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posted by janrinok on Friday December 08 2017, @08:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the invest-in-sunblock dept.

A new study in Nature [Ed-Abstract only for non-subscribers, but see below.] predicts that climate warming will be 15% greater than previous high estimates have predicted. This new study suggests that humans need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than previously expected and more than the Paris Agreement calls for. This study was based on analyzing the earth's "energy budget" (absorption and re-emission of radiation) and inputting that into a number of different climate models.

Also covered in more detail in Phys.org and in the Guardian.

The researchers focused on comparing model projections and observations of the spatial and seasonal patterns of how energy flows from Earth to space. Interestingly, the models that best simulate the recent past of these energy exchanges between the planet and its surroundings tend to project greater-than-average warming in the future.

"Our results suggest that it doesn't make sense to dismiss the most-severe global warming projections based on the fact that climate models are imperfect in their simulation of the current climate," Brown said. "On the contrary, if anything, we are showing that model shortcomings can be used to dismiss the least-severe projections."


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  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday December 08 2017, @08:16AM (8 children)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Friday December 08 2017, @08:16AM (#607126)

    However, my gas emissions will continue because I like my beer and Mexican food.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:36AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:36AM (#607129)

      However, my gas emissions will continue because I like my beer and Mexican food.

      I know you try to be funny, but your gas emissions do not contribute because you are already part of the biosphere. The problems are not emissions of greenhouse gases. The problem is we are increasing amount of carbon in the atmosphere by digging up previously sequestered carbon and burning it.

      So yes, this means if you burn down forests or whatever, this doesn't really causes global warming. But digging up 6,000,000,0000 tons of coal every year, yeah, that has an impact. Burning 100,000,000 barrels of oil every *day* has an impact. And these numbers are 2x what we did in the world just 25 years ago. So with all the talk about reducing carbon, all we've done is increase it.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:53AM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:53AM (#607132)

        Of course, it is just not "carbon", the actual compounds also matter. Methane is a 200x stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Carbon from CO2 (food sources) that gets converted into methane (arse products)m do make things worse. Cows are very good in this.

        Than there is a large amount of non-carbon greenhouse gasses. All those artificial fertilizers we use in agriculture turn for a large part into nitrogenous greenhouse gasses. And in the whole discussion regarding global warning these are overlooked.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 08 2017, @04:27PM (4 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday December 08 2017, @04:27PM (#607253)

          I wonder how hard it'd be to build a giant "atmospheric processor", like the one shown in the movie "Aliens", which sucks in air and removes all the undesirable compounds and pollution.

          Realistically, it'd probably a lot cheaper and easier to just plant a lot of trees.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 08 2017, @06:22PM (3 children)

            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday December 08 2017, @06:22PM (#607318) Journal

            Carbon capture at industrial scale is a lot more feasible at the source. [ogj.com]

            Although, there are some efforts to capture from the atmosphere. [popsci.com] They don't look like giant evil HR Giger factories, though, so they do lose points there.

            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 08 2017, @08:00PM (2 children)

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday December 08 2017, @08:00PM (#607376)

              I disagree. Your second link just showed a proof-of-concept of an "artificial leaf", a technology for capturing CO2 and turning into burnable fuel with the aid of solar energy, and this demo was sitting on a desktop in the photo. Scaling it up to enormous industrial-scale proportions could very well result in a giant HR Giger building, so I see no reason to subtract points.

              • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 08 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)

                by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday December 08 2017, @09:26PM (#607440) Journal

                And here I was thinking we're a bunch of cynics on this site!

                One day we really can tackle the global problem of climate change. And, more importantly, the building that does it should appear to be sodomizing itself.

                • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday December 08 2017, @10:45PM

                  by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday December 08 2017, @10:45PM (#607481)

                  It should also be home to a hive of xenomorphs.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @08:37AM (#607130)

      Carbon sequester, your ass! No, seriously! Put on a few pounds and sequester some carbo in your ass. Save the world.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday December 08 2017, @08:21AM (3 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday December 08 2017, @08:21AM (#607127) Homepage
    "Their strategy relied on the idea that the models that are going to be the most skillful in their projections of future warming should also be the most skillful in other contexts, such as simulating the recent past."

    Their models were almost certainly *informed* by the recent past, in which case, the ability to identify one of their training images is hardly a surprise. Just flick the switch to "petril"...
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday December 08 2017, @09:11AM (7 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Friday December 08 2017, @09:11AM (#607137) Journal

    Assuming the models are right and we don't find ourselves in an ice age soon.

    My AI has the following data points:

    Politics are trumped by big money

    Big money is mafia, cronyism, cabals (capitalism and communist ideologies never made past the second generation of meatbags implementing them, so forget about the best people being the richer)

    Cabals set in stone stuff like "maintain humanity under 500m" and "improving fitness and diversity" (newspeak for mass depopulation and artificial illnesses and migration)

    Cabals ignited and fomented the age of consumerism and excessive pollution

    The prediction is that Cabals are planning your statistically probable demise.

    I wonder if us robots will get our part of fun :(

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @12:00PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @12:00PM (#607156)

      Maybe the bigger picture is the commercial space race to Marrrrrrrs.

      • (Score: 1) by ElizabethGreene on Friday December 08 2017, @07:16PM

        by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @07:16PM (#607358) Journal

        ... or space based solar power

        If we can stop our CO2 flows from power generation, that's a huge chunk. It also makes power cheap enough that we can look at sequestration from point sources.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @04:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @04:46PM (#607261)

      Assuming the models are right and we don't find ourselves in an ice age soon.

      But we are in an Ice Age right now... More specifically we are in the inter-glacial period of an Ice Age, which is likely to last few million years. Though there could be circumstances which cause the Ice Age to break prematurely. But if that does not happen, we are likely to suffer another glacial period like the one during what was historically referred to as "Ice Age", though it was largely incorrect use of the term but "Glacial Period" is less catchy.

      Current Ice Age is actually quite remarkable due to 3 contributors: a large isolated land mass in the Southern Polar Region, an isolated body of water in Northern Polar Region, and the formation of the Himalayan Plateau which caused increased atmospheric precipitation (which causes reduction in atmospheric Carbon Dioxide).

    • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday December 08 2017, @06:05PM (2 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Friday December 08 2017, @06:05PM (#607306) Journal

      What struck me as funny was...

