Yikes! wrote:
Interesting that so many posters apparently did not read the article I linked to.
Fine, I read the article. Here were the interesting bits;
-In fact, most of the sea-level rise observed to date is because of this warming effect, not melting ice caps.
-But before Argo, researchers relied on temperature sensors ...That method was subject to uncertainties, especially around measurement depth, that hamper today’s scientists as they stitch together 20th-century temperature data into a global historical record. In the new analysis, Hausfather and his colleagues assessed three recent studies that better accounted for the older instrument biases.
-The researchers also reviewed a fourth study that had used a novel method to estimate ocean temperatures over time and had also found that the world’s oceans were heating faster than the I.P.C.C. prediction. But that study contained an error that caused its authors to revise their estimates downward.
So here are my observations;
It says polar ice caps aren't melting. (can't these scientist get their story strait?)
It says the ocean temperature data is based on stitching together different measurement methods. They guestimate the older instrument biases and this stitching together of different data is error prone and the "estimates" might need to be adjusted in the future.
The bottom line is the measurements about temperature, or sea levels, or whatever other metric you are looking at is unreliable information that does not deserves the public's attention, much less political activity to prevent a tenuous prediction of looming catastrophe. Any change in the allocation of our economic resources to prevent climate change will actually cost more (and result in more human suffering) than whatever climate apocalypse some people think will happen. Listen closely to the scientists themselves and they will give you clues that they are operating on many assumption and guess work. But they think their opinion is very important and must be listened because they want to continue getting grant money to do their research.
The only pragmatic approach to this whole issue is to just wait and see what happens, and react to the climate changes if/when they come. Even if the climate change prediction weren't covered in 10 layers of uncertainty, it's not like we could change anything anyway. Our energy grid is based on the only source of reliable and affordable energy available, and that is petrochemicals. Wind, and solar cannot deliver a reliable stream of electrical energy, and trying to incorporate them into the grid causes more problems then they solve. It actually makes the grid less efficient. As for mobile energy usage (electric cars), they rely on the petrochemical based grid. I hate t break it to you environmentalists, but your prius runs on coal. If we all had electric cars AND spent trillions of dollars for the sake of adding wind and solar to the grid, the manufacture process to make the solar panels for the grid and batteries for all the cars comes with energy costs and environmental downsides as well. And it still doesn't solve the problem of what to do when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining or you live anywhere north of the 35th parallel. Face it, petrochemicals are the most efficient way to get energy, and nothing is going to change that fact. Switching to any "renewable" source, on the scale of the whole grid, causes more problems and inefficiencies than it helps. This is why there is nothing that could be done about climate change, even if it was a problem.
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That's what you get when you ask people to read the silly article. Happy?