Earth Warming More Quickly Than Thought, New Climate Models Show (phys.org) 471
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Greenhouse gases thrust into the atmosphere mainly by burning fossil fuels are warming Earth's surface more quickly than previously understood, according to new climate models set to replace those used in current UN projections, scientists said Tuesday. By 2100, average temperatures could rise 7.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels if carbon emissions continue unabated, separate models from two leading research centers in France showed. That is up to two degrees higher than the equivalent scenario in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change's (IPCC) 2014 benchmark 5th Assessment Report.
The new calculations also suggest that the Paris Agreement goals of capping global warming at "well below" two degrees, and 1.5C if possible, will be challenging at best, the scientists said. "With our two models, we see that the scenario known as SSP1 2.6 -- which normally allows us to stay under 2C -- doesn't quite get us there," Olivier Boucher, head of the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace Climate Modeling Center in Paris, told AFP. A new generation of 30-odd climate models known collectively as CMIP6 -- including the two unveiled Tuesday -- will underpin the IPCC's next major report in 2021.
The new calculations also suggest that the Paris Agreement goals of capping global warming at "well below" two degrees, and 1.5C if possible, will be challenging at best, the scientists said. "With our two models, we see that the scenario known as SSP1 2.6 -- which normally allows us to stay under 2C -- doesn't quite get us there," Olivier Boucher, head of the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace Climate Modeling Center in Paris, told AFP. A new generation of 30-odd climate models known collectively as CMIP6 -- including the two unveiled Tuesday -- will underpin the IPCC's next major report in 2021.
Frosty piss. (Score:2)
In before "But the models don't agree, your logic is invalid" and "We didn't do it, nobody saw us do it, you can't prove anything".
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"We didn't do it, nobody saw us do it, you can't prove anything".
Unfortunately, that does not help one bit for global events.
Why not (Score:2)
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Why not make a new cluster of models that will be proven incorrect when their predictions are testable in 20 years.
That isn't as easy at it sounds, If you look at the data in the latest IPPC Climate Change report (AR5), the models mostly overlap until 2040.
Look at this chart directly from the horses mouth [www.ipcc.ch]
Thank you (Score:2)
--
Sent from Iceland
R yu sure (Score:2)
that nerds can science? These comments are telling me no. Nerds cannot science. Hell has frozen over. Wait, that's cold, proof!
Is this why most of the smart people left slashdot (Score:4)
? The absolutely stupid comments like these that have taken over?
Re:Is this why most of the smart people left slash (Score:4, Insightful)
? The absolutely stupid comments like these that have taken over?
You didn't leave. So are you ... ?
Re:Is this why most of the smart people left slash (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have expected that there are some holdouts that are immune to facts (like anti-vaxxers or flat-earthers), but the flood of utterly clueless and demented comments is staggering. While regrettable, it may really be time to leave. Those with at least a minimal clue seem to be a minority now.
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Re:Is this why most of the smart people left slash (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Is this why most of the smart people left slas (Score:2)
6.5C to 7.0C is terrifying. (Score:5, Insightful)
High elevation parts of Northern Canada and Siberia will open up for agriculture. But the tropics become unlivable, the boreal forests have long collapsed, the amazon forest has collapsed, coral reefs have collapsed, the Indian monsoon has altered, and Himalayan snowfall has turned to rainfall causing flooding in the rainy season and insufficient water the rest of the time.
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Maybe some humans will survive somewhere. But basically, this is the end if it happens.
Re:6.5C to 7.0C is terrifying. (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt some humans will survive somewhere. We can live anywhere from tropical rain forests to the Arctic with pre-industrial tech. But this is *cultural* and *economic* extinction.
The basic assumptions of people funding climate denialism aren't unreasonable, taking the likely scenarios in the IPCC reports. You don't have to be a genius to avoid the effects of warming that is gradual on an *economic* timescale. You just rebalance your portfolio every year and that automatically shifts your assets out of harm's way because climate change is slow enough that it shows up as flagging profits in one area and rising profits in another. In a world that warms another degree in eighty years it sucks to be poor or middle class, but that's not their problem.
A five degree in eighty years is faster than society can adapt, and those numbers on a spreadsheet that say you're rich become just that: numbers.
Re:6.5C to 7.0C is terrifying. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is unfortunately probably close to the reality. A sobering look into the future that no doubt most leading politicians have been briefed on a while ago.