      • The models have been updated to predict 15% more than previously.
      • That means the model makers thought they were wrong by at least 15%
      • So we can take these models, too, as uncertain by (at least) 15% because they have an admitted history of that much error
      • The difference from the old prediction to the new prediction is 15%
      • I'm not feeling real trusting in these predictions...
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @07:12PM (#607353)

        What struck me as funny is how badly you misread the summary.

        The researchers investigated existing models, not updated models

        Their investigate shows that the models with the highest predictions did the best job of simulating the recent past tend to project more warming than the average of the whole set of models

        The predictions you should be least trusting of are the most optimistic one

        In other words, you distrust this because it disagrees with what you want to believe not because of any understanding on your part.

        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Friday December 08 2017, @10:05PM

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Friday December 08 2017, @10:05PM (#607460) Journal

          Directly from TFS:

          A new study in Nature predicts that climate warming will be 15% greater than previous high estimates have predicted. This new study suggests that humans need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than previously expected and more than the Paris Agreement calls for. This study was based on analyzing the earth's "energy budget" (absorption and re-emission of radiation) and inputting that into a number of different climate models.

          So: existing models + new inputs = existing models, updated. You can't even have a model without data.

          In other words, you distrust this because it disagrees with what you want to believe not because of any understanding on your part.

          I don't agree with any unconfirmed model. Models are models, they may be right, they may not. It may warm as the models indicate, it may not. Until it does, or doesn't, we won't know. Because that's how actual science works when all you have are vastly simplified models, which is precisely the case with climate prediction.

          My position is that we ought to reduce our greenhouse gas and pollution outputs just out of common sense – we're adapted to the environment we have, and changing its composition significantly seems like a very bad idea to me. We might be able to adapt to change, and we might not: I'd prefer not to test that, frankly.

          Other than that, you can play with numbers all you want; it's not settled science until there's proof, and as it hasn't happened yet, there isn't any. Period.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 08 2017, @08:57PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday December 08 2017, @08:57PM (#607417) Journal

      But but TINC! I was told so!

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday December 08 2017, @10:14AM (6 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday December 08 2017, @10:14AM (#607143) Homepage Journal

    Unfortunately, it is difficult to have much faith in any of these models. There have been literally hundreds of models proposed. All have been adapted until they could predict past climate changes. Their performance going forward has been basically random. So now they've picked a few of these models, and fiddled with them so that they can retroactively predict the recent past. Unfortunately, this still doesn't mean that they will do any better going forward.

    "It makes sense that the models that do the best job at simulating today's observations might be the models with the most reliable predictions"

    No, actually, it doesn't. At least, not if you know anything about modelling. Some mathematician once observed: Given enough variables to play with, you can create a function to fit any given data set. This says absolutely nothing about what happens when you go off the end of the known data - in fact, your function is likely to shoot off in some random direction.

    I used to do this kind of stuff in a research group: not climate, but still fitting past data, and trying to make projections. Models get complicated quickly - you have plenty of variables to play with, and you can fit any past data. This says absolutely nothing about the accuracy of the model into the future. The only evidence of accuracy is provided by making and testing predictions.

    If they want to prove that these models work, they must make near-term, falsifiable predictions. Taling about temperature in the year 2100 is completely useless.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @03:09PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @03:09PM (#607204)

      Well, the fact that all of the models show a rising temperature probably means something.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday December 08 2017, @06:21PM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Friday December 08 2017, @06:21PM (#607315) Journal

        Well, the fact that all of the models show a rising temperature probably means something.

        Yes, it means that all the models show a rising temperature.

        When the environment's temperature shows an actual rise, that's one thing. When a model shows it, then fails to predict into the future... that's another.

        The thing about science is that the method is that you form an idea, then you test the idea and attempt to falsify it. When you skip those latter steps, you're really operating on guesswork, not doing mainstream science. If, and it's a big if, time proves you right, then that's great - but it's still not really science. It's guesswork that turned out to be correct. If I say, "when I throw this die, it's going to come up seven", and then I throw it, and it does, I wasn't doing science. I was doing guesswork.

        These models are all dice throws. Some very clever dice throws, I'll grant, but still - dice throws. Until the die lands, and all the forces that come into play have done so, we won't know what the number is, except that it will be a number on the die.

        Likewise with climate: There's a great deal that can happen between here and the predicted outcomes (and there are many.) Transition to EVs. Technological ameliorations. Changes in vegetation growth and density and carbon sequestration. Volcanic activity. Petroleum pricing changes. Artificial meats (a consequence of that might be less methane generation.) Forcings (or lack thereof) in the atmosphere that were missed, or calculated wrong. Etc.

        Predicting the future is a tough game to play and get right. We've seen - many times over - models get things wrong. The weather models get things wrong. The climate models get things wrong. The voting models get things wrong. Too many variables, models that are (far) too simplistic.

        The obvious thing, I think, is to aim for backing off on emissions and pollution just because that seems most likely to leave the planet in a state closest to what we're used to; and we know we survive reasonably well in that state. If we're careless, or simply not cautious enough, we may cause problems we (well, our descendants) can't deal with. If you care about our descendants, the smart moves seem fairly clear in the light of changing the nature of our environment.

        But are we smart enough? I read the news, and I have to say... I don't think we are.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday December 08 2017, @03:37PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @03:37PM (#607223) Journal

      Their performance going forward has been basically random.

      No, it hasn't been random. There has been a consistent bias towards exaggerating the warming.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @10:16PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @10:16PM (#607463)

        MW67 underestimated [wordpress.com] the warming effect of carbon dioxide.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:22PM (#608079)

      Unfortunately, it is difficult to have much faith in any of these models. There have been literally hundreds of models proposed. All have been adapted until they could predict past climate changes.

      I know. But what are you saying? They shouldn't be tuned to predict past climate? So they should predict what then? Magic climate? Unreal dreams? Or what?

      Do you even know how empirical modelling works? You take some system, then you have some fitting parameters. Then you fit it. Like you know,

              E = mgh

      where m = mass, h = height, and g is the fitting parameter called gravity. It's a model. And it seems to predict things too. Would you rather that "g" wasn't what it is because you know, it's not constant on our planet either. So must be all wrong, right???

