Hacker News Reader

Comment by elektromekatron | Hacker News Reader

I find it continually amazing how many people find NASA sending rockets into space all the time to be an expected and everyday part of modern life, but then don't trust them with a thermometer.

View on HN

Temperature measurement is a hard problem, hard enough you could write a PhD on it. Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable.

The issue is when people refuse to recognize that thousands of scientists have made this their career, and thousands of PhDs actually have been written on temperatures past and present, and think that talking heads on Fox News reciting memos paid for by fossil fuel companies contain even the semblance of a real critique.

> Asking questions about methods etc. is entirely acceptable.

I am fascinated by the topic of temperature collection methods through the years. Is there an easily digestible source with explanations?

Not that I know of, unfortunately--most of what I know I've gleaned from conversations with a brother who works in the field, and from http://realclimate.org/ , which has some decent technical information for a blog (but unfortunately has declined a bit IMO).

think that talking heads on Fox News reciting memos paid for by fossil fuel companies contain even the semblance of a real critique.

When did this happen?

Pretty much any time Fox News talks about climate change temperatures?

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/feb/13/...

  "They're (the White House) actually kind of lucky that we don't cover climate change as much as we should," Perino said.

  "Because yesterday, it was reported that the temperature readings have been fabricated and it's all blowing up in their faces."

  Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle interjected that it was "fraud science" and Perino said, "Yes, I agree."

That took me less than 10 seconds to Google.

The American GOP and their fossil fuel powered deep pocket backers have done a wonderful job making this an emotionally, and even religiously charged issue (as all good wedge issues should be).

More reading: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/201...

Re: NOAA, not NASA, but it's because of articles like this:

http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2015/08/20/the_latest_cl...

When confronted with an obviously broken weather station that was reading way too hot, they replaced the faulty sensor — but refused to adjust the bad readings it had already taken. And when dealing with "the pause" in global surface temperatures that is in its 19th year, the agency threw away satellite-sensed sea-surface temperatures, substituting questionable data that showed no pause.

NOAA <> NASA

Until 2006, understanding the Earth's climate was an explicit component of NASA's core mission statement. The exact phrasing that was removed in 2006 was: "to understand and protect the home planet".

So, yes, NOAA != NASA, but I think the parent comment was still spot on.

REF: http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/center-science-and-democracy/...

The global temperature results are often presented as NASA, NOAA in dual briefings, though sometimes the other way round, probably depends whose turn it is to book the hotel - https://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-determines-2014...

They do individual analyses, but by and large, NASA manages the kit.

It's been a while since I've heard the mainstream climate deniers claim that the world isn't getting warmer. Most of them just claim that no matter what happens, it's not humanity's fault nor is it humanity's problem.

--edit: jedberg beat me to it in another conversation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10092967

Reply on news.ycombinator.com