While it may seem insignificant, this also means the end of civilization and culture as we know it.
In a scenario like this, extreme measures to produce, harvest, save and preserve resources and food have to be taken in such a way that the darkest times of North Korea and Cambodia will look like a romantic picnic on a sunny day in a meadow with flowers and butterflies - and that is actually one of the more positive outcomes.
Given recent trends, a repeat of "Germany 1933-1945" is not totally off the table.
Re:6.5C to 7.0C is terrifying. (Score:4, Insightful)
High elevation parts of Northern Canada and Siberia will open up for agriculture.
No they won't.
How do you come to that retarded idea?
In a swamp nothing growth that we could eat, oh ... fern roots perhaps.
Because temperature is increasing, the time of light does not. Aka length of day etc. Even if summer starts 30 days earlier, temperature wise, and lasts 30 days longer, it is still only a: 90 days summer ... what actually do you want to grow in that time? When do you want to plant it? Winter barley? Yes, it survives a typical (not so typical anymore) -10C german winter, so you can plant it in october or december and harvest it in may.
Siberia unfortunately will always be -30C - -40C regardless of climate change, in winter. So nothing to plant. I really wonder why we have so many idiots on the planet in so called "first world countries" ... seems the school system must just suck, or parents are to lazy to teach common sense.
But how quickly does thought heat, anyway? (Score:2)
SCNR.
What do the _measurements_ show? (Score:3)
What do the _measurements_ show? Models thus far were pretty abysmal at predicting the future, which kind of defeats their very purpose.
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*Which* model was abysmal? In what way is it abysmal? Do you *know*, or are you talking hearsay?
It's not like there's only one view represented by models. Anyone can create a model, therefore there are models that represent outlier viewpoints. That makes it easy to cherry pick an outlier in their global scale predictions.
sequester from atmosphere (Score:3)
Re:I hear models and I am like (Score:5, Funny)
I dated a climate model once. Her last name was Kelvin and her IQ was absolute zero, but even she was right about the climate science consensus.
But, but, the science was settled! (Score:2, Insightful)
I seem to remember a couple of years ago the science was settled, so it was time to just stop arguing and get to work.
The science is now unsettled again? tell me it isnt so.
Let me guess, a new round of 'adjustments' to historical features, along with a nice hot summer to focus everyone makes it time to shake the tree?
Call me when the same people are pushing as hard for more modern nuclear power... Then I may believe that they actually want to solve a problem.
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:5, Insightful)
The science is complex. What is settled is that it will get extremely bad. Details require refinement and that unfortunately takes time. You are like a moron that thinks driving off a cliff is completely non-problematic because Science cannot predict exactly how fast you will die when arriving at the bottom.
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Insightful)
The science is complex. What is settled is that it will get extremely bad.
Change is extremely bad for our complex, but fragile, economy and society. Even if we had to return to the little Ice Age of the 17th-18th century (so to a "normal" climate change), it would be an economic disaster and a humanitarian tragedy for overpopulated third world countries. So the disaster does not lie in the change, but in our ability, as a society, to adapt to it.
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Insightful)
You can repeat the science is settled Gorian lie a million times a day but if it truly was then it would be easily proved with facts, not with faked up models and altered data.
The term "settled science" is rarely helpful, IMHO, since by definition any science is only ever as good as the evidence and must adapt if new evidence is found that contradicts earlier theories.
Even so, the evidence is overwhelming that our current emissions levels are unsustainable and will cause catastrophic damage to the environment if we continue as things have been in the recent past. There's nothing easy about "proving" this to someone who isn't a climate scientist, but the IPCC reports are a collaboration between literally thousands of people who actually are experts in this field and their conclusions and recommendations are based on the results of many different experiments.
Of course, those experiments followed a variety of methods to study a range of different phenomena. Even the similar ones didn't agree perfectly on every quantitative detail. But disregarding the whole evidence base because there weren't 100% perfect clone results is like saying it's OK to be careless with handling a firearm because in an experiment with holster design a pistol was fired unintentionally and resulted in the loss of a toe, while three different experiments with how to hold a shotgun resulted in losing a different toe in one case, the other foot in the second, and everything below the knee in the third. The results were not entirely consistent, but it's still reasonable to conclude that pointing a loaded gun in the direction of your foot and allowing the trigger to activate is a bad idea.