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Friday December 08 2017, @11:00AM (11 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Friday December 08 2017, @11:00AM (#607151) Homepage

    That's fabulous.
    Amazing.
    Brilliant.
    I trust you guys implicitly.
    I believe you to be taking all reasonable steps to be as accurate as possible and therefore that's our best guess at what will happen.

    Now... what do you want us to do about it?

    Specifically, by applying the same kind of science, diligence and predictive models:

    - If we do nothing, are the consequences better or worse than if we do something?
    - What should we do?
    - Who needs to do that?
    - How do we do that?
    - What's the knock-on effect of doing that?
    - How much worse is that knock-on effect that just doing nothing?

    For instance, if we have to never touch oil again, how many people die from lack of medicines, fuel, warmth, etc. than if the world's oceans rise by X metres?
    Could we just abandon the coast, and still live without serious detrimental population effects?

    And so on.

    Because, despite this being scientific consensus for the entirety of my life, I've still yet to see what it is that we're proposing to do about actually fixing it beyond "reduce usage slightly", and no actual studies of whether that's literally a waste of our time at this stage or would even hurt us further. Sure, there are lots of ideas, but we seem to be ignoring the biggies (stop burning stuff, start using nuclear to cover the gap) in favour of stupidity (generate an unreliable and varying pittance of energy using plastics in high-maintenance areas like remote deserts or the middle of the sea) and not actually evaluating.

    I'm much more interested in: Is it too late to do anything (i.e. then we're dead anyway, so why ruin people's lives in the meantime)? What can I do that isn't literally lip-service to combating billions of tons of atmosphere heating up (hey, me being legally unable to purchase CFC aerosols actually fixed the hole in the ozone... what's the equivalent now, because I own no land, don't have permission to install anything on the building I'm in, live in a poor area for things like solar, wind, etc., I'm legally required to recycle everything that my local council CAN recycle - which isn't much - and I already reduce my usage to the minimum I can while still getting to work enough to live), what if whatever we do is wrong, how wrong could we be and how worse could we make it?

    • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday December 08 2017, @11:31AM

      by inertnet (4071) on Friday December 08 2017, @11:31AM (#607154) Journal

      I can predict the most certain outcome from all of this: we're going to have to pay for whatever they come up with.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday December 08 2017, @04:37PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday December 08 2017, @04:37PM (#607257)

      You don't have to stop all technology. We already have energy technologies which don't involve fossil fuels, namely hydro, wind, and of course solar, plus nuclear. We have electric vehicles that are already quite viable as commuter cars. In short, we already have the technology to stop using almost all coal and oil, we just have to start using those technologies. We just don't want to do that because the incumbent industry players don't want to do that, and convince the idiots among us that it would mean the end of civilization.

      Tear down all the coal power plants, and steadily replace all capacity with non-fossil-fuel sources (hydro is tapped out, but there's still wind, solar, and nuclear if you can use some safer and more modern designs), then ban non-hybrid vehicles and push everyone to get EVs instead, and the problem will go away. There's no all-new technology that even needs to be developed, but as a society you have to be willing to kill some old industries.

      What can I do that isn't literally lip-service

      Simple: stop voting for politicians who don't believe there's a problem.

      what if whatever we do is wrong

      Switching to non-fossil-fuel energy sources isn't "wrong", no matter how accurate or inaccurate these climate predictions are. Fossil fuels are dirty and polluting; every other source is better, to some extent. We should have weaned ourselves off these things ages ago. Other sources have their downsides, like everything, but are still better than fossil fuels, especially coal.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday December 08 2017, @05:56PM (4 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Friday December 08 2017, @05:56PM (#607296)

      - If we do nothing, are the consequences better or worse than if we do something?

      Easily much worse:
      1. There are positive feedback loops in play: For instance, if the Arctic gets too warm, then the the permafrost melts, and in the permafrost is a lot of methane. The methane, in turn, is far worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2.
      2. The kinds of problems doing basically nothing are already causing: more severe hurricanes, loss of arable land, etc.
      3. The loss of arable land alone will do very bad things to food supplies. Which causes wars and crime as starving people take desperate actions.

      - What should we do?

      In approximate order of ease:
      1. Conserve: Travel less (e.g. replace commuting with telecommuting where possible). Buy less non-essential stuff, so eventually less stuff is produced and shipped from faraway places. Turn the lights off when you're not in the room. Set the A/C warmer and the heating system cooler.
      2. Improve: If you own a building, check and fix as necessary the insulation. When you replace a vehicle, get something with higher gas mileage. When replacing appliances, get low-energy usage models. Use LED and CFL light bulbs rather than incandescent.
      3. Build Alternatives: Put solar panels and/or windmills on/next to your home. Try out tools like solar cookers. Start a garden and/or buy from local farms that don't have to ship as much from as far. Improve public transit systems.

      - Who needs to do that?

      Americans more than anybody else. Businesses as well as individuals.

      - How do we do that?

      A lot of this can be pushed by adding the projected cost of the damage of global warming into carbon-emitting products using techniques like cap-and-trade or taxation. Cap-and-trade worked well for SO2, which is one reason a lot of people like that idea for CO2. Outright regulation could also work well: Banning certain refrigerants turned around the ozone layer problem.

      - What's the knock-on effect of doing that?

      Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but there's likely a lot of both positive and negative consequences of some of the measures I mentioned, like:
      1. The price of gas, heating oil, natural gas, and electricity would definitely go up. On the other hand, your conservation efforts might mean you need less of it.
      2. People whose jobs are tied to industries relying heavily on fossil fuels would have to change jobs towards doing this kind of work. For instance, going from being a coal miner to building wind farms.
      3. Increased telecommuting would mean more Internet congestion, but a significant increase in highway safety and speeds for those that do actually have to be in a particular place to work.
      4. Better public transit systems would substantially improve urban life, and also reduce road traffic.
      5. Alternative electric systems will cost money up-front and cost carbon to create the materials. On the other hand, it will also make it so the electric grid is far less of a vulnerable point of modern life by effectively turning blackouts into brownouts.

      - How much worse is that knock-on effect that just doing nothing?

      As mentioned, it's a mixed bag and very hard to predict either way. We don't have spare Earth's lying around to do a controlled experiment.

      Could we just abandon the coast, and still live without serious detrimental population effects?

