APOD: 130 Years of Earth Surface Temperatures (2013 Jul 31)

[mjimih]

THE ARCTIC - Water stays at the same level


OCEAN HEAT EXPANSION


THE ANTARCTIC & GREENLAND - Water rises


So far we are VERY lucky that there isn't a major landmass at the top of the world

[rockythemountaineer]

If you're not an expert, you should almost certainly be basing your views on the consensus of experts, if there is one.

Well said, Chris.

[Nayrb01]

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive gas, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.”

― Michael Crichton

[Chris Peterson]

You think man can destroy the planet?...”

― Michael Crichton

Evidence that Crichton was an idiot in this matter. Before citing his opinion, which differs from that of the entire climate science community, I'd suggest also posting his climate science credentials, list of peer-reviewed publications on the subject, details of the research he conducted, etc. Otherwise, his opinion is largely meaningless.

See Argument from Authority Fallacy.

[Nayrb01]

So because he doesn't have credentials everything he said was false ( I think not). Then that would make everyone with credentials correct regardless of whatever came out of their mouths.

That's the problem with a lot of so called educated people just because their educated doesn't mean they're smart.

[Chris Peterson]

So because he doesn't have credentials everything he said was false ( I think not). Then that would make everyone with credentials correct regardless of whatever came out of there mouths.

Your logic is poor. Nothing I said implies that having good credentials in some subject guarantees the accuracy of what somebody says. What I said is that lacking credentials in a subject is a very good reason for not accepting the accuracy of what somebody says about that subject, particularly when it stands at odds with what most experts say.

[owlice]

Nayrb01, who would you rather have defending you in court, someone with a law degree, or someone with an MBA?

[Nayrb01]

Nayrb01, who would you rather have defending you in court, someone with a law degree, or someone with an MBA?

That too is flawed, just because someone has a law degree does not make them a good lawyer.
point being is show me more than one sentence in his statement that is completely false. sure as a whole you can debate it and pick it apart but the fact is just about every sentence has an element of truth to it.
also did you or do you have proof that "the entire climate science community" disagreed with him.

[Chris Peterson]

That too is flawed, just because someone has a law degree does not make them a good lawyer.
point being is show me more than one sentence in his statement that is completely false. sure as a whole you can debate it and pick it apart but the fact is just about every sentence has an element of truth to it.

"You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity."

Completely wrong, and entirely disproven by a huge amount of evidence. And that's just his introduction.

[JeffB5]

Such a shame to see APOD buy into trendy/junk science. Another poster said it best: "Cute animation, too bad the sampling is only 130 years out of 4 billion."

[dkp]

It would be fully honest to point out to readers that early temperatures are based on proxies and that the animation time frame begins at the end of the Little Ice Age when warming is to be expected. It is also completely unknown what the actual temperatures were in may regions of the globe for all but a few recent decades, so this is all very speculative and one of many scenarios that are plausible. And all readers should keep in mind that climate change is the normal condition - were it to stop changing for any reason we would have good reason to be alarmed to the point of hysteria. Visit the website describing Cosquer's Cave in France to learn how uneducated stone-age people not only survived far greater climate change, but produced us and all of our written history along the way. Surely we can match their survivability with our modern capabilities and intelligence.

[Nayrb01]

Another quote by DR Micheal Crichton on Scientific Consensus

“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

[Crichton gave a number of examples where the scientific consensus was completely wrong for many years.]

“… Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”


About Dr Michael Crichton (1942–2008): Educated at Harvard University A.B. (summa cum laude) 1964 (Phi Beta Kappa). Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellow, 1964–65. Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Cambridge University, England, 1965. Graduated Harvard Medical School, M.D. 1969; post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences, La Jolla, California 1969–1970. Visiting Writer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988. The books he has authored have sold over 200 million copies. Source: michaelcrichton.com/aboutmichaelcrichton-biography.html.

[owlice]

You're the one choosing the MBA, Nayrb01, not I.

If you want to take your climatology information from someone with an MD, well, okay, you do. You are asserting that Crichton has more information on climatology than nearly all climatologists put together. That is your logic: one excellent writer with an MD beats all climatologists put together.