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There's nothing easy about "proving" this to someone who isn't a climate scientist, ...
I think the proof is very easy to find for anyone who is not subornly clinging to the mantra that noting is the matter.
If you go skiing you know that there is much less snow than a few decades ago and that much more effort is needed to get it there
If you look at the frequencyand intensity of storms/hurricanes etc
If you look at a number of hot years that break temperature record after record
If you look talk to any local that lives close to a glacier or other area's with permanent ice and snow. Ask them is cl
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Informative)
The quantitative data doesn't have be uniform and 100% repeatable to see a clear pattern in literally hundreds of experiments performed over the course of decades by thousands of scientists. I don't understand the science well enough to say whether we need to be carbon neutral or carbon negative by 2040 or 2050. I do accept that the overall trend and therefore the general nature of the reaction we need are clear. If everyone around the world dropped to net zero emissions right now, the cumulative effect on the global climate would be enormous.
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, even if the US's CO2 dropped to zero right now, it would only cause about 0.15C difference after 200 years between what it would have been with the US. What exactly do you suggest the US do, launch a war to conquer all the high-CO2 nations and halt 3rd-world development?
If the US dropped its emissions to zero, it would do so using techniques that would be available to anyone. And because of the massive impact of US-developed technologies on global market, assuming that the US would drop its emissions to zero and simultaneously the rest of the world would be completely unchanged is retarded. That's not how the world works.
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Interesting)
"...alarmists ..."
Thanks for letting us know your a fucking Fox News watching idiot.
"We go to zero with outrageous expense and bankrupt the country, "
actually know, not even close.We could do it or HALF what air pollution is costing us in medicaid/care.
Literally more then paying for itself within 2 decades.
It's cheap to do it right fucking now.
My solar pays for itself.
My electric car is charge from said solar.
My total emission is half what the average american uses, and that's mostly food.
My electric car is saving my 100 dollar a month in fuel.
Two months for fuel for my corral was 100 dollars.
2 months fuel cast of the Bolts 3 dollars.
I"m just in person in one house hols so I don't get nearly the cost saving for scale any large operation would get.
The tech IS CHEAP.
and again, it wont' bankrupt the country, and we can use are power to get other countries to come along; much like we did with CFC.
YOU, sir are the alarmist. Screaming nonsense about how it will destroy the economy(backwards), lying about costs, and ignoring history.
Pathetic.
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Insightful)
We've known since the beginning of the 19th century that gases absorb light. We can measure the atmospheric CO2 easily, and we see it is increasing at an alarming rate. We know that when gases absorb light that energy gets retained in some way.
No matter which scenario we go with, if we keep emitting CO2 faster than it can get removed from the atmosphere by other processes - such as photosynthesis, CO2 capture, etc we will impact the climate of the planet in a significant way.
What the fuck else do you need as evidence when several billion people start burning a fuck load of things to do stuff?
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Insightful)
The models
Climate scientists might not have a good handle on nuclear power. Why would you wait for them to advocate for it?
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:5, Insightful)
both need some elaboration.
Solar power for instance powers each square meter of the Earth with 140 Watts, and that is already taking in consideration the albedo, the slanting of the Earth's surface to the Sun outside the Tropes, and other factors reducing the solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. A country like the US thus gets 1400 Terawatts of solar power, which would deliver 500 Exawatthours per year of electric energy if only operated for one hour per day. Currently the US generates about 2.1 Exawatthours of electricity per year.
It is easily possible to urge the reduction of greenhouse gases and at the same time to be against using nuclear power without running into a cognitive dissonance.
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Models in CMIP5 and CMIP6 (Score:4, Insightful)
One interesting detail in the article is that the new models are part of the CMIP6 collection of models which according the article number 30-odd and will be used for the 2021 report.
The old report dating 2014 used CMIP5, which has for the temperature already data from 71 models.
This seem to indicate, at least 50% of the models of 2014 have already been kicked. That doesn't look very settled.
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That doesn't look very settled.
Only if you do not know how Science works. Of course, we do not have a standard model at this time. The problem is far to complex. But even the models that have the more benign predictions predict a catastrophe. And that it the part that is settled.
False (Score:5, Interesting)
That's 100% false. There are plenty of models that predict how humans will be effected. That's why those of us who are scientists are concerned.
Is this going to be a global calamity drowning Miami and New York?
