The Gaming Den

Here nicely arranged on Gather by Dan E, is a series of videos from scientists who discovered a possible link between low cloud formation (as a result of cosmic rays moderated by solar magnetic fields) and global temperatures. These are not "deniers" (although perhaps it is the CO2 people that want to deny their evidence) but people who strongly support the discoveries they have made.

Discuss.

('cause I know you won't comment on the videos; well Frank will; he will dismiss it off hand before he calls me a nut job, but he's just being polite.)

The problem with the cosmic ray theory is this: It's Not True

It was an interesting idea. Emphasis: was, As in, past tense. There was a falsifiable claim, they did the tests, and they falsified the claim. The claim should be over now.

-Username17

Ah, predictable as ever Frank. So the entire theory of change on the geologic time scale is dismissed because one team cannot find a correlation on the local time scale? That's like saying we can disprove global warming because it snowed a lot last week. This is bullshit the deliers use, Frank. I expect better from you.

Ah, predictable as ever Frank. So the entire theory of change on the geologic time scale is dismissed because one team cannot find a correlation on the local time scale? That's like saying we can disprove global warming because it snowed a lot last week. This is bullshit the deliers use, Frank. I expect better from you.

So I'm predictable and you expect better? Please Tzor, get your insults together. Either I behave as expected or I behave below expectations. Those can both be insults, but if you use them in the same paragraph it just comes out as nonsense.

But the geological timescale question, while fascinating in its own limited context, is basically the province of religion right now. None of us will live to see the next moment of geologic time, so none of the models have a huge amount of consequence for how we live our lives. If in a hundred million years the world froze or mean temperatures rose to 45 degrees, our descendants could plausibly adapt to that, by like evolution and shit. It's only when the changes fall within a few generations that it's a "holy shit, we are all going to die!" moment.

The effects of the sun may well have a vast effect on the climate over a long period of time. In a very real way, the sun formed the Earth and everything on it, so fluctuations in the sun's output in any band could very plausibly have substantial effects here. But, fluctuations in the sun's output don't account for the measurable and measured increases in temperature. Which is actually good news, because those increases have been coming alarmingly fast, and we can't actually do anything about the sun's output (XKCD notwithstanding). So if temperatures really were rising precipitously in response to the fucking sun changing, we'd be in "Holy Shit! We're All Going to Die!" territory.

Fortunately, the rise in temperatures just correlates to our own emissions, which we can reduce and even sequester, so it's entirely within human power to slow, halt, or even reverse climate change. Some day, we will even be tailoring particle counts in the atmosphere to engineer a world we want, and soon after that we'll be engineering the atmospheres of other worlds so that we can turn them into terraformed gardens.

-Username17

tzor wrote:But what do I know? I'm just that stupid astrophysics graduate from RPI.

If I have any questions about astrophysics or concern trolling, I'll be sure to forward them to you accordingly. But given your track record on issues that are unrelated to your specific field of study such as politics, medicine, other sciences - anything else at all, really - your appeal to authority falls on deaf ears.

I can show a picture of a class ring, too.

All it means is that you had $300.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:I can show a picture of a class ring, too.

All it means is that you had $300.

-Crissa

But do you have a fancy ring holder?

Also. I can show you a picture of a class ring for free.

That is still my absolute favorite comic in The New Yorker.

-Username17

One of my friends was using that for a handle on usenet eighteen years ago.

I don't know when the cartoon was published, either. But he used to have it taped to his mac.

-Crissa

(Note: I should probably rename this thread to "Let's annoy Frank ands Crissa with SCIENCE")

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

Now, the fact that CO2 is not going into the atmosphere but is going directly into the oceans is not a good thing; it's a bad thing; a very bad thing. It's probably a more real and present danger than anything Al Gore might dream up. Just Google CO2 levels in oceans.

Global Warming Could Make the Ocean a Noisier Place to Live

Chalk up another unexpected consequence of pumping too much carbon dioxide into the air: According to a new study, the excess CO2 that ends up in seawater is gradually making the oceans noisier.

The changing chemistry of the ocean is one of the major impacts of CO2 emissions. The dissolved gas is changing the pH of the water by making it more acidic, which makes life harder for corals and marine critters with calcium carbonate shells that are corroded by the acidic water. But the new study, published in Nature Geoscience, found that changing the pH of the oceans also reduces the levels of chemicals that absorb sound, like magnesium sulphate and boric acid.

Low-frequency sound in the ocean is produced by natural phenomena such as rain, waves and marine life, and by human activities such as sonar systems, shipping and construction. The sound is absorbed mainly through the viscosity of the water and the presence of certain dissolved chemicals…. But the concentration of chemicals that absorb sound in the oceans has declined as a result of ocean acidification [AFP]. The study found that sound absorption could fall by some 60 percent in high latitudes and deep waters by 2100.

(By the way, low frequencies are BAD, very bad. Bad as in the NAZIS were actually working on using low frequencies to control crowds; you get the frequencies that resonate your stomach and you aren't going to be all that violent, when you really want to just puke.)

