Talk:1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

The jump of 0.5 degrees from 2000 to 2016 has been shown to be false. It exists because "scientists" went back and changed (or "seasonally adjusted") their data to fit their preconceived conclusions. Just look at Al Gore's 'Inconvenient [Non]Truth', pretty much every doomsday scenario has not occurred. I expect better of XKCD.173.245.48.77 20:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, never mind then. Oh well. -- JayRulesXKCD (talk) 1:02, 12 September 2016

I acknowledge that the picture is WAY too long, so I added a "skip to explanation" bar, to speed things up. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Is it just me or does the picture not render all the way down in full resolution on firefox? I found it worked on Chrome and explorer... And Wauw, just after I had created the new Category:Climate change... Was also just watched a QandA program yesterday where Brian Cox tried to convince some Australian politician about global warming, but the other one just cried conspiracy... Will take some time to make this one complete I guess? Great ;-) --Kynde (talk) 17:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

That's the thing with this kind of stuff. It takes a LONG time to make it just right. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 19:08, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Please delete the ridiculous trivia

• The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).

108.162.221.139 19:44, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course you can pretty much ignore the part of the diagram that is in dotted line, you can't rely on that data. 108.162.246.119 20:40, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Note that even if we ignore the extrapolated future, the warming in the past century is already a vastly more abrupt climate shift than anything that happened in the preceding 219 centuries. - Frankie (talk) 21:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually we don't know what the shifts were on that scale in the past. The dotted line before modern measurement is a very limited estimate. We have no idea what the year to year changes were in the past, at best we can work out an average. I am reminded of a house mouse(life span of about 1 year) looking at the leaves fall from the tress and saying "Surely this is the end of the world". 108.162.246.119 14:44, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Randall explicitly addresses your specious complaint at 15900 BCE. Year-to-year fluctuations are not the same as the current century-long surge. Either show scientific evidence or go away, Mr Troll from Seattle Cloudflare. - Frankie (talk) 16:11, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I should have known better to enter into a religious debate on the internet. 108.162.246.119 00:17, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

No it is not that which is the problem, but that you try to disqualify the data without even bothering to look through them. Aa mentioned Randall tries to let us know that such a high fluctuation as we have in these last 100 years would not be hidden in the old data. As mentioned by Fankie this is explained between 16000 and 15500 BCE... --Kynde (talk) 14:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I refuse to debate a matter of faith with you. Note that 15500-16000 is 500 years, perhaps when we have 500 years of accurate temperature measurements we will know more. 108.162.246.119 03:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Why even bring your faith into this? 108.162.212.92 16:29, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I call Troll. Talking about the significance of where the subchart/Legend/footnote lies? Like what years it's next to actually has any significance? Either he's too dim to actually look, or he's trolling. The standard recommendation is "Don't feed the trolls". :) - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.118 02:55, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Have you read the referenced papers? Well you fit well with the people he refers to between the two lines at the top. ;-) We are heading for troublesome times :-( 164: Playing Devil's Advocate to Win... --Kynde (talk) 21:22, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• the use unqualified of the words "still many people" is exactly the kind of weasely nonsense that this comic is designed to refute. there are "still many people" who claim the earth is flat, that they have been abducted by aliens, or that the MMR jab made their children autistic. those people are deluded or insincere. the difference with deniers of climate change is that there are in their ranks scientists who are clear-sighted but who have decided that funding at any price is better than none. this site should be better than that. --141.101.98.84

You're absolutely right, the ranks of climate deniers do indeed include a few scientists willing to sell their voices to the highest bidder (e.g. http://www.polluterwatch.com/heartland-institute ). But is that what you meant to say? - Frankie (talk) 11:50, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

that the wording be changed to reflect that. --141.101.98.84 11:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

For a large post like this, it's a wonder that we can all keep up and edit something like this all at once. Wow. --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 11:56, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, anyone else notice that this was a top trending post on Facebook last night? I don't know if I could call it a milestone but it's still pretty cool. And WE edited it! :D --JayRulesXKCD (talk) 12:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Very interesting, so it was explain xkcd and not xkcd that where the top trending post? Could you post a link to where you found this out? --Kynde (talk) 20:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I can see you are right from the fact that Randall has chosen to postpone his next comic in order to keep this one on the front page for all the new visitors as has now been noted in the explanation and in the trivia section. --Kynde (talk) 14:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe someone should add the fact that the transcript may be a reference to oxidation?Transuranium (talk) 19:21, 13 September 2016 (UTC)Transuranium

I think you mean the "title text" not the transcript? And that you refer to the recent comic 1693: Oxidation which is indeed referened in the title text, then that has been written at the bottom of the main explanation and has been there already since the 12th edit less than 1½ hour after the comic came out... --Kynde (talk) 20:02, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Is nobody else having a problem seeing the comic? Both here and on XKCD I get an "Image not found" icon, a blue question mark. I thought maybe this was an interactive comic that doesn't work on my iPad (like that garden thing, though that did nothing on my computer either). If I tap it on XKCD nothing happens, here it leads to the picture's Wiki page - also with the question mark - which says it's a PNG, which I know this iPad can show. It's 11pm EST, maybe night maintenance on XKCD? Or the file got renamed without updating the sites? - NiceGuy1 162.158.126.227 03:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I had trouble seeing it on my own PC using Firefox but not the other browsers I have. See my early comment above. I guess the file is too big for your iPad as it is a very huge file. I tried to download it but it failed. --Kynde (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