It's already a massive problem for Miami. You can read this 2 year old article if you are really interested: http://www.bbc.com/future/stor... [bbc.com]
Wrong (Score:3)
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You should let the city engineers know, because the report they filed last year, or was it the year before. Openly stated that the current issues were due to the failure of the city over decades to deal with the issue. I mean, what do they know? Here's one for you to figure out without looking it up: How much coastline has been lost in Miami since 1965, and why weren't proper wave breakers and other measures used.
Re:Models in CMIP5 and CMIP6 (Score:4, Interesting)
This seem to indicate, at least 50% of the models of 2014 have already been kicked.
Only if you have no idea about how climate models work.
If you have some idea, you'll know that the limitation for most models has always been processing power and data in. This lead to fragmentation of models, where one would be really good at one calculation, and another would be really good at something else. It was just not possible to run both things in the same model, due to hardware limitations. At the same time, we don't have observations of every square inch of the earth's surface and every cubic inch of the atmosphere. This means that for inputs we often need to run a reanalysis model on observations to extrapolate the conditions more globally from very sparse and discrete measurements.
Suppose you've got a great water vapor transport model, but it doesn't do ocean circulation. So you run your really good ocean model, (which takes satellite temperature measurements at the 50km bin level as inputs, and extrapolates them to produce a 10km resolution output) and then use the output of that as the input for sea surface temps in your water vapor model. You can iterate between the two models to get an approximation of the systems interactions, and likely use those to feed some other models.
As time has gone on we've gotten way more processing power, and we've been able to create more integrated models. So having less models doesn't mean that some have necessarily been kicked. It's most likely that the remainder are integrating more than one previous model. As an example, since the atmosphere only touches the surface of the ocean, historically most atmospheric climate models have used a "slab ocean", where the interaction with the ocean was only calculated at the surface, and none of the underlying ocean dynamics were calculated. The ocean temps were static at the daily level, and there was no motion of the ocean. With ever increasing processing power it is now making more sense to couple ocean dynamic models with atmospheric models, which means less models doing a better job than the ones before.
Climate scientists are specialists in ways that would blow your mind. Everyone thinks climate science is like your family doctor. It's much more like a collection of pediatric heart surgeons, tommy john's surgeons, eye surgeons, etc. Almost everyone is super specialized, and they develop their own models that focus on their niche.
Climate science niches can be things like boundary layer interactions (bottom 1k of the atmosphere where it touches land), stratospheric aerosols, oceanic mixing layer dynamics, high latitude jet formation, amazon gas flux, etc. Most often these folks take data and other model output that's relevant to their work and build a much smaller model that takes those inputs. The real trick is in merging enough of them together to get a global picture of the climate system. That's what the IPCC has done a damn good job of.
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to remember a couple of years ago the science was settled, so it was time to just stop arguing and get to work.
The problem is the science became political and the idiots got involved. You have the idiots on the left screaming 'cow farts are destroying the planet", demanding we give up modern civilization, and revert to hunter gather lifestyle. Then you have the morons on the right going "the climate changes all the time, its called weather." They suggest all the science isn't in and its to complex to understand. You know any bullshit to keep the status quo.
Then you have the middle, people like me, that go "humm the science isn't all in yet but it does look like this will be a problem so lets start doing something about it now. We don't have to scrap modern civilization just start making changes slowly that will bring it into line with a sustainable lifestyle."
Fossil fuel do harm peoples health so we shouldn't be dumping these poisons into the environment. They are are also finite resource so we should start looking for renewable replacements with the understating that for the time being we will need to mix them with old energy systems till the technology comes of age.
You know, common sense. Unfortunately, the idiots scream louder than us and come up with bullshit plans like carbon credits, shifting money around, and making up bullshit excuses. Instead of just fixing the god damn problem.
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Why don't you look at data from this decade and not from 20 years ago.
https://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33... [netdna-ssl.com]
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You didn't even bother to look at it. Or you're so deranged that reality eludes you. So here are the facts, take them are leave them. The United States is not the leading producer of CO2. Fact, that would be China. Fact, in 2017 and 2018 the United States reduced its carbon emissions than any other country.
These are the facts, and it doesn't matter if you like them or not. Reality doesn't care about your option.
Oh and another fact. Just because you are wrong doesn't make everyone else, that is ri
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Carbon credits are bullshit. They don't solve the problem they just move it somewhere else. They also don't apply to the biggest problem, China, and the upcoming problems, India and Africa.
