International Climate Panel Cites Near Certainty On Warming 510
mdsolar writes "An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace. The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors. The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound."
This comes alongside news of research into one of those short-term factors: higher than average rainfall over Australia. "Three atmospheric patterns came together above the Indian and Pacific Oceans in 2010 and 2011. When they did, they drove so much precipitation over Australia that the world's ocean levels dropped measurably." According to Phys.org, "A rare combination of two other semi-cyclic climate modes came together to drive such large amounts of rain over Australia that the continent, on average, received almost one foot (300 millimeters) of rain more than average. ... Since 2011, when the atmospheric patterns shifted out of their unusual combination, sea levels have been rising at a faster pace of about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) per year."
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. The greenhouse effect is well understood. So is the amount of CO2/methane/etc. we're putting into the atmosphere.
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:5, Informative)
Climate modellers are well aware of the uncertainty in their parameters. That's why in modern work, they run their model with ranges of parameters determined to be plausible based on empirical observation, and output a range of possible outcomes. Future observation and comparison with the model allows them to refine the parameter range to be more realistic.
Re:What to do? Some science, please. (Score:4, Informative)
NASA does not agree with you [nasa.gov]. They seem to believe that water vapor is a "major player in climate change".
Re:Its been obvious for years (Score:2, Informative)
Fact: Putting 'Fact:' in front of recycled long-debunked garbage doesn't make it a Fact.
Re:Black Swan .... (Score:4, Informative)
Good grief. Have you even read the wikipedia page, let alone the book itself?
From the wiki page:
"The philosophical problem is about the decrease in knowledge when it comes to rare events as these are not visible in past samples and therefore require a strong a priori, or an extrapolating theory; accordingly, predictions of events depend more and more on theories when their probability is small. In the fourth quadrant, knowledge is both uncertain and consequences are large, requiring more robustness."
There has never been as rapid a rise of CO2 as is happening now. The rare event that is happening now is not visible in the geological record.
We started to understand the greenhouse effect way back in the 1850s. By the 1920s we had the knowledge to completely understand it and the data was collected to verify it all by the 1950s.
We've built excellent models for predicting the long term behaviour of the climate due to the CO2 forcings we've introduced. Even the early models from the 1970s predictions have held up to scrutiny and later models are better still. If anything, the various models have tended to underestimate the changes to the climate.
When we extrapolate the current models the potential costs are absolutely catastrophic. In the worst cases it's hard to see how civilization can survive and even human extinction isn't inconceivable. If we'd started mitigating strategies in the 80s it might have cost us a tiny fraction of growth but we chose not to and every year we wait the evidence that we must act gets stronger and the costs higher.
And you're saying that "well we don't completely understand absolutely everything so we should continue running headlong to where the majority of scientists say there is a cliff to fall off" and then you quote a book that says that financial experts tend to underestimate the downsides due to incomplete knowledge as support for your inane views.
Re: Is It Just Me? (Score:3, Informative)
China builds a new coal powerplant every week but I'm ruining the environment because I don't ride my bike to work? It makes me wonder if the motivation for these "anti-carbon" scare tactics is to preserve the steady flow of grant money.