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* Science isn't clear regarding what part of global temperature rise is due to human activity. * Science isn't clear on how much and how fast temperatures m

by jwatte 10y ago

* Science isn't clear regarding what part of global temperature rise is due to human activity. * Science isn't clear on how much and how fast temperatures might rise. I believe science does have confidence intervals on the ranges, and even the lower ends are pretty bad. As in, it's not a question on "whether" the global food supply pipeline will collapse, but "when" -- 2035 to 2070, depending on the side of the confidence interval you pick. * It doesn't automatically follow that the policy solution is to reduce CO2 emissions to 0. Nobody is arguing for reducing CO2 emissions to 0. Most of the majority arguments are actually quite tame -- leading to a reduction of profits in coal and oil industries, not a wholesale dissolution. Yet, even that, is seen as an unacceptable cost of increasing the chances of civilization survival by the right-wing party of the United States.

gwright 10y ago
It isn't clear to me what a confidence interval is for a prediction from a complex climate model. What are the sources of error for a software model? How can they be quantified? In any case, my understanding is that global warming increases that are at the low end of predictions is not catastrophic and that is actually where measured changes fall. Here is a report from the NOAA that says: > The “pause” in global warming observed since 2000 followed a period of rapid acceleration in the late 20th century. Starting in the mid-1970s, global temperatures rose 0.5 °C over a period of 25 years. Since the turn of the century, however, the change in Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-did-earth’s-surface-temperature-stop-rising-past-decade https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-did-ear... That report is interesting because it argues against the pause indicating a true slowdown in global warming because the period of time is too short, that climate change works on much longer intervals. Perhaps that is true, and the 15 year pause is temporary. Time will tell.

by jwatte 10y ago

gwright 10y ago

It isn't clear to me what a confidence interval is for a prediction from a complex climate model. What are the sources of error for a software model? How can they be quantified? In any case, my understanding is that global warming increases that are at the low end of predictions is not catastrophic and that is actually where measured changes fall. Here is a report from the NOAA that says: > The “pause” in global warming observed since 2000 followed a period of rapid acceleration in the late 20th century. Starting in the mid-1970s, global temperatures rose 0.5 °C over a period of 25 years. Since the turn of the century, however, the change in Earth’s global mean surface temperature has been close to zero. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-did-earth’s-surface-temperature-stop-rising-past-decade https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-did-ear... That report is interesting because it argues against the pause indicating a true slowdown in global warming because the period of time is too short, that climate change works on much longer intervals. Perhaps that is true, and the 15 year pause is temporary. Time will tell.