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Most Accurate Climate Change Models Now Predict That Warming Will be 15% Greater.

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

Whoever writes:

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, @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.