Alaskan North Slope climate change just outran one of our tools to measure it
climate.gov
climate.gov
The November 2017 temperature readings from Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska were 2.5 degrees higher than November 1998. The NCEI's ingest code for their monthly report flagged this station as a probable sensor setup change and ignored the data.
Crucially the code for choosing which data to ignore looks for "agreement" with nearby sensors. Utqiaġvik (Barrow) is one of the most remote sites, with the nearest other site being many smaller European countries away. The other "nearest" sites did not show similar warming, therefore the NCEI's code discarded Barrow. If there had been other, closer stations, showing similar data, their code would not have discarded it.
A classic case of a programmer making an assumption that is almost, but not quite, universaly true. "There will always be many nearby stations who's average temperature will behave roughly similarly," works for most of the US, but not here.
They are now updating their data ingest code to relax the agreement requirements for isolated, far north stations.
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[Update: ye gads, how is this downvote fodder? My points are going up and down like a yo-yo! If I'm wrong about anything, here, let me know!]
It also sounds like you are downplaying the effects of climate change, in contradiction with the data displayed in the article, which is bound to get downvotes.
Here's one, showing Barrow temperature vs sea ice: https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/barrow-temp-vs-n...
(These two being that nearby stations' temperatures would rise and fall together, and that all stations would have nearby stations.)
From the article, the only change they are making to fix this breakage is to reduce the strength of these two assumptions for far north stations.
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The popular perception is that the currently measured global warming means that every part of the globe is getting warmer at the same rate, all year long. The reality is that Barrow is getting a tiny bit warmer in the summer, a lot warmer than it used to be in the winter, and the rest of Alaska that we are measuring isn't seeing the same scale of changes.
That's totally cool - it's just not the popular perception on either side of the debate. Here's a relevant XKCD for real life science https://xkcd.com/683/
Can you also please cite your source that it's a "data import code" problem as you claim above? I don't see it in the article and I understand the article differently, I consider the assumptions they used being correct ones for the given data sources.
Edit: I see your edit and I don't agree with your claim "it's just not the popular perception on either side of the debate" -- "it should warm the same everywhere" is only actively used by the "deniers" even if no scientist ever made such a claim:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/does-global...
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/uks-met-office-r...
etc.
Out of curiosity I just did some basic SQL queries on the dataset (min, max, average) and the graphs look slightly different from those in the article. The annual average temperature 2006 vs 2016 shows no difference for example. [2]
[1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/qcdatasets.html [2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vScsduBmVJxE...
Hand carrying notebooks and notes in the margin are a sign that your automated process is insufficient, not that manual processes would be better. Perhaps each weather station should have a physical button that people can push to insert a flag in the database that says to check the note in the margin?
(Also, it would be an ethical travesty to 'bind' generations of sentient beings to slavery like that. But fortunately that was a hypothetical.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/...
You can see the data for the USCRN station at Barrow here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/station.htm?stationId=1007
This is already an increase of 2° C! So while the global average may only have changed slightly, temperatures in specific regions have already gone slightly off the rails.
Almost everywhere over land will be over 2 degrees, I think. Global average includes the oceans, and they change less.
Personally, I think even 2 degrees is too high, but we don't have much choice about that, unless we invent really efficient carbon sucking technology.
The general expectation has always been that most future warming will show up where it's coldest today. For the world average to move by 2 degrees doesn't mean it gets 2 degrees warmer everywhere, rather it gets much more than 2 degrees warmer in cold winter nights in high latitudes over land, while the temperature barely moves much in, say, tropical ocean areas.
Um, try here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_effects_of_global_war...
Even if you’re so optimistic that you think we can drive our own emissions down to less than 1/6th current levels, feedback loops are have started driving non-anthropogenic carbon into the atmosphere that we have zero ability to control.
Another supporting data point is that most reef-dwelling species experienced an “anomalous” mass extinction during this period and not coincidentally we are seeing the same effects already in today’s oceans.
Some people say climate change scientists are being alarmist. In fact they are being very conservative and the data is scarier than what is reported.
Interestingly, it’s probably carbon capture “technology” that caused the Eocene to go from 3500ppm CO2 to below today’s levels. Arctic cores show at least 8 meters (!) of sedimentary Azolla that corresponds directly with a massive reduction in atmospheric carbon, kicking off an ice age. Google the Azolla event for more details.
This is why my personal focus is on carbon capture as a potential solution. Azolla apparently took us from greenhouse earth to an ice age in under 1M years, so I’m hoping we can do better. I also have a lot of respect for Elon Musk’s plan.
Oh, and in a truly delicious ironic turn, oil companies are investigating whether or not they can find oil in Arctic sedimentary deposits created by the Azolla event. I guess they want to put all that carbon back into the air!
This is from talking to actual climate scientists and seeing them making very real short term practical investments and decisions regarding geographical location, frugality and not having kids.
Examples of that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIy0t5P0CUQ
And this is not fringe science anymore. The latest predictions from the largest meta reviews are all, -even though still conservative-, blasting through the ceilings of the worst scenarios. Latest a 4 degree celcius average shift in 80 years.
https://www.eceee.org/all-news/news/news-2017/worst-case-glo...
While 4 degrees sounds manageable, it would actually cause a severe die-off off most off the human population because of a complete break down of the stable regional weather systems which the whole global ecology has adapted to over thousands of years of evolution. There is simply no time for an agricultural adaptation, and not enough time for migration or biological transformation.