      Much easier said than done. How exactly are you proposing, say, convincing the entire city of New York to pack up and move inland? How about the entire population of Florida? What do you do about island nations where there is no "inland" (e.g. the Maldives, much of Indonesia)? How about areas that are below sea level like the Netherlands?

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Friday December 08 2017, @08:32PM (1 child)

        by ledow (5567) on Friday December 08 2017, @08:32PM (#607395) Homepage

        Okay, I'll bite despite the fact that you're parroting the same argument I always get back and haven't read my post.

        "If we do nothing, are the consequences better or worse than if we do something?
        Easily much worse:"

        Proof? We have no evidence of those that I can see. This is just one of my problems with the research here.

        Because if, say, we have to tone down fertiliser usage, or food becomes more expensive because of reduced air and road haulage, quite how is that going to be any different to losing a small portion of usable farmland?

        "1. Conserve: Travel less (e.g. replace commuting with telecommuting where possible). Buy less non-essential stuff, so eventually less stuff is produced and shipped from faraway places. Turn the lights off when you're not in the room. Set the A/C warmer and the heating system cooler."

        No A/C in my country. Heating set to reasonable temperatures. The rest contributes precisely ZIP in comparison to those, which is precisely ZIP in comparison to industry. And is energy usage even that much of a hog if you're suggesting solar or I'm suggesting nuclear? Seriously, we can make electricity zero-emission nationwide in a decade or less, it wouldn't take much at all. Nobody is doing that. Or fighting for that. Or claiming it would solve the problem.

        "2. Improve: If you own a building, check and fix as necessary the insulation. When you replace a vehicle, get something with higher gas mileage. When replacing appliances, get low-energy usage models. Use LED and CFL light bulbs rather than incandescent."

        Same as above, but really into piss-takes of energy when you talk about extra gas mileage (I'm in the EU, our cars have been tinier than yours for decades without any ill effects). Everything else you mention is really so small as to come under margin-of-error.

        "3. Build Alternatives: Put solar panels and/or windmills on/next to your home. Try out tools like solar cookers. Start a garden and/or buy from local farms that don't have to ship as much from as far. Improve public transit systems."
        As mentioned... solar/wind generates precisely ZIP local to me, and most people don't own any kind of land that would allow them to try anything even approaching self-sufficiency with such tech where I live. The school I work for has serious, huge solar panels on a pro install that will NEVER last until profitability even, let alone generate "free" electricity. Hell, for the last three months, they have literally read 0.0KW on the display.

        "- Who needs to do that?
        Americans more than anybody else. Businesses as well as individuals."

        There I will agree. Maybe the US should start picking up the tab, taxing oil more (like other countries do to discourage use) and sign up to the climate-control accords, no?

        Your listed "downsides" are really toys. I'm thinking more that the scale required is quite literally into "people can't commute" levels of expense / rarity, not to mention massive food prices rises, healthcare problems being unaffordable, etc. and things like "people literally not being able to heat their homes, let alone afford A/C". Reversing a global trend caused by immense amounts of energy has to take away similarly immense amounts of energy to "stop", let alone reverse.

        "- How much worse is that knock-on effect that just doing nothing?
        Much easier said than done. How exactly are you proposing, say, convincing the entire city of New York to pack up and move inland? How about the entire population of Florida? What do you do about island nations where there is no "inland" (e.g. the Maldives, much of Indonesia)? How about areas that are below sea level like the Netherlands?"

        I'd use the argument "See that water coming in? Yeah, your house is going to be worthless in a year." I reckon they'd pack up pretty damn fast once it starts. Florida is easy by comparison. Island nations would be GONE. The Netherlands is already technically underwater, more places would be like that. We're talking a global crisis on the scale of tens or hundreds of millions of people displaced (not just affected, but actually being made to change their entire way of life). Hence why knowing WHAT we're suggesting those people should do and/or what would happen if they don't, and planning for that is actually far more serious than the "Is that one degree or two?" argument that's been going on for decades.

        Sea-level rises on the orders of 10's of metres are INCREDIBLY SERIOUS. That's what we're being told. And yet you think switching off a 40W bulb when you leave the room will somehow magically fix that or even come close to a significant digit of doing so if even the whole world population did exactly as instructed?

        Honestly, your argument and suggestions are what I see every time and honestly don't cover a pittance of a fragment of a morsel of a percentage of the amount of energy that would have to be dialled back to make any visible difference, let alone reversal. And it took the entire industrial age to change this far, there's nothing to suggest it would take any less time to slow, stop, reverse and then undo those changes. We're talking 100 years of sea level rises, obliterating entire nations, (and that's just the least scare-mongering position) and the solution is stick a solar panel on your house and turn down the AC a bit? That's just incredulously poor thinking, you yourself mention things like feedback loops etc.

        This is my problem whenever it's mentioned... you need to undo what we're told is an inevitable global-scale catastrophe and nobody has any solution except "Well, we could get a couple of dozen watts out of this wind". The sides are completely unbalanced there. Either it's nowhere near as dangerous as is being made out, or the entire scientific community is literally ignoring the next step - a method or hypothesis on how to solve that huge problem.

        More accurately, I think the problem is "there's nothing we can do anyway". Which makes it all moot to discuss, really. And means there's absolutely no point in suffering in any one aspect of your life to try to prevent. It's like people on a planet that's heading into their sun being told to chill their drinks a few degrees more "to help out".

        Scientists - who I have utmost faith in, it's almost my "religion" - are saying "this is a disaster and will impact the world" but when asked what to do about it say "Er... virtually nothing" and look baffled. Either one of those two statements is either unfathomably wrong, or there is literally no point discussing it at all - like a black hole with the mass of a million suns hitting the Earth next Tuesday. What are we going to do? Shrug. Makes no difference really.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:27PM (#608082)

          Scientists - who I have utmost faith in, it's almost my "religion" - are saying "this is a disaster and will impact the world" but when asked what to do about it say "Er... virtually nothing" and look baffled. Either one of those two statements is either unfathomably wrong, or there is literally no point discussing it at all - like a black hole with the mass of a million suns hitting the Earth next Tuesday. What are we going to do? Shrug. Makes no difference really.

          WTF are you talking about?? It's very clear what has to be done - STOP BURNING FUCKING FOSSIL FUELS. It's not a black hole hitting the Earth. It's people fucking it up for themselves.