You've got someone with an MBA defending you in court.

[Nayrb01]

You are asserting that Crichton has more information on climatology than nearly all climatologists put together

not saying that at all, all he was pointing out was that there are flaws in some of the scientific thinking out there and that consensus is not science.

[Chris Peterson]

Another quote by DR Micheal Crichton on Scientific Consensus

Another quote demonstrating a serious and fundamental lack of understanding on Crichton's part of how science works at all, and therefore another reason to be extremely skeptical of anything he has to say about climate science (or any other science, for that matter).

[Chris Peterson]

Such a shame to see APOD buy into trendy/junk science. Another poster said it best: "Cute animation, too bad the sampling is only 130 years out of 4 billion."

There is good data available for long term climate, as well. This is actual measured evidence (as opposed to proxy evidence) of warming that supports extremely well supported theoretical concepts describing the very unusual, extremely rapid changes over the short period that humans have been significantly impacting the atmosphere.

[owlice]

That's exactly what you're asserting, Nayrb01; you're asserting that Crighton's opinion on climate change is better than that of nearly all climatologists put together.

Maybe he can defend you in court, then, rather than someone with an MBA, and along the way, if you need surgery, you'd be okay with his performing it, right? He's an MD, after all. Never practiced as a doctor, but eh, why should that bother you?

[ksdogra]

In the absence of contemporary solar output statistics, these terrestrial statistics are meaningless.

I don't think solar output changes measurably in 100 or 200 years.
Has anyone considered that the solar system may be emerging from a thicker to a thinner cosmic dust cloud, So lesser solar energy is dissipated on its way to the earth?

[FloridaMike]

This topic really brings out the tin foil hat crowd....

[owlice]

This topic really brings out the tin foil hat crowd....

FloridaMike, want some popcorn?

[Chris Peterson]

In the absence of contemporary solar output statistics, these terrestrial statistics are meaningless.

I don't think solar output changes measurably in 100 or 200 years.
Has anyone considered that the solar system may be emerging from a thicker to a thinner cosmic dust cloud, So lesser solar energy is dissipated on its way to the earth?

We have excellent measurement of actual solar output (made from space) since the 1970s, and longer term measurements of the amount of solar energy reaching the surface. There is no evidence of any significant variation outside the 11-year cycle, other than random variation. That is, there is no observable trend either up or down, despite the well established trend in global temperature rise.

[Chris Peterson]

This topic really brings out the tin foil hat crowd....

So true. May I recommend an excellent article on the psychology of science denial?

[FloridaMike]

The comments are typically amazing; I have to shake my head (still) in disbelief. I get it that we don’t know EVERYTHING, but come on, we know enough. Just pump some CO2 into a chamber exposed to sunlight. That should tell you something.

To paraphrase Michael Crichton “Don’t worry dudes; we may destroy ourselves and every other species we know of but come on! Something has to emerge from the hell scape we conjured up.”

A visionary for our time, to be sure.

[Ann]

That too is flawed, just because someone has a law degree does not make them a good lawyer.
point being is show me more than one sentence in his statement that is completely false. sure as a whole you can debate it and pick it apart but the fact is just about every sentence has an element of truth to it.

"You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity."

Completely wrong, and entirely disproven by a huge amount of evidence. And that's just his introduction.

Well, Chris, I don't think we can destroy the Earth as a habitable planet. But I'm quite convinced that we can destroy the conditions that makes the Earth a habitable planet to us.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

Well, Chris, I don't think we can destroy the Earth as a habitable planet. But I'm quite convinced that we can destroy the conditions that makes the Earth a habitable planet to us.

Agreed. Mainly. I do think it is either within our means, or soon will be, to actually make the planet uninhabitable to all except perhaps the simplest of life, but I don't think that's something that will happen by casual accident.

Although it is possible that what we are doing to our climate could trigger some sort of runaway shift in climate making the Earth uninhabitable to humans, that probably isn't going to happen. The current changes probably won't have a major impact on how habitable the Earth is to us. Rather, they will result in significant economic costs as well as social upheaval. Very unpleasant, probably, but no major risk to our species in the long run.