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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: 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".