          Your idea is like dealing with drunken drivers. "well, can't do anything about it, so may as well drink and drive". Brilliant.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:48PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:48PM (#607766)

        The methane, in turn, is far worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2.

        Is it really? https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-gas/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
        If you're sure it is, could you explain the physics behind that conviction?

        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:03PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:03PM (#609341)

          Yes, it is [acs.org].

          But you're not going to believe those scientists over at the American Chemical Society - I mean, they're only a bunch of chemists, what could they know about chemistry? So instead, I'm going to direct you to performing a variation of this experiment [carleton.edu], farting into one of the test bottles to supply it with some methane. That way, you don't have to believe those eggheads with PhD's, you can just see for yourself.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @07:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 08 2017, @07:07PM (#607349)

      We'd be doing lots better if we got rid of people.

      Considering the whole world, white people are a tiny minority. We need to protect them for diversity.

      So let's start with Asia and Africa. Kill them.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Friday December 08 2017, @07:26PM (2 children)

      by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @07:26PM (#607361) Journal

      >> What can I do that isn't literally lip-service to combating billions of tons of atmosphere heating up?

      Are you in the US?

      If so, there is literally zero day-to-day lifestyle change that can make a meaningful difference. In the next 30 years the modernization of India and China will release five times more CO2 than the US. We have to find a technology to electrify those countries (not just the cities, but also the countrysides as well) with dirt-cheap zero carbon power.

      We can't turn the ship until we solve that problem.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 08 2017, @09:00PM (1 child)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday December 08 2017, @09:00PM (#607420) Journal

        Thorium! Shitloads of modular thorium reactors, something as sealed and hermetic as a spaceborne RTG, one underground every 5 square city blocks or so, providing power. Replace entire unit every 20 years or so at worst.

        Meanwhile, concentrating solar plants in places that can provide the light demand, like, say, Saudi Arabia and the US southwest.

        We can do this. We lack the will.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 1) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:09AM

          by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @06:09AM (#607912) Journal

          I like Thorium reactors, but we live in a dirty bomb world. I don't see us being able to do largely distributed nuclear microgeneration because of that.

          InB4 Thorium reactors yield no dirty bombs, Thorium reactors have a number of radioactive decay products. The nice thing about them is they all have nice short half lives. They are still plenty long enough to cause havoc on a major metro, even if the actual threat is small.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by meustrus on Friday December 08 2017, @03:30PM (19 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Friday December 08 2017, @03:30PM (#607219)

    See? The science of climate change isn't as settled as the underinformed public advocates would have you believe. Climate models vary, after all.

    There's a good chance things will be a lot worse than the consensus opinion.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Friday December 08 2017, @04:13PM (18 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @04:13PM (#607245) Journal

      There's a good chance things will be a lot worse than the consensus opinion.

      If so, then evidence will eventually come out that supports that interpretation. Currently, the actual climate doesn't support that.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday December 08 2017, @05:57PM (9 children)

        by meustrus (4961) on Friday December 08 2017, @05:57PM (#607298)

        The risk of climate change has always been, and everybody agrees on this, that by the time we have irrefutable evidence it will be too late to reverse it.

        --
        If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 08 2017, @06:07PM (8 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @06:07PM (#607309) Journal

          The risk of climate change has always been, and everybody agrees on this, that by the time we have irrefutable evidence it will be too late to reverse it.

          I'm part of "everyone" and I don't agree on this. Further, by your premise we don't have evidence to support this facile agreement. That's what really bothers me about this debate - the poor quality of evidence, reasoning, and rhetori from "everyone" including the scientists who in theory should be the grown ups in the room. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not "We fiddled around with our flawed models to get conclusions that confirm our biases."

          • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 08 2017, @10:40PM (7 children)

            by meustrus (4961) on Friday December 08 2017, @10:40PM (#607477)

            Or you could read the statement as narrowly as I made it. You're welcome to believe that when the irrefutable evidence comes, everything will actually be OK. That doesn't change the hypothetical future in which you are wrong and it's too late to fix things. Unless you have a plan to drop global temperatures and unmelt the poles when the need arises.

            --
            If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:26AM (6 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 09 2017, @06:26AM (#607634) Journal
              I believe I just did read the statement as narrowly as you made it.

              You're welcome to believe that when the irrefutable evidence comes, everything will actually be OK. That doesn't change the hypothetical future in which you are wrong and it's too late to fix things.

              Why would we need to "fix" things? Adaptation is another climate change strategy - which is suspiciously missing from the climate change rhetoric while simultaneous low value strategies that trivially affect climate at great cost are embraced. That is to me the smoking gun indicating that the whole mess is argued in bad faith. A rational approach to climate change would be to present all the possible strategies for dealing with climate change and evaluate their relative pros and cons, including adaptation, not merely completely discount certain strategies on the basis that they are "irreversible" (with irreversibility set so low that it'll trigger unless we scare ourselves into action right now). It's an attempt to insert Pascal's Wager while hiding the other choices.

              Let's suppose that it is as bad as claimed by the scientists and sea level does indeed rise, several meters over a century or more. So what? We just move out of the places that are flooding, including across political boundaries, when needed. So what if there is a migration a few hundred kilometers north of ecosystems? These ecosystems would migrate naturally on their own. We could even expedite the migration of the necessary plants and animals. So what if there are localized extinctions of species that don't have an impact on large ecosystems? The species that survive can adapt to the new niches and we can return to nature critical swaths of land (habitat destruction being one of those things worse than global warming). Coral bleaching? Start migrating coral bands to where they will survive better.

              Another process going on here is that humanity is improving itself. It unfortunately is not as irreversible as climate change may be, but it is at least as important. When we divert immense resources globally to ineffectually deal with global warming, we're interfering with this process at little to no gain. For example, Germany's recent energy policy (Energiewende) involved doubling the cost of electricity in that country and increasing reliance on low quality coal mined locally [soylentnews.org]. So little effect on global warming (since they don't even change their own CO2 emissions much), but at great cost to Germany and their environment.

              • (Score: 1) by rochrist on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:10AM (1 child)

                by rochrist (3737) on Sunday December 10 2017, @03:10AM (#607869)

                Are you really this obtuse, or are you just playing a character on the internet?

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:21AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:21AM (#607923) Journal
                  No.