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I know how they don't work and that is all that matters.
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the science is settled.
The impact of said science continues to be refined. Welcome to science.
The science is settled(most basic science listed below) that if I drop a drinking glass from a 10 story building, it will shatter when it his the concrete below.
If I created a model the more accurately predicted where the shards of glass will go after impact, does that mean the science for it's fall isn't settled anymore?
Stop being fucking stupid.
Nuclear power isn't the answer. Before you reply, you should know I s
Re:But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Please never quote the 97% consensus (even by analogy), it just makes you and climate science in general look bad.
First the original 97% study was conducted with a small sample size of postgraduate students and faculty. Granted, a number later studies tried to massage something like 97%, because it was getting embarrassing.
Second, consensus in science means nothing. There where a large number of situations where scientific consensus existed and are not known to have been wrong. (Einsteins relativity -> m
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97% comes from multiple sources, including reviewing papers on the topic.
https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
For the record, it up to 97.2%
Consensus in science means everything.
It's what the scientific community, through tests and observations, believe to be true based on current data.
And none of you e examples actually illustrate what you think they do.
The do illustrate you have no clue what science is.
IT's like saying Newton was wrong because Einstein refined it.
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In this anecdote, "your psychic" is an oil company exec, "cancer" is a complete lack of global warming, and "your doctor" is every reputable scientist on the planet.
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For those curious about the author of the website you link to, you can find out more about Dr. Roy Spencer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The More You Know!
Re: But, but, the science was settled! (Score:4, Informative)
From the wiki page: The editor-in-chief of Remote Sensing, Wolfgang Wagner, later resigned over publication of Spencer and Braswell (2011),[23] stating, "From a purely formal point of view, there were no errors with the review process. [...] the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view ...but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal."
Even more damning: Spencer is a signatory to "An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming",[32][33] which states that "We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence—are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
Yeah. Complete fucking crank. Hey Lynwood, tell us all about how you think God protects the Earth from global warming. Go on, I'm ALL ears.
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You do not understand how models work, or what they mean.
There is no model n the world that can predict where every shard of glass will go from a water glass dropped onto concrete from 10 stories.
Does that mean the glass wont shatter? Or does it mean the models need refinement?
By YOUR "logic" if a new model built with more refined data is different then the old model, even if the deference in more precision, then that mean the glass wont' break.
You CLEARLY don't know what you are talking about, at all. Beca
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Did you even look at the link I provided? The trends of nearly EVERY SINGLE MODEL run considerably warmer than the actual data. Not just sometimes, not occasionally - completely.
It's like that broken glass you're talking about? The models say that dropping it from 10 stories will result in a small chip only, or a couple of cracks at worst. We drop the glass, and it shatters all over. The models and data don't agree. So new models are created which says the glass will now only have a small scratch, or a
Re: I hear models and I am like (Score:2, Insightful)
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Not Ad Hominem. A diagnosis. Anybody that still thinks like this is incapable of understanding facts.
Re: I hear models and I am like (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of Science is models. For example, current Physics is properly called "the current standard model of Physics". Anybody saying models are bullshit has no clue how Science works.
You should also take into account that there is a difference between what the press reports or some PR department claims and what actual scientists say. Please show me an actual plasma physicist that made that "fusion in 10 years" claim, for example.
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Huh. Data says it's warming slower than the models predict (the first link I provided). Models are changed to increase the amount of warming - and that is somehow more correct? If data and models don't agree - the model is wrong.
Which do you choose to believe - data or models?
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Re:I hear models and I am like (Score:5, Informative)
These people are paid to get the desired results,
And here we see an example of obvious fossil fuel industry propaganda.
The claim is that someone has paid these separate French research bodies to produce models that show more warming than previous models.
It such a ridiculous claim that it's difficult to understand what to say to refute it.
Who is paying this money? Why would scientists risk their careers to produce intentionally wrong results? How is this "pay for results" not picked up on?
It takes a global grand conspiracy, infiltrating every academic and research institution on the planet, and leveraging only the climate change departments, somehow influencing postdocs and students as well.
Absolutely fucking insane.
Re:I hear models and I am like (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have favourable results agreeing with the group-think of the day, you get press,
If you can publish a high quality study that disagrees with current climate change views, I promise you get a lot more press.
