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Earth Science

Climate Models Are Running Red Hot, and Scientists Don't Know Why (bloomberg.com) 445

The simulators used to forecast warming have suddenly started giving us less time. From a report: There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they've agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3 Celsius. It's an outcome that would be disastrous -- flooded cities, agricultural failures, deadly heat -- but there's been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations. Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as before and came back with far worse outcomes. Some produced projections in excess of 5C, a nightmare scenario.

The scientists involved couldn't agree on why -- or if the results should be trusted. Climatologists began "talking to each other like, 'What'd you get?', 'What'd you get?'" said Andrew Gettelman, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, which builds a high-profile climate model. "The question is whether they've overshot," said Mark Zelinka, staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Researchers are starting to put together answers, a task that will take months at best, and there's not yet agreement on how to interpret the hotter results. The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century. Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year. If the same amount of climate pollution will bring faster warming than previously thought, humanity would have less time to avoid the worst impacts.

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Climate Models Are Running Red Hot, and Scientists Don't Know Why

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  • by denisbergeron ( 197036 ) <DenisBergeron.yahoo@com> on Monday February 03, 2020 @10:24AM (#59684784)

    Once the ice melt faster it's accumulate, it's just too late

    • Some AOC supporter put the 12 year rule into the simulator. Crack out your debuggers.
    • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @11:10AM (#59685040) Journal
      Actually, both Pacific/Atlantic northern conveyors are slowing. This MIGHT enable Arctic Ocean to refreeze. Of course, with GHG emissions continuing their climb, it remains to be seen which is more important.
    • Yep. That's the correct answer here.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 )

        Problem solved, scientist are stump, a random post on Slashdot solved the problem.
        Now to the point, is the model working, and we are just on a path to disaster, or does the model need adjusting.

        Despite the Conservative Conspiracy theories. The scientist want to show an accurate model, not a fear mongering Doom and Gloom one. If there is a really bad message, they really need to make sure everything is correctly accounted for.

         

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          A fear mongering doom and gloom model will get them more money.

          • by Sique ( 173459 )
            Claiming that it is only fear mongering doom and gloom lands you a job in conservative talk radio, thus even more money.

            So who wins?

            (My personal take is that people who accuse others they don't know of something mainly use the motives that would sway themselves. So people accusing others for being only in there for the money are people who are mainly motivated by money.)

          • by greythax ( 880837 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @04:54PM (#59686776)

            And continuing to deny the problem will get the shitiest people on earth more money. I'll listen to the scientists who are not making billions a year by vomiting filth into the sky.

    • by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @01:50PM (#59685990) Homepage Journal

      All this was known years ago, I saw a lecture in university called, "The greatest failing of the human race is its inability to understand the consequences of exponential growth." ~ Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder. See https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... [youtube.com]

      One of the best lectures and explanations ever, and a clear foundational understanding well conveyed by a respected academic. Highly recommended! This guy was talking about sustainability since the fifties. I'm always amazed at how this guy nailed it and no one ever seems to understand the basic concepts discussed by Dr. Bartlett.

      In a nutshell, he says there must be an end to the rates of growth we've seen since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Personally, I suspect we are actually at the end of the industrial age, and a new type of economy is need to move forward. I expect this will happen after this system collapses underneath the weight of the greedy.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    well, global warming, fueled by greed, is one of them, so much for the future, in fact, I bet this is why there are no signs of intelligent life out there, they all stupidly cooked themselves to extinction, just like we are

    • Relax. Life has lived just fine with warmer temps. Problem is, climate change will mean massive weather changes which means nations have to adjust.
  • by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @10:33AM (#59684814) Homepage Journal

    "Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot."

    How would the models unexpected output go "unnoticed"? That is literally the only reason these models are run. What were the scientists doing? Watching Game of Thrones?

    • In their defense, GoT is very distracting. I've lost whole weekends to GoT. A model's output in the grant funding application process is probably a procedural detail in this branch anymore.
    • That's the thing: the models have been very accurate thus far... and have also been used to predict future temperature trends. And suddenly, they are predicting a much faster rise in temperature? Does not compute... if a model is suddenly giving you different results, then the model has changed, or you've fed it different input. So what changed, exactly? According to the article, they changed some of the parameters or added some refinements to the models. Start looking there, and see how well your mode
      • Um, totally not my point. I am asking WHY DID IT GO UNNOTICED? That is literally their most important job. Did they go on a coke binge?

        • by Holi ( 250190 )
          Maybe it's becasue sicence reporting in America is shoddy at best and tend to state things for shock value over accuracy.