Now if someone suggests that we need to drastically cut CO2 emissions in order to save the oceans, I would be more than happy to support that effort; right after we put an end to all that nitrogen polution from farmland runoff. Agriculture Impacts Oceans

Tzor, we need to drastically cut carbon emissions in order to save the oceans. Remember that deoxygenation is a separate issue from acidification, and there's no reason to fight them in sequence rather than parallel.

tzor wrote: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

Now, the fact that CO2 is not going into the atmosphere but is going directly into the oceans is not a good thing; it's a bad thing; a very bad thing.

Um, that isn't what the study says, or even what the title says. I will grant that it is a confusingly worded title, which will mislead people without the proper background in science or critical reading into thinking that the raw amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has not changed in 140 or so years... which is not at all true. The claim is that the FRACTION of carbon dioxide emitted is staying constant. That means the same ratio is being absorbed and the same ratio is being put into the air. So that 45% of a frickin huge and escalating amount of emitted CO2 is still staying in the air.

It implies that there are still carbon sinks in the world soaking up as they have always done. And as you noted in the further links, that overloading these carbon sinks is not a good thing any more than it is to flood the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. That study doesn't impugn anything about global warming and carbon emissions being bad for the status quo.

It's not the science that is irritating. It's the misrepresentation of it, and the ridiculous off-hand slurs at Al Gore that have nothing to do with anything.

I don't trust that first site. Like, at all. I have no fucking idea what it is on about at times, it is extremely misleading and it thinks that wildly different numbers are the same.

Another story on the same site linked to on the page about the same research group from Bristol states that CO2 emissions in 1850 were 2 billion tons and are now 35 billion tons. So, if 45% of the emissions go into the air, then in 1850 0.9 billion tons went into the air and now 15.75 billion tons stays in the air per year.

Its still more than 17 times as much CO2, and will have a huge effect. So what is this page trying to say exactly? It seems to be trying to say that the proportion of the atmosphere that is CO2 has stayed the same for 160 years, but in the text it says the complete opposite.

Like I said, your link makes no sense.

My uncle actually linked the exact same fucking retarded science daily article on his facebook before I saw this thread. Science daily is not peer reviewed. It is not a valid source to counter ANY argument that a peer reviewed journal has made. Ever. It is *at best* something interesting to read to get your mind thinking about what might be true. Jesus fucking christ, you'd think that Science Daily was the only fucking science website republicans knew about.

Well for some reason all the Peer Reviewed ones keep saying that evolution is true so they can't be worth Republican's time, since they know that's false.

fucking silver surfer. I knew he and his philosophizing surfboarding ways were the reason behind all this.

ubernoob wrote:Jesus fucking christ, you'd think that Science Daily was the only fucking science website republicans knew about.

Republicans aren't interested in science. They are only interested in "science" that supports their dogmatic positions. So they tend to cherry pick scientific articles from either pseudo-scientific articles, poorly worded articles, or articles that have been written by scientists that have been bought and paid for.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:

ubernoob wrote:Jesus fucking christ, you'd think that Science Daily was the only fucking science website republicans knew about.

Republicans aren't interested in science. They are only interested in "science" that supports their dogmatic positions. So they tend to cherry pick scientific articles from either pseudo-scientific articles, poorly worded articles, or articles that have been written by scientists that have been bought and paid for.

That's total bullshit and hopefully you know it. There are plenty of people who are Republicans purely out of self-interest, and have a perfectly fine understanding of science--just as there are Democrats who are absolute Luddite douche bags. Political leanings aren't the be-all and end-all, even if the Democratic party tends to be more friendly towards science on average.

ubernoob wrote:Science daily is not censored by the United Nations agencies and universities who make the global warming scare their number one money and policy maker.

There I corrected it for you.

Ganbare Gincun wrote:Democrats aren't interested in science. They are only interested in "science" that supports their dogmatic positions. So they tend to cherry pick scientific articles from either pseudo-scientific articles, poorly worded articles, or articles that have been written by scientists that have been bought and paid for.

There, I corrected it for you.

tzor wrote:

ubernoob wrote:Science daily is not censored by the United Nations agencies and universities who make the global warming scare their number one money and policy maker.

There I corrected it for you.

Tzor, go eat a barrel of cocks. The idea that a single entity can censor every single journal in the world EXCEPT science daily is fucking retarded and you know it. And even if it WAS true, what the FUCK makes science daily special? The fact that it isn't peer reviewed? Really? You sir, are a fucking retard and have no place to ever speak about anything regarding the word "science" ever.

First strike, Tzor.

It would be interesting, but it seems that tzor has just waved his hands again and pretended he said something, when in fact nothing related to any point he has tried to make (what is his point? To prove that he doesn't belong where critical thinking is appreciated?)

-Crissa

ubernoob wrote:Tzor, go eat a barrel of cocks.

Why, you are the one with your nose up the UN's ass.

Consider the whole notion of peer review, who gets it (or rather who kisses the ass of whom) and who does not.

"I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

And I see Crissa has jumped on the "Jump and hump Tzor" bandwagon. Yes indeed, now what was your point Crissa? Oh I forgot, you don't have one.

Clearly we forgot to remind ourselves of the vast liberal conspiracy to overthrow the constitution, which is obviously a cool, calm and collected view of the situation.