It's weird that I got what is clearly an "Image not found" icon, though. Maybe my 1st Gen iPad's Safari saw the file, decided "No way I'm loading that!"(or "that size can't be right", LOL!) and chose to show the error icon instead. When I force the issue, by going directly to the image URL listed on XKCD, the first time Safari crashed rather than load the image (but it crashes on a regular basis, so that didn't deter me), the second time it crashed, the third time it actually loaded, and I was able to see it. After seeing mentions here of spelling errors (though I have to disagree on "Pokemon", generally only people connected to the show bother with the accent. Like how I'm the only one who spells Hallowe'en correctly, with the apostrophe), I thought maybe the comic was taken down to correct it, but guess not. LOL! - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.239 20:54, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I feel that the missing bottom axis is a usability problem, so I fixed it. See it here. Hananc (talk) 10:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Nice but I'm sure it was on purpose to indicate that time continues down,as well as a possible even worse temperature change. As shown in the previous global warming comic 1379 Earth has been 8 degree hotter than now... And apart from the last small segment (albeit a very important one) you either remember that white is normal and bluer is colder redder is warmer or else you cannot use the chart in between the top and bottom, and since this is the longest xkcd comic so far it would be a shame. :-) --Kynde (talk) 14:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, now that I've managed to SEE the damn thing, I have a question. There's no mention of why this is using "BCE" and "CE" instead of the standard "BC" and "AD", never mind what these stand for (thinking and thinking about it, my guess is "Before Christ Era" and "Christ Era"). This is the kind of thing that should be mentioned on ExplainXKCD, LOL! Fun fact: when I searched this page for "BCE", to confirm it wasn't explained, I got "Over 100 matches". :) Anyway, I figure maybe those are currently accepted scientific terminology, especially since "AD" is Latin, unlike "BC", but the average person still uses BC and AD. In fact, I think this is the first time I've ever seen BCE and CE (unless it's been on XKCD before and I just dismissed it as a typo or something. This time there are WAY too many for it to be a mistake every time, including here in the explanation!) - NiceGuy1108.162.218.239 21:20, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

It's "Before Common Era" and "Common Era", an alternative to BC/AD. Pretty common alternative, though I don't know why off-hand - probably to remove the religious connotations of "Christ" and "Year of our Lord". --108.162.215.236 23:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Because they're the standards in the scientific community. The guy above assumed his way is standard, but that's inaccurate. 108.162.212.92 00:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I assume nothing. My statements are completely accurate. I OBSERVE it is the standard, the only standard anybody (else) seems to use. BC/AD is the "standard" because it is standard practice to use it. For good reason, since I would estimate just about everybody knows what it means, while I am sure I am in the majority in having never heard BCE/CE. It is also not "my" way, I made no choice here, it is the established convention, it is the way accepted and adopted by society. While I would normally be more inclined towards terminology devoid of religion (as seems to be the point here, now that someone kindly clarified these acronyms for me), I feel this would be a losing fight, one it would be foolish to attempt, the classic terminology is too ingrained in society. Sorry. - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.118 02:44, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

For the convenience of archeologists working in the Middle East. Wwoods (talk) 01:16, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Yes, it sounds to me like the point would be to remove the religious aspect. Personally, I don't really mind the religious terminology, I just see it as historical, keeping a record of where the names and numbering came from. - NiceGuy1 108.162.218.118 02:44, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

What this comic doesn't show is what kind of changes occurred in the previous interglacial period as opposed to the current one. Since the current one is not yet over there could still be a stage of an interglacial with rapid temperature rise which we are only now reaching, but has happened in previous interglacial periods. 108.162.219.54 02:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I think this would be first time where I see global thermonuclear war described as "best case scenario". There was and still is lot of discussion about how much is current warming caused by humans, but that's not important. Important question is "can we stop it?" and the answer is "not without literally billions of dead" (and even that might not suffice). Any money currently used for most plans to reduce CO2 (which usually fails to reduce CO2, not speaking about global warming, but succeed in their main goal, which is moving the money into pockets of their proponents) would be better spent on ADAPTING to the change. Only plans for reducing CO2 actually worth doing are the ones related to stopping burning fossil fuels, because we will soon need fossil fuels to make food (and other stuff) from. Oh, and also stop burning FOOD. So we should replace fossil fuel power plants with only viable alternative - NUCLEAR. So called renewable power sources like solar are good addition, but doesn't scale to the amount of power and stability we need. -- Hkmaly (talk) 14:12, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

So disappointing to see that Randall Hitler Munroe subscribes to the obviously false "global warming" religion. He should know better. 172.68.55.83 00:11, 16 September 2016 (UTC)