          While they don't understand why the models are running hot yet, it is entirely inaccurate to say it is unnoticed..

          "The scientists involved couldn’t agree on why—or if the results should be trusted. Climatologists began “talking to each other like, ‘What’d you get?’, ‘What’d you get?’” said Andrew Gettelman, a senior scienti
      • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        That's the thing: the models have been very accurate thus far... and have also been used to predict future temperature trends. And suddenly, they are predicting a much faster rise in temperature? Does not compute... if a model is suddenly giving you different results, then the model has changed, or ...

        Correct. What is being discussed are new models.

    • Because a single run of a model is in itself meaningless. You run the model many, many times to produce a probability distribution, e.g., if CO2 goes up to X ppm, temperature will rise by Y degrees +/- Z with a 90% confidence.

      Imagine your job involves flipping a fair coin several times a day. One day you get four heads in a row. You think nothing of it because that's not really unusual; it happens on about 6% of days. You mention this to your coworkers and soon you realize that *everybody's* been getting

  • by spth ( 5126797 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @10:33AM (#59684818)

    For those too lazy to read the article:

    According to the last paragraph, the higher predictions temperature are due updates to the climate models to better simulate clouds.

  • by jageryager ( 189071 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @10:37AM (#59684844)

    Ten years ago it was thought the glaciers would be gone from Glacier National Park in Montana by now. And in spite of having record breaking warm years since then, the glaciers are still there...

    https://www.thenewstribune.com... [thenewstribune.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Ten years ago it was thought the glaciers would be gone from Glacier National Park in Montana by now.

      I don't think that I'd call the sign painters in Glacier National Park "climate modelers".

      Unless you can show a source for where they get their information, this really isn't relevant.

    • And yet it deserves good-faith debate without religious zealotry. Just a shame no one seems capable of doing that. Technically, the glaciers will still be there until they're... gone.
    • All scientific predictions undermine themselves when the test subjects react to the results. If the doctor says you are going to die next year and helps you out (even just informing you) then the experiment has been ruined as the theory (projection) can not be tested. You take active measures which invalidates the predictive model.

      It's like saying humans do not exist because of the 100s of extinct species we found fossels for!
      Science works with many theories being tested. Most get tested false and that dat

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      And yet the Arctic continues its meltdown. Himalayan glaciers are retreating. Alpine glaciers are retreating. Greenland is melting. Wonders never cease.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @01:31PM (#59685898) Homepage Journal

      That year turns out not to have come from models at all.

      There is a widely cited paper from 2003 which predicts that glaciers in the park will probably be gone by 2030, if CO2 also doubles by then. Subsequent measurements showed that the remaining glacier area was considerably smaller than previously believed, causing the NPS officials *by the seat of their pants* guess that the glaciers might be gone as early as 2020.

      That's not really scientifically valid. There used to be 35 glaciers in the park, of which 9 have already disappeared. On average the remaining glaciers have lost 39% of their area, but this average doesn't tell you anything about when glaciers will be *gone*. Glaciers will only be gone when the very last, *most refractory glacier* is gone. That might be the tiny 5 acre Gem Glacier, which has only lost 9% of its area.

      When the park service realized its error it corrected the signs, which of course ignited a number of denialist conspiracy theories. Anyhow, this all traces back to a single paper, which tells you very little about climate models per se because it brings in a second, complex dynamic system: land ice.

    • That was based on models of glacier behaviour, not climate models. Turns out, glaciers are more complicated than they thought. It doesn't speak to the accuracy of climate models.

  • "Hey, our models that predicted disaster are predicting ULTRA disaster now!"

  • by R80_JR ( 1094843 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @11:07AM (#59685014)
    I am a meterologist and did my thesis work in numerical weather prediction.... As we say in the business: "All models are wrong. Some models are useful."
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      All models are wrong. Some models are useful.

      Which is why, when we study various fixes for the 'climate problem' they all need to be reversible. Both on a meteorological/physics level as well as a socio-economic one. Odds are that the fixes we choose today will be wrong or need some adjustment.

  • by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @11:48AM (#59685238) Homepage

    Modeling feedback loops is really hard without a fundamentally sound theory of the inputs to that process. Climate is chaotic, so we don't know what the inputs are year to year, even though these inputs can have a major effect on the output through feedback loops.

    On the other hand nature tends towards feedback loops mediated by other (sometimes misunderstood) processes. So a mathematical or computer model of a natural feedback loop is likely to generate extreme results that are less extreme in nature.

    It's very easy to throw computation at a problem like this to come up with new models. And the models might even - through raw number crunching - come up with something that looks right for a while. And then it doesn't.

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