The previous changes in global climate has taken orders of magnitudes longer than the current one, this is one of the many misconceptions floating in around in the collective consciousness, in part pushed by the army of lawyers, PR-employees and astroturfers employed by the energy sector. The internet and the media landscape in general is rife with them as far as i have observed.
Also 4 degrees is extremely optimistic.
Look at this article about an increase in degrees ( Not very old and already its focusing on 2 degrees, half of the new consensus ): http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/2degrees/
The goalposts keep getting pushed and the modeling from the Paris Agreement is based of scenarios where deus ex machina like geo-engineering will suddenly become available and save us all. Pure magical thinking at least from a scientific perspective - even though i really believe in human ingenuity.
https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/documents/Geo...
But things are probably going to get much, much worse..
If we go just a bit out of the hyper optimistic consensus of the "policy making parts" of the academic climate community we soon discover the frightening prospects of the feedback loops that we are not even accounting for; methane release, blue ocean event (reflection), ocean acidity threshold, reversal of ocean currents etc.
The first phase begins in about four to five years where we will reach the "blue ocean event". The first year of the arctic being virtually ice free. This will kick in to gear a series of events we are unable to model.
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv_annual_max_loss_and_ice...
The ice sheet is already having trouble re-emerging this year in the north, and this could lead to an increase more in the vicinity of 7-8 degrees at the turn of the century. Which also means complete global collapse in 10-20 years. And a heavy die off accelerating thereafter, until who knows what..
EDIT: Some more thoughts:
1. Shorting companies that primarily exist or do business in locations that will be super fucked by this. What's those? Saudi companies? Companies located in flat island states? Agriculture companies located in countries where agriculture will be impossible. Where would that be?
2. Buying stock of companies likely to profit. What would those be and how do I know they have a moat protecting them from companies that used to be in now uninhabitable areas from jumping into their market? E.g: If I invest in agricultural companies in Greenland, what protects them from being pushed out by Spanish agricultural companies that buy up land in Greenland? That would especially suck if I shorted the Spanish companies...
What makes you think that making money off climate change is a thing?
Will the world monetary system even hold up if those of us that remain alive have moved into shelter bunkers, where we grow our food hydroponically, tend to our desalination plants and generally hunker down?
If everyone is carrying weapons to protect their stuff and take other people's stuff, will your well-stuffed bank account do you any good at all?
There's no point buying land or other investments in remote locations. When the shit hits the fan you won't have financial or physical access to them.
Better to focus on building a robust community around you which can weather strife, in a locale that is predicted to remain habitable.
I don't know if we'll see an entire global collapse, but I think we'll see a lot of displacement that stresses communities already overly sensitive to migration. Not to mention the likely deadly impact on many people.
That, to me, should be reason enough to act rather than ignore as impacting only "those people over there".
If the things being crushed are what you need for basic survival, yeah sitting there with a lemonade stand is pretty stupid.
Let's say you're doing your part, to some reasonable extent. But you only have one vote and the broader population votes for people that steer the country or world in less effective ways. The planet is going to warm despite your best efforts. Does buying cold-climate land that will become more suitable for farming food in the future worsen the situation or indirectly make lemonade from the sour situation?
- Companies that work on climate cooling solutions, e.g. carbon capture from air, cow fart capture (cows are a big source of methane).
- Companies that produce devices that reduce/filter emissions.
- Companies that produce (components of) renewable energy devices, e.g. solar cells, wind turbines. Once the first climate catastrophies strike repeatedly and the severity of the situation sinks in, politicians (at least in Europe) will go full throttle on renewable energy and sack fossil fuels, lost jobs be damned.
- Companies that genetically engineer crops/animals/food because they are the ones most likely to create adapted organisms for harsh environments.
Regarding 1:
On YouTube some big oil company had an ad campaign that showed them as the renewable energy leader of tomorrow. All white, clean, green. The oil companies knew about climate change since at least the 1970s. They will turn their back on oil when there is no profit to be made anymore but they won’t die, they will adapt and are already beginning. Shorting them is not a good idea.
In short, I advise ammunition and canned goods.
> If I invest in agricultural companies in Greenland, what protects them from being pushed out by Spanish agricultural companies that buy up land in Greenland? That would especially suck if I shorted the Spanish companies.
If the world get's messed up enough that Greenland becomes an important source of agriculture then you'll want all your investments to be local.
Do you have any articles or books about that? I've been fairly pessimistic, but I hadn't read anything predicting collapse that soon.
I'm not sure that's the scenario the OP had in mind though. A realization of crisis could also have the opposite effect. I think our main problem now is that we're not panicking enough. Humans tend to do decently well in crises, often the only time we solve certain problems.
In the same way that warnings about bigger conspiracies look increasingly crazy, warnings about more imminent collapse get lost in the sea of other 'mental' predictions.
Even if you do go looking for such predictions, distinguishing them from the crazy stuff that surrounds them is not easy. They would look exactly like the noise that surrounds them. Plus, in such forums, a medium-term collapse production based around something so mundane as climate change is passé.
Dig at the limits and collapse lit and you'll find qite the range of plausible estimates, ranging from 20 years ago to millions of years from now.
Far more useful is understanding methodologies and rationales. Those, if sound, offer more useful guidance.