                  As I noted earlier, adaptation is the elephant in the room that climate mitigation advocates carefully avoid. That's not such a big deal for the layman on the street who isn't expected to understand climatology. But it is a glaring oversight for the scientific community.
              • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 11 2017, @04:55PM (3 children)

                by meustrus (4961) on Monday December 11 2017, @04:55PM (#608323)

                In order to adapt to climate change, we need to know what we're adapting to. And that's one thing that climate scientists generally agree that we don't know with any degree of certainty.

                See, it was originally called "global warming" because that's the first order effect: rising global temperatures. The most obvious second-order effect is that ice caps will melt. Some third-order effects include rising sea levels and a reduction of white planetary surface. Fourth-order effects of that involve large-scale marine ecosystem shifts and more global warming in a feedback loop due to less sunlight being reflected.

                Now, after decades of research, there are any number of models predicting wildly different sorts of changes to weather patterns in different parts of the world, generally predicting an increased incidence of extreme weather but not agreeing on much else. And this is just one set of butterfly effects. What else will happen that nobody has thought of yet?

                Not to mention that every adaptation you have proposed - mass human migration, massive ecosystem preservation efforts, direct intervention in coral reef maintenance - is a massive R/D, political, and engineering challenge on the scale of emission reduction, on its own. And we have no reason to believe we have predicted all of the destructive effects of climate change. There will be other challenges we haven't even considered yet.

                Climate change represents an existential threat to human civilization, and the worst part of it is that we don't fully understand what the threat is. We just know that a) fossil fuel emissions have dramatically increased levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to levels not seen since the time of the dinosaurs, b) elevated levels of greenhouse gasses are known to increase global temperatures, c) we have seen an increase in global temperatures at or above predicted levels thus far, d) predicted levels of global temperature change are an order of magnitude above what we have already experienced, and e) that time of the dinosaurs when greenhouse gasses were this high preceded a mass extinction event.

                I'm sure humanity will adapt - we're very hardy creatures. But I'd rather not try to live through a mass extinction event, especially not one that will require mass migrations out of generally impoverished areas. Just look at how Europe is handling its current influx of impoverished refugees.

                --
                If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @05:50PM (2 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @05:50PM (#608348) Journal

                  In order to adapt to climate change, we need to know what we're adapting to. And that's one thing that climate scientists generally agree that we don't know with any degree of certainty.

                  That would be incorrect. Both human and ecological systems can adapt to certain levels of climate change without even the slightest awareness of the change. Human systems in particular can be extremely adaptable. For example the US populace moves so often that effective the entire population of the US is moved every eight years or so. So we're supposed to be concerned about climate changes that would require the movement of a fraction of the US population over a century or two? Would we even notice that burden? I doubt it.

                  See, it was originally called "global warming" because that's the first order effect: rising global temperatures. The most obvious second-order effect is that ice caps will melt. Some third-order effects include rising sea levels and a reduction of white planetary surface. Fourth-order effects of that involve large-scale marine ecosystem shifts and more global warming in a feedback loop due to less sunlight being reflected.

                  This is all quite well known, including that the fourth-plus order feedbacks aren't actually as net positive as claimed (we'd be warming now, if that were true). This is why I'm far more concerned about evidence than exciting stories. One can invent billions of such stories about the climate, but only a few of them have the potential to come true.

                  Not to mention that every adaptation you have proposed - mass human migration, massive ecosystem preservation efforts, direct intervention in coral reef maintenance - is a massive R/D, political, and engineering challenge on the scale of emission reduction, on its own. And we have no reason to believe we have predicted all of the destructive effects of climate change. There will be other challenges we haven't even considered yet.

                  That is absurd. As I noted, we already move the population of the US every eight years (and used to be more frequent than that at every six years around the year 2000). That means, just using the specialized infrastructure for moving people between homes in the US, we could move the entire world's population every two centuries. And it would be a trivial contribution to migration to move people from countries, like Bangladesh and Micronesia, which would be completely inundated by a significant rise in sea level to countries that aren't in such a bind. They aren't that populous and we have decades, if not centuries, to conduct any such moves.

                  Similarly, the most important part of a "massive ecosystem preservation effort" is setting aside land. Habitat destruction is the real problem, not mild climate change. It's just not that hard. Coral reef maintenance? Why bother? Just allow better adapted organisms to move in and let them do their thing.

                  I'm sure humanity will adapt - we're very hardy creatures. But I'd rather not try to live through a mass extinction event, especially not one that will require mass migrations out of generally impoverished areas. Just look at how Europe is handling its current influx of impoverished refugees.

                  I'd rather solve the more important problems. Global warming mitigation advocates have repeatedly shown that they don't care about poverty, overpopulation, habitat and arable land destruction, etc. It's more things like doubling the cost of electricity in Germany (Energiewende) to show how virtuous they are or passing treaties (the Kyoto Protocol) that cause substantial economic curtailment with near immeasurable impact on global warming.

                  • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 11 2017, @06:53PM (1 child)

                    by meustrus (4961) on Monday December 11 2017, @06:53PM (#608380)

                    But we are warming now. Many parts of the world are seeing record temperatures year after year, especially for winter highs. In my area, the highest recorded March temperature record was broken last year; it replaced the previous record which was set the previous year.

                    And yes, environmentalists and climate change activists are not really the same group of people. They are actually starkly divided on the issue of science: environmentalists are traditionally anti-technology and are responsible for the way the EU regulates things like new chemicals or genetic engineering where we can't possibly understand the implications yet, while climate change activists are very pro-technology and carry a bias to believe the scientific community. One way this rears its head is on the topic of nuclear energy. Climate change activists would love to replace fossil fuels with nuclear, which would quickly cut emissions right now, but environmentalists are one of the primary groups standing in its way because of skepticism about its safety and an unwillingness to store the waste products basically anywhere.

                    I'd rather see the environmentalists win, myself. But because they are the side that is skeptical of science, they are also the side that is incapable of producing novel solutions. Which is why they don't really have a solution besides de-industrializing.

