8 ms·

Extreme event attribution is an expanding subfield of climate science

43 points by nature24 9y ago

cle 9y ago
> The whole science of event attribution developed so that we can provide scientifically robust answers to these questions. If we the experts don't do this, then there will be people who are not qualified who will go and fill in the gaps. I don't think this will accomplish what these scientists hope. People fill gaps of trust more than gaps of fact. No amount of evidence or attribution is going to address that problem.
- exabrial 9y ago
  Agree. I think the butterfly effect is informally understood by the masses; I think most people will assume they have no control over specifc events. Pointing to a dry river bed and saying climate change is going to undermine the credibility of the scientists, whether or not the scientist is correct.
- 7952 9y ago
  And people decide what they think we should actually do based on intuition and personal morals. Changing that gut feeling is massively difficult and data does not help.
vonmoltke 9y ago
Interesting article about assessing how much climate change actually increases the probability of extreme weather events. Unfortunately, the headline is clickbait that is repeatedly contradicted by the article itself.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  It doesn't seem that way to me. The article even cites peer reviewed published papers where this exact thing is done, blaming a specific part or whole of a storm on climate change. > Two separate studies published in December both found that climate change had influenced Harvey's record-breaking rainfall (Climatewire, Dec. 14, 2017). I don't see anywhere in the article that even remotely comes close to contradicting the headline.
saas_co_de 9y ago
> Today, scientists still generally agree that it's impossible to attribute any individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change Seems the actual science is the direct opposite of the headline once you read through the article.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  At some point in the past, scientists have "generally agreed" things that were later found out to be wrong. I don't see how the article contradicts the title at all. Certainly not 'direct opposite' as it even calls out specific scientists and specific papers that are in fact doing exactly what the headline says. It's not like the article headline says "All scientists now agree: Harvey caused by climate change" or something like that. The headline is very clear and very specific. It is fine.
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    "Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change" There are two parts to that title: 1) "can now" implies that something significant in scientific understanding has changed 2) "blame individual natural disasters on climate change" is clear #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. Scientists can predict that the probability of extreme events in general is rising due to climate change but that is not proof that any specific event is attributable to climate change. That is not new. Nothing has changed in the consensus scientific position.
    - cryptoz 9y ago
      > #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. Scientific consensus doesn't make something true. Climate change is true because we measure it, not because most scientists say it is. This is an active area of research, a brand-new area in fact, and making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect. We're still finding out the answers to those kinds of questions, and just now it's become potentially feasible to actually do it (blame climate change for a specific event). > #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. What? Of course things have changed. That's what this whole article is about. The methods are maturing and data access is growing - the nature of publishing a peer reviewed paper that blames all or part of an event on climate change is now an accepted practice and it wasn't before. This is change. I still see no issue at all with the headline. It is a perfect fit for the article and is not wrong in any way. Edit: I've been banned from HN for a while I guess, unable to comment any more. I'll respond quickly to the comment below: > > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true > This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. You cut up my paragraph and removed the context from my comment in order to make me look like a climate change denier. I'm not. Why did you do that? > > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect > Nobody made that claim. I never said they did.
huffpopo 9y ago
I used to do research on climate change, specifically on combining land, sea, and air models together and getting them to run on a massive cluster. It was very important to the other researches that the models produce the 'right' predictions which at the time was runaway global warming. When the models didn't show this it was presumed that the models were wrong so hyper-parameters were tuned to try to torture the models to produce the 'right' result. When even that didn't work they went so far as future pollute the data. Disillusioned with academia I left to work in industry. My question is this; How qualified and experienced do I need to be in order to be able to legitimately and completely distrust the climate change 'experts'? Because I feel like I've earned that right.
- ctrl-j 9y ago
  > When the models didn't show this it was presumed that the models were wrong so hyper-parameters were tuned to try to torture the models to produce the 'right' result. When even that didn't work they went so far as future pollute the data. Please name and shame. I've also done work in the field, and this kind of behavior was never acceptable - and should not be. If you let the bad actors hide in obscurity, they will continue to practice bad science.
  - huffpopo 9y ago
    Like a #metoo movement for scientists. AFAIK Hyper-parameter tuning is fairly normal and necessary given how easy it is for the models to become unstable on their own and future polluting is often accidental. It can come down to judgement calls and difference of opinions as to what degree of intervention is acceptable which leaves a lot of wiggle room If you removed all future pollution and and left hyperparameters at the initial best guess you often end up with crazy results in backtesting. E.g. if our past predictions were correct then we should be living on Venus right now which obviously we're not so we must need different hyperparameters. My former colleagues were trying their best and even they knew their adjustments were going beyond reasonable. They never signed off on the final results so the project was politically useless and subsequently killed. They've all since left the climate change industry disillusioned as well.
olivermarks 9y ago
I'm a bit surprised that Scientific American is running chatty articles reprinted' from 'climatewire', an E&E website. https://www.eenews.net/eep/learn_more/ https://www.eenews.net/eep/learn_more/
nonbel 9y ago
Can they predict individual extreme events, or does this only work retroactively?
kwillets 9y ago
They seem to have gone from saying "We can't attribute event X solely to climate change, but X is more likely due to climate change" to saying "X is more likely due to climate change".

