup> Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Università di Roma III, Largo St. Leonardo Murialdo, 1, 00146 Roma, Italy.
…
Sea-level rises and falls as Earth’s giant ice sheets shrink and grow. It has been thought that sea level around 81,000 years ago—well into the last glacial period—was 15 to 20 meters below that of today and, thus, that the ice sheets were more extensive. Dorale et al. (p. 860; see the Perspective by Edwards) now challenge this view. A speleothem that has been intermittently submerged in a cave on the island of Mallorca was dated to show that, historically, sea level was more than a meter above its present height. This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now, even though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was much lower.
This Week in SCIENCE, Volume 327, Issue 5967
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5967/twis.dtl You must sign up to view.
Abstract:
Sea-Level Highstand 81,000 Years Ago in Mallorca
Jeffrey A. Dorale,<sup>1</sup><sup>,*</sup> Bogdan P. Onac,<sup>2</sup><sup>,*</sup> Joan J. Fornós,<sup>3</sup> Joaquin Ginés,<sup>3</sup> Angel Ginés,<sup>3</sup> Paola Tuccimei,<sup>4</sup> David W. Peate<sup>1</sup>
Global sea level and Earth’s climate are closely linked.<sup> </sup>Using speleothem encrustations from coastal caves on the island<sup> </sup>of Mallorca, we determined that western Mediterranean relative<sup> </sup>sea level was ~1 meter above modern sea level ~81,000 years<sup> </sup>ago during marine isotope stage (MIS) 5a. Although our findings<sup> </sup>seemingly conflict with the eustatic sea-level curve of far-field<sup> </sup>sites, they corroborate an alternative view that MIS 5a was<sup> </sup>at least as ice-free as the present, and they challenge the<sup> </sup>prevailing view of MIS 5 sea-level history and certain facets<sup> </sup>of ice-age theory.<sup> </sup>
<sup>
</sup>
<sup>1</sup> Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, 121 Trowbridge Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
<sup>2</sup> Department of Geology, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, SCA 528, Tampa, FL 33620, USA; and Department of Geology, Babes-Bolyai University, Emil Racovita Institute of Speleology Cluj, Romania.
<sup>3</sup> Departament de Ciències de la Terra, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera Valldemossa km 7.5, Palma de Mallorca, 07122, Spain.
<sup>4</sup> Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche, Università di Roma III, Largo St. Leonardo Murialdo, 1, 00146 Roma, Italy.
…
Sea-level rises and falls as Earth’s giant ice sheets shrink and grow. It has been thought that sea level around 81,000 years ago—well into the last glacial period—was 15 to 20 meters below that of today and, thus, that the ice sheets were more extensive. Dorale et al. (p. 860; see the Perspective by Edwards) now challenge this view. A speleothem that has been intermittently submerged in a cave on the island of Mallorca was dated to show that, historically, sea level was more than a meter above its present height. This data implies that temperatures were as high as or higher than now, even though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was much lower.
P
pixelsmith
Guest
It is a fair question. My understanding is that climate is a weather pattern spanning 30 years or more. With that in mind I find it interesting that the pro AGW people have changed the fear mongering from Global Cooling in the 70s to Global Warming in the 90s to Climate Change in the 00s and now I hear rumblings of changing the fear mongering back full circle to Global Cooling once again. wtf?
Your link means nothing to me. What is your point?
jkoci
Watcher of the Skies
NOAA's definition.
The average of weather over at least a 30-year period. Note that the climate taken over different periods of time (30 years, 1000 years) may be different. The old saying is climate is what we expect and weather is what we get.
Climate Program Office (CPO) Home Page - Page:
P
pixelsmith
Guest
so in the past 30 years the climate changed from cold to warm then to cold again... go figure.
maybe if we tax the crap outta people and make a life giving gas into a poison the climate will remain constant for once instead of being incredibly dynamic for 4.5 billions years....
maybe if we tax the crap outta people and make a life giving gas into a poison the climate will remain constant for once instead of being incredibly dynamic for 4.5 billions years....
jkoci
Watcher of the Skies
Another link to the same.
Sea Levels Erratic During Latest Ice Age - Science News
Here are the last few paragraphs.
“The [team’s] results are strong but not absolutely watertight,” comments R. Lawrence Edwards, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. One possible confounding factor, for instance, could be the rebound of Earth’s crust in the region since the end of the most recent ice age. After the ice mass smothering Northern Europe melted and ran to the sea, pressure from viscous material at the top of Earth’s mantle would have lifted the area, thereby influencing apparent sea level.
But Dorale and his colleagues contend that tectonic uplift hasn’t affected their data. He cites similar analyses of now-submerged mineral crusts in Majorcan caves indicating sea level was about 20 meters below today’s level about 85,000 years ago and about 15 meters below the modern standard about 79,000 years ago — readings that match most data gleaned elsewhere at those times.
Studies at a handful of sites worldwide have noted that sea level reached an exceedingly brief and similarly enigmatic high point around 81,000 years ago, says Dorale. Those results have been controversial and, for the most part, have been “politely ignored because they don’t fit the presumed pattern” of how ice ages develop and progress, he says.
Scientists have long noted erratic dips and jumps in sea level during Earth’s ice ages, but debate has typically focused on the magnitude of those swings, says Dorale. The new findings are somewhat disturbing because they suggest that at some points during an ice age, sea level can rise as much as 2 meters over the course of a century. “It’s tough to explain how to melt that much ice that fast,” he admits.
---------- Post added at 04:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:04 AM ----------
Don't worry, I don't think Cap and Trade is going anywhere soon.
Obama Says Senate May Drop Cap and Trade, Pass Energy-Only Bill - NYTimes.com
Jay
Skilled Investigator
Now our favorite "scientist" is lecturing us, again. Given his total BS comments on UFOs, he certainly brings no credibility to this debate.
Bill Nye Tells Rachel Maddow Snowstorms DON ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip
Bill Nye Tells Rachel Maddow Snowstorms DON ecorazzi.com :: the latest in green gossip
Bent Faith
Says you...
World may not be warming, say scientists - Times Online
---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 PM ----------
Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised | Mail Online
---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 PM ----------
Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised | Mail Online