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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 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.

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  • (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.

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      • (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.