43 points by nature24 9y ago

cle 9y ago

> The whole science of event attribution developed so that we can provide scientifically robust answers to these questions. If we the experts don't do this, then there will be people who are not qualified who will go and fill in the gaps. I don't think this will accomplish what these scientists hope. People fill gaps of trust more than gaps of fact. No amount of evidence or attribution is going to address that problem.

exabrial 9y ago
Agree. I think the butterfly effect is informally understood by the masses; I think most people will assume they have no control over specifc events. Pointing to a dry river bed and saying climate change is going to undermine the credibility of the scientists, whether or not the scientist is correct.
7952 9y ago
And people decide what they think we should actually do based on intuition and personal morals. Changing that gut feeling is massively difficult and data does not help.

vonmoltke 9y ago

Interesting article about assessing how much climate change actually increases the probability of extreme weather events. Unfortunately, the headline is clickbait that is repeatedly contradicted by the article itself.

cryptoz 9y ago
It doesn't seem that way to me. The article even cites peer reviewed published papers where this exact thing is done, blaming a specific part or whole of a storm on climate change. > Two separate studies published in December both found that climate change had influenced Harvey's record-breaking rainfall (Climatewire, Dec. 14, 2017). I don't see anywhere in the article that even remotely comes close to contradicting the headline.

saas_co_de 9y ago

> Today, scientists still generally agree that it's impossible to attribute any individual weather phenomenon solely to climate change Seems the actual science is the direct opposite of the headline once you read through the article.

cryptoz 9y ago
At some point in the past, scientists have "generally agreed" things that were later found out to be wrong. I don't see how the article contradicts the title at all. Certainly not 'direct opposite' as it even calls out specific scientists and specific papers that are in fact doing exactly what the headline says. It's not like the article headline says "All scientists now agree: Harvey caused by climate change" or something like that. The headline is very clear and very specific. It is fine.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  "Scientists Can Now Blame Individual Natural Disasters on Climate Change" There are two parts to that title: 1) "can now" implies that something significant in scientific understanding has changed 2) "blame individual natural disasters on climate change" is clear #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. Scientists can predict that the probability of extreme events in general is rising due to climate change but that is not proof that any specific event is attributable to climate change. That is not new. Nothing has changed in the consensus scientific position.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    > #2 is flat out wrong because, see my quote above, the article makes it clear that the scientific consensus is still that individual events cannot be directly attributed to climate change. Scientific consensus doesn't make something true. Climate change is true because we measure it, not because most scientists say it is. This is an active area of research, a brand-new area in fact, and making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect. We're still finding out the answers to those kinds of questions, and just now it's become potentially feasible to actually do it (blame climate change for a specific event). > #1 is wrong because nothing has changed. What? Of course things have changed. That's what this whole article is about. The methods are maturing and data access is growing - the nature of publishing a peer reviewed paper that blames all or part of an event on climate change is now an accepted practice and it wasn't before. This is change. I still see no issue at all with the headline. It is a perfect fit for the article and is not wrong in any way. Edit: I've been banned from HN for a while I guess, unable to comment any more. I'll respond quickly to the comment below: > > Scientific consensus doesn't make something true > This is the same argument the denialist use. I am not sure how it is relevant to anything. You cut up my paragraph and removed the context from my comment in order to make me look like a climate change denier. I'm not. Why did you do that? > > making claims like "Storms cannot be blamed on climate change" is absolutely incorrect > Nobody made that claim. I never said they did.

huffpopo 9y ago

I used to do research on climate change, specifically on combining land, sea, and air models together and getting them to run on a massive cluster. It was very important to the other researches that the models produce the 'right' predictions which at the time was runaway global warming. When the models didn't show this it was presumed that the models were wrong so hyper-parameters were tuned to try to torture the models to produce the 'right' result. When even that didn't work they went so far as future pollute the data. Disillusioned with academia I left to work in industry. My question is this; How qualified and experienced do I need to be in order to be able to legitimately and completely distrust the climate change 'experts'? Because I feel like I've earned that right.

ctrl-j 9y ago
> When the models didn't show this it was presumed that the models were wrong so hyper-parameters were tuned to try to torture the models to produce the 'right' result. When even that didn't work they went so far as future pollute the data. Please name and shame. I've also done work in the field, and this kind of behavior was never acceptable - and should not be. If you let the bad actors hide in obscurity, they will continue to practice bad science.
- huffpopo 9y ago
  Like a #metoo movement for scientists. AFAIK Hyper-parameter tuning is fairly normal and necessary given how easy it is for the models to become unstable on their own and future polluting is often accidental. It can come down to judgement calls and difference of opinions as to what degree of intervention is acceptable which leaves a lot of wiggle room If you removed all future pollution and and left hyperparameters at the initial best guess you often end up with crazy results in backtesting. E.g. if our past predictions were correct then we should be living on Venus right now which obviously we're not so we must need different hyperparameters. My former colleagues were trying their best and even they knew their adjustments were going beyond reasonable. They never signed off on the final results so the project was politically useless and subsequently killed. They've all since left the climate change industry disillusioned as well.

olivermarks 9y ago

I'm a bit surprised that Scientific American is running chatty articles reprinted' from 'climatewire', an E&E website. https://www.eenews.net/eep/learn_more/ https://www.eenews.net/eep/learn_more/

nonbel 9y ago

Can they predict individual extreme events, or does this only work retroactively?

kwillets 9y ago

They seem to have gone from saying "We can't attribute event X solely to climate change, but X is more likely due to climate change" to saying "X is more likely due to climate change".