Re: I hear models and I am like (Score:4, Insightful)
This!
Notoriety, funding, fame comes from finding credible evidence that the current understanding is wrong, not from yet another paper agreeing with the previous 100. Folks that argue that contradictory evidence would be shut down by the scientific community are naive about how scientific review works. It's not black and white. It would certainly receive much more scrutiny, but it would not be killed if the data/model were real, verifiable, and scientists were insistent about its value.
Folks that have tried to present contradictory evidence in the past have either used incorrect data or misinterpreted the data to achieve a desired result.
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There isn't room for a conga line, you're gonna need a queue.
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Fascinating. You are really without any understanding. It is a _model_ that makes the roof over your head not fall on you. It is a _model_ that makes the next medication you take not kill you. You just declared that 99% of engineering and science is invalid.
As to your nickname, you should look up the Dunning-Kruger effect some time. You seem to actually be at the very bottom of understanding the human race has to offer.
Re: Cue (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, the process you describe just happened with climate models. They were based on observations, predicted new outcomes that could be validated. These outcomes did not match the model so the model is not quite correct. The biggest problem here is that the model was underestimating the heating. So based on new observations we will build a new model that is a better fit for reality. Science, basically. Or didn't you get statistics and modeling courses during your study?
Also note that if the curve becomes exponential and this is just the start, the model will be wrong all the time but you and the rest of humanity will still be very dead, wrong model or not.
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Well, there you have it: The definitive example of the old expression "ignorance is bliss".
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You say that like it's a bad thing.
Re:"more quickly than thought"? really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the consensus was that we were all going to roast alive by next tuesday.
No. The consensus is the greenhouse gasses increase the greenhouse effect.
seems every day we hear "it's worse than we thought".
It's certainly worse that we hoped, because we hoped that greenhouse emissions wouldn't still be climbing by now.
In fact every headline says that, and has said that for many years now.
In fact you're quite mistaken. Here's a healine that doesn't say that from just today:Boris Johnson 'abused his power' to silence Parliament, court told. [theage.com.au]
At this point we're supposed to believe it's so bad that there simply can't be a "worse"
8C warming by 2100 would be worse than 6.5 to 7C. I can think of possibilities that are worse than that too. 9C for instance. than we already thought as we already thought it was 100% non-reversible, 100% deadly, and coming within the next few years (actually many of the worst predictions are supposed to have already happened, in the past but don't seem to have actually done so)
Unfortunately none of the actual doomsday predictions ever turn out to be true, but as long as they're computer models state that it's bad, we better believe them.
For fuck's sake. You use this word "unfortunately" quite wrongly, and the predictions from models have been bang on the nose [realclimate.org].
There's a reason people are stopping believing in this cult.
Science is a cult?
You're using that word as incorrectly as you use "unfortunately". And no one has stopped believing. Even in the USA, where people are deeply stupid, and have faced the greatest spending by fossil fuel interests to make them misinformed, they don't not believe: Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis, poll shows [washingtonpost.com]
Re: "more quickly than thought"? really? (Score:2)
Al Gore was talking about an ice free Arctic summer by 2014.
Re: "more quickly than thought"? really? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually a shame.
Here in Europe I have only to ask the farmers in the region how they had to deal with the weather in the last couple of decades. They'll tell you that the summers were hotter and dryer than usual. Projections are that more and more irrigation will be needed in coming years. Increasing their expenses.
I mean it's a good thing for the wine quality that comes from our region as grapes love sunny and dry weather, but the vine still require enough water. And the vine growers do not like the additional work load of having to water them manually.
But could those changes to the climate they're observing attributed to climate change? No way! That's political propaganda.
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But yes, science should be represented by what its mainstream understanding is.
Re: "more quickly than thought"? really? (Score:2)
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North pole will be virtually gone by 2006
I don't think anyone predicted that....
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Also, Winter is Coming! [noaa.gov]
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It is the science that's been spot on.
Having said that AIT is not too bad [howstuffworks.com].
Re: shit moderation - irony (Score:2)
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Actually, in the 70's another ice age was on the way and we were all going to freeze to death before the turn of the century.
Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
No, it wasn't. The media highlighted the possibility of another ice age, but the balance of academic papers supported warming.
