How We Measure Global Warming - Granite Grok

How We Measure Global Warming

The sky is falling

Global Warming, the belief that man causes negative changes in the climate of the Earth, can be measured very easily. Let’s take one simple scientific method for an example of how this can be done with earthquakes. Earthquakes are measured using a scientific method called The Richter Scale.

The Richter magnitude scale (also Richter scale) assigns a magnitude number to quantify the energy released by an earthquake. The Richter scale, developed in the 1930s, is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which defines magnitude as the logarithm of the ratio of the amplitude of the seismic waves to an arbitrary, minor amplitude.

As measured with a seismometer, an earthquake that registers 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times that of an earthquake that registered 4.0, and thus corresponds to a release of energy 31.6 times that released by the lesser earthquake.[1] The Richter scale was succeeded in the 1970s by the moment magnitude scale. This is now the scale used by the United States Geological Survey to estimate magnitudes for all modern large earthquakes (hat tip Wikipedia).

Volcanoes are another natural phenomenon that can be measured. The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) was devised by Chris Newhall of the United States Geological Survey and Stephen Self at the University of Hawaii in 1982 to provide a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions.

So you see, something as unpredictable as earthquakes and volcanoes can be measured. And that brings us to Global Warming in all its various names and forms.

Global Warming is measured in a scientific way by what is known as the Aarne-Thompson Classification System.

The Aarne–Thompson classification systems are two indexes used to classify folktales: the Aarne–Thompson Motif-Index (catalogued by alphabetical letters followed by numerals) and the Aarne–Thompson Tale Type Index (cataloged by AT or AaTh numbers). The indexes are used in folkloristics to organize, classify, and analyze folklore narratives. The indexes are an essential tool for folklorists because, as Alan Dundes explains, “the identification of folk narratives through motif and/or tale type numbers has become an international sine qua non among bona fide folklorists”.[1] This system was expanded in 2004 into the Aarne–Thompson–Uther classification system cataloged by ATU numbers (hat tip Wikipedia).

The closest thing we have in the Aarne-Thompson Classification System to man made Global warming is of course the Henny Penny tale. Henny Penny, more commonly known in the United States as Chicken Little and sometimes as Chicken Licken, is a folk tale with a moral in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes the world is coming to an end. The phrase “The sky is falling!” features prominently in the story, and has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. Versions of the story go back more than 25 centuries; it continues to be referenced in a variety of media (hat tip Wikipedia).

And nothing could be more accurate than the last part of that sentence: “it continues to be referenced in a variety of media.” Some things, unlike the weather, never change.

And one is the gullibility of people.

 

 

Update: fixed copy and paste error that changed The Richter Scale, in paragraph one, to Aarne-Thompson Classification System

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