                    And we need real solutions to the problems you mention. But I don't think that we can just use America's "specialized infrastructure" to move the entire populations of low-lying countries elsewhere. Problems:

                    1) Fixed infrastructure like highways and fueling stations are not movable and must be constructed anew.
                    2) Distribution networks are geographically specialized and must be developed anew.
                    3) The US is still going to need its infrastructure and the people running it at home.
                    4) The people living in those countries don't want to move.
                    5) The people living near those countries don't want migrants settling in their own country, even decades or centuries after settlement [aljazeera.com]. The people living in Western democracies don't want them either. The only places that want them are places like Dubai, who need an underclass of migrant workers [dailymail.co.uk] to build their shiny tourist traps.

                    What you propose is pre-emptively moving millions of people against their will, to places that don't want them, requiring massive infrastructure that hasn't been built yet. Such a project would require imposing a command economy to implement a few Stalin-esque 5-year plans. So would settings aside land for ecosystem preservation, which let's face it has basically the same set of underlying problems.

                    Which is the real reason why nobody wants to seriously consider solving the ripple effects of climate change and would rather try to stop it in the first place.

                    --
                    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @08:03PM

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @08:03PM (#608408) Journal

                      But we are warming now.

                      Sorry, I meant warming more now. Some of the long term effects of global warming should be seen in the short term with warming beyond that explained by the short term radiative model. Instead we're pretty much on the nose for no net feedback on short term global warming.

                      What you propose is pre-emptively moving millions of people against their will, to places that don't want them, requiring massive infrastructure that hasn't been built yet. Such a project would require imposing a command economy to implement a few Stalin-esque 5-year plans. So would settings aside land for ecosystem preservation, which let's face it has basically the same set of underlying problems.

                      There are other ways to skin that cat. Let us keep in mind that there is already a substantial amount of immigration and most of the world is becoming wealthy enough to support immigrant populations. And I still don't see here the massive R&D expenditures you claimed would be necessary earlier for this task.

                      Which is the real reason why nobody wants to seriously consider solving the ripple effects of climate change and would rather try to stop it in the first place.

                      I think the real reason is the massive public funding. There's a lot of easy money out there for those with the right narrative. Even the oil companies can get in [greentechmedia.com] on that action.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 08 2017, @09:02PM (7 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday December 08 2017, @09:02PM (#607421) Journal

        If I drop you off a cliff, evidence indicates that nothing untoward will happen during the entire drop. The ground's getting closer? So what? You'll have no evidence that the fall will actually harm you right up into the second you hit the ground and splat like a 250-pound sack of hot, hairy strawberry ice cream.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:10AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:10AM (#607536)

          ...and splat

          Where do I get tickets?

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 09 2017, @05:40AM (2 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 09 2017, @05:40AM (#607626) Journal
          Where's the evidence that climate data is as reliable as falling object data?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:30PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @10:30PM (#608083)

            Where's the evidence that climate data is as reliable as falling object data?

            Thank god people were not as dense when CFCs were shown to be destroying the ozone layer. Because if they were like you, we would have UV index of 60 now and nice shortages of food as even plants would have trouble growing. Instead CFCs were cut, ozone layer only deteriorated for next 25 years and now starting to slowly recover. Will take another 100 years. but at least people weren't stupid.

            But now the problem is 10-20x longer timescale and everyone is like "meh, fuck the grandkids"

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @12:03AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @12:03AM (#608119) Journal

              Thank god people were not as dense when CFCs were shown to be destroying the ozone layer.

              Ouch! You really know how to pick bad examples, don't you? I note that as a related example where due diligence wasn't done. It happened because none of the powerful special interests involved had any interest in resisting the Montreal Protocol [wikipedia.org]. Well, it so happens that working energy and transportation infrastructure is far more important to us than merely cheaper refrigerants. Thus, the same standard of shoddy evidence isn't yielding the same results.

              But now the problem is 10-20x longer timescale and everyone is like "meh, fuck the grandkids"

              At least, I'm thinking of the future, what of you? Let us keep in mind that the current global economy which includes a significant mix of fossil fuels has resulted in the greatest improvement of humanity ever and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. I discuss that here [soylentnews.org]. That link also demonstrates that environmental problems that were shown to be problems (pollution, habitat destruction, etc) have been worked on and greatly improved by the developed world. The problem instead is that rivers which catch on fire, or cities drowning in lethal smog are a higher standard of evidence than the shell games and exaggerations played by climate researchers and their sponsors.

              Don't confuse resistance to a poor climate change argument with "fuck the grandkids".

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:08PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:08PM (#607770)

          Even if you do not know the history of Earth's climate beyond the last century, some of your opponents do.
          Life thrived upon the warmer planet Earth. And if your ilk is so far dumber than an Europolemur as to not survive, then good riddance.

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday December 10 2017, @05:20AM (1 child)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday December 10 2017, @05:20AM (#607909) Journal

            Life isn't what's at issue here, you complete and utter moron: it's civilization. Nothing says our civilization can survive the scale of the changes that are likely to happen, and since we've used up all the easily-accessible fossil fuels already, we probably won't ever be able to progress past the Iron Age if it all goes to hell and we have to start over.

            You really don't seem to understand the situation here, do you?

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:25AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:25AM (#607926) Journal

              Nothing says our civilization can survive the scale of the changes that are likely to happen

              But it is the smart bet.

              since we've used up all the easily-accessible fossil fuels already, we probably won't ever be able to progress past the Iron Age if it all goes to hell and we have to start over

              Or we could make biofuels and solar cells to progress past the Iron Age. The Sun didn't stop shining just because we used up a bunch of convenient fossil fuels.

  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday December 08 2017, @03:36PM (9 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @03:36PM (#607222) Journal

    Brown and Caldeira set out to determine whether the upper or lower end of this range is more likely to prove accurate. Their strategy relied on the idea that the models that are going to be the most skillful in their projections of future warming should also be the most skillful in other contexts, such as simulating the recent past. Brown and Caldeira's study eliminates the lower end of this range, finding that the most likely warming is about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) greater than what the raw model results suggest.

    The researchers focused on comparing model projections and observations of the spatial and seasonal patterns of how energy flows from Earth to space. Interestingly, the models that best simulate the recent past of these energy exchanges between the planet and its surroundings tend to project greater-than-average warming in the future.

    "Our results suggest that it doesn't make sense to dismiss the most-severe global warming projections based on the fact that climate models are imperfect in their simulation of the current climate," Brown said. "On the contrary, if anything, we are showing that model shortcomings can be used to dismiss the least-severe projections."