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Actually, in the 70's another ice age was on the way
By the 70s, most scientists had moved on to worrying about warming. It took the media another decade to catch up. In the 60s and 50s, there was concern about an ice age (but at a much larger timescale, maybe 1000 years away). There was also a lot more optimism that science would be able to find a solution.
Re:History (Score:4, Interesting)
That study was not wrong about the dropping temperatures, and the cause. Starting that time, a successful global effort was started to stop emissions of the aerosols responsible for that problem (though, probably mostly because those same aerosols were causing acid rain)
Fortunately, the atmospheric half life of sulfuric dioxide is a lot less than CO2 (since it's readily absorbed into rain droplets)
Re: History (Score:2, Insightful)
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You should have to read the one about the doctor who never went to medical school. I hear it's a killer.
Imagine if you went to the doctor and told them what your diagnosis was, and refused to listen to what they had to say about it. That's what climate denialism looks like to me.
Re:First thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Wolf? Is that from the parable that goes something like this:
There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep when he saw a wolf. He cried out "wolf" and the villagers came running. But the wolf was pretty far away.
"That wolf is miles away!" said one villager. "You stopped me playing call of duty for this?". The other villagers shared the sentiment and went grumbling back down the hill.
In time, the wolf wandered closer. "wolf! Wolf!" cried the boy. Before the villagers could arrive, a representative from the United Consolidated Sheep Farms Inc (who owned a competing flock) told the villagers that there wasn't a wolf and any how the wolf wouldn't eat the sheep anyway in fact it would make the sheep grow faster and why did the boy hate the kingdom?
The villagers decided then the boy was worth ignoring and so they sent a representative to tell him to knock it off.
the wolf moved closer still and this time took a sheep. The boy cried this out but the villagers didn't want to hear. They'd already been disturbed enough and they knew the wolf didn't exist. Eventually after his incessant crying, some villagers went to see what the fuss was about.
"look! look!" said the boy. "A wolf has eaten a sheep!". The villagers could see the sheep, but they were displeased with the boy. "look, boy!" growled one of the villagers, "sheep die all the time of natural causes. You've lied about the wolf so many times I won't believe you until I personally see a wolf in the act of eating a sheep."
"Well, it might be a wolf", said the other villager, "but this is an isolated incident. The wolf has probably gone. There's no pattern of wolves so I don't see why I should stop playing call of duty and actually do anything about this".
A the villagers left in disgused convinced the boy was a fool.
Again the wolf arrived and the boy cried out...
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While I mostly agree, there are not a lot of papers that are readable by non subject matter experts. Most people are only able to understand summaries that may be biased one way or the other.
The IPCC site reports are very difficult to read if you are trying to extract understandable predictions of effects.
Maybe there are refereed survey papers?
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The problem here is that this is a complex subject. Non-experts have no choice than to listen to what experts say. Many cannot stomach that idea and instead effectively declare themselves experts, and spout the most extreme nonsense as a result of them not liking what the experts say. One person here even went so far to say that scientific models are worthless in general. That person obviously has zero clue what how Science works and that, say, Physics is a model.
Re: First thoughts (Score:2)
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Re: Cue the mass of clueless idiots (Score:2)
Re:Only socialism (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're old enough that it's basically not going to matter in their lifetime, so they likely figured why not enjoy their money. And if you have a net worth of $40 million, then if you lose half of it you're still very rich.
Seriously this had to be the stupidest conspiracy theory I've ever heard. At least the fake moon landing one has some sort of crazy panache.
Yeah, no. (Score:3)
Yours and others' beliefs have nothing to do with the science.
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It's the end of the world as we know it, plain and simple.
If this finding is correct. Science works like open source -- many eyes make problems shallow. Consequently most new findings don't hold up, even if they're good science.
While global temperatures have swung under and over the trend lines predicted in the 1995 IPCC "Second Assessment Report", if you smooth out year to year variations we're pretty close: 0.15 C/decade vs. 0.14C predicted. That's the many eyes effect; the 1990 FAR report overestimated the rate of warming by neglecting the cooling effect of
Re:Important term. "MODEL" (Score:4, Informative)
Because we know EXACTLY how great previous models have been...
Pretty much spot on.
A model can't predict what you do in the future, so the IPCC models examine different scenarios: if emissions go up, down, remain the same etc. If you pick the scenario from the 1995 IPCC report that matches what we actually have done in response, the average rate of warming was within 7% (the prediction was low).