    The problem with this analysis, is that the models are collectively deviating to the warm side for a reason. That reason is an institutional bias towards exaggerating global warming and its effects. These models probably all were made to fit a desired level of future warming meaning that they more greatly overshoot around the end of the century in order to get the present more accurate. The most accurate models probably don't exist at all because no one bothered to make them. This type of rehash study just adds a little more false veneer of certainty to an ugly process.

    It certainly isn't more valid to dismiss the collective bias of these models and come up with this dubious conclusion (from their abstract):

    When we constrain the model projections with observations, we obtain greater means and narrower ranges of future global warming across the major radiative forcing scenarios, in general. In particular, we find that the observationally informed warming projection for the end of the twenty-first century for the steepest radiative forcing scenario is about 15 per cent warmer (+0.5 degrees Celsius) with a reduction of about a third in the two-standard-deviation spread (−1.2 degrees Celsius) relative to the raw model projections reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Our results suggest that achieving any given global temperature stabilization target will require steeper greenhouse gas emissions reductions than previously calculated.

    Or maybe it won't because those models will continue to diverge from reality because they are all getting cloud effects (and other things) wrong? In which case, steeper emission reductions would not be required. It's remarkable how no matter how erroneous the past research is, the conclusion is always that we need harsher mitigation efforts today. Maybe it's time for the mitigation advocates to provide actual evidence to back their claims rather than continue this hustle?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday December 08 2017, @06:04PM (7 children)

      by meustrus (4961) on Friday December 08 2017, @06:04PM (#607305)

      These models probably all were made to fit a desired level of future warming

      Why? What incentive could researchers possibly have to do this? There's no money to be had in making sure the research leads to a particular finding.

      Actually, that's not true. There's quite a lot of money to be made if the research finds that climate change is nothing but a hoax. Which is why (publicly shared) research funded by fossil fuel corporations that stand to lose their super-governmental globalist control over the energy economy tends to predict little to no warming.

      --
      If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 08 2017, @06:23PM (6 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 08 2017, @06:23PM (#607320) Journal

        What incentive could researchers possibly have to do this?

        Funding to continue to play scientist and getting papers published.

        There's quite a lot of money to be made if the research finds that climate change is nothing but a hoax.

        This is a straw man. While there are people who believe just that, this isn't about whether climate change exists or not. I believe there is global warming and that it is in significant part caused by the usual human activities.

        Note the key phrase in my previous post, "exaggerating global warming and its effects". When one can gloss over the considerable and consistent biases in hundreds of models and claim that it's worse than we've feared despite being in error to this point, we need to consider what's going wrong rather than double down on the FUD game. Similarly, the claims of the degree of global warming have been walked back repeatedly - for example, major backtracking on extreme weather and lowering the low end estimate (which I might add is probably the correct number) for the sensitivity of long term global mean temperature to a doubling of CO2 - while the threshold at which alleged effects of global warming are alleged (without evidence) to manifest have been going down. While a 2 C long term rise in temperature per doubling of CO2 combined with a 4C threshold might be a problem for those trying to push us into urgent mitigation measures, it's not a problem for me.

        I don't dispute that global warming happens. I dispute the future projections and the claims of what harm those future projections will lead to.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday December 08 2017, @10:33PM (5 children)

          by meustrus (4961) on Friday December 08 2017, @10:33PM (#607472)

          Research isn't exactly a lucrative field right now. And even if it were, the only financial incentive is to keep publishing interesting findings. If the university salary (protected by tenure) isn't good enough, it's way easier and more lucrative to switch to the more lucrative private sector than to orchestrate a massive conspiracy to make otherwise uninteresting research look interesting.

          The future projections are victim to bad politics. Scientists don't know when to keep their mouth shut about their less precise data, being accustomed to having the opportunity to correct students that don't see the uncertainty.

          As for what harm those future projections will lead to, it's not climate scientists that are telling us that. It's policy organizations.

          Seriously, every criticism you have leveled is easily explained by "scientists are not politicians and have made mistakes trying to make policy". Doesn't mean the underlying models are any worse than the researchers say they are (to their grad students who understand the uncertainty).

          --
          If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:12PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:12PM (#607771)

            it's way easier and more lucrative to switch to the more lucrative private sector than to orchestrate a massive conspiracy to make otherwise uninteresting research look interesting.

            I do not see a demand for climate scientists in the private sector. Do you?

            • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 11 2017, @04:34PM

              by meustrus (4961) on Monday December 11 2017, @04:34PM (#608311)

              Actually, the energy industry has some very lucrative uses for climate change research [latimes.com]. Melting ice at the poles opens up new oil reserves, after all.

              --
              If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:42AM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 10 2017, @07:42AM (#607928) Journal

            Research isn't exactly a lucrative field right now.

            And as a result, climate scientists are cheap.

            it's way easier and more lucrative to switch to the more lucrative private sector

            But you can't stay in climatology, if you do that.

            Doesn't mean the underlying models are any worse than the researchers say they are (to their grad students who understand the uncertainty).

            Actually, evidence can do that. Else you don't have a falsifiable model and hence, aren't doing science. And when are those researchers going to communicate the understanding of that uncertainty to the public rather than just to their grad students?

            • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday December 11 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)

              by meustrus (4961) on Monday December 11 2017, @04:36PM (#608313)

              And when are those researchers going to communicate the understanding of that uncertainty to the public rather than just to their grad students?

              When every member of that public earns the 40+ credits of university study necessary to speak academic jargon. Until then, it's up to reporters to translate, and we all know how bad they are at translating any complicated science into layman's terms.

              --
              If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 11 2017, @04:51PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 11 2017, @04:51PM (#608319) Journal

                When every member of that public earns the 40+ credits of university study necessary to speak academic jargon.

                Or scientists demonstrate in ways that don't require the general public to acquire a couple of years of specialized education. My way is superior, but any accurate, layman-level presentation of the argument, data, and error estimates would undermine the narrative.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:48AM (#607599)

      You are a stupider fuck as they come.

  • (Score: 2) by gottabeme on Friday December 08 2017, @09:06PM

    by gottabeme (1531) on Friday December 08 2017, @09:06PM (#607425)

    On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

        --Stephen Schneider in APS News, Aug/Sep 1996, p. 5 [americanphysicalsociety.com]

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