6 ms·

Global warming will happen faster than we think

27 points by cardamomo 8y ago

nonbel 8y ago
Will these people lose any reputation if the possible grand solar minimum happens? EDIT: Also: "The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change announced last week that 157 million more people were exposed to heatwave events in 2017, compared with 2000." There are about 1.5 billion more people in 2017 vs 2000, only 10% being exposed to heat waves seems like a good thing. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-populati...
- JasonFruit 8y ago
  Will they lose any reputation in any case? There seems to be no career downside to sounding an alarm, whether the calamity occurs or not.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    Global warming has been proceeding as was estimated back in the ~1980s so how do you know if there is a downside when the calamity does not occur?
    - nonbel 8y ago
      Interesting. Can you give a 1980s source for the prediction matched with current data?
      - gameswithgo 8y ago
        good starting point: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-advanced.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-adva...
        nonbel 8y ago
        Thanks. That is also my favorite prediction paper: https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pdf https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pd...
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  No, as that would not have a huge impact on global warming, and it would be a short term impact at that. https://www.skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-barely-dent-AGW.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-barely-...
  - nonbel 8y ago
    That page does not address the actual issue. It argues: >"We're fortunate that the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface is very stable." The actual issue is totally different. It has to do with a (supposed) link between solar magnetic field activity and cloud formation on earth. Your source is simply irrelevant since it argues against a strawman.
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      As far as I can tell no domain expert thinks that is an actual issue. You are at this point wondering if a magnetic activity event MIGHT occur in the future that then MIGHT have some indirect effect on clouds that then might impact global warming substantively. We might also get a supervolcano eruption which would cool things for a while!
      - nonbel 8y ago
        It all depends on who you call a domain expert. That is a political (in the general sense), not scientific, term.
    - ghthor 8y ago
      Really frustrating that this is still the argument presented by skeptics. The Suspicious Observers community has been debunking the solar radiance theory for years. Looks like the next major disruption in science is coming concerning whether the sun is gaseous or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7VFVwAA5U&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7VFVwAA5U&t=0s
    - yongjik 8y ago
      Some people have this weird idea that anthropogenic global warming is just a bunch of data simulation that will crumble like a house of cards if only we could find the right reason for why the temperatures are changing... Every steps of how mankind's activity leads to increased CO2 level to increased infrared absorption to increased temperature is very well understood. If for some reason science discovers yet another source of global warming, that won't be what you fancy it would be. It won't disprove AGW or absolve us of our responsibility. Instead, it will be an "Oh shit, we are truly fucked" moment. I have a hard time understanding why some people are attracted so much to this possibility. ...Heh, who am I kidding. I know perfectly well why.
- mikeash 8y ago
  That’s an increase of 300% over the average. Still seem like a good thing?
  - nonbel 8y ago
    What is an increase of 300%?
    - mikeash 8y ago
      157 million more people being exposed to heatwaves.
      - masonic 8y ago
        Given the corresponding population increase of 1.5 billion over the study period, most of that in areas subject to heatwaves... is that figure even noteworthy?
        mikeash 8y ago
        Four times as many people experience heat waves in a period where the population increased by ~20%. You don’t find that problematic?
      - nonbel 8y ago
        More people -> more people exposed to heatwaves. It is a flawed metric to use for assessing an effect of climate change.
        mikeash 8y ago
        ~20% more people, ~300% more people exposed to heatwaves. This change is clearly not due to population growth.
        nonbel 8y ago
        >"~20% more people, ~300% more people exposed to heatwaves." One interpretation: 90% of people born in the last 20 years or so are not being exposed to an increased number of heatwaves. They only tell us an increase of 157 million people since 2000, not sure what the baseline is and don't feel like signing up for the lancet article. If you want to check it please share the baseline percentage of people? I just know its a rabbit hole... I'd start asking stuff like: is this people exposed at least once in their life to a heatwave, what is the definition of heatwave and how has the definition changed, in general how is this measured? >"This change is clearly not due to population growth." This is wild speculation, it all depends where the population growth has occurred.
SiempreViernes 8y ago
Amazing how after decades of deterioation broadly along the lines predicted, people still have time to talk of climate change like it is a political conspiracy.
madaxe_again 8y ago
Looking at the comments here so far, it is, as ever, the never-ending debate as to whether climate change is real or not. I look at this really straightforwardly: You discover a lump on your skin. It looks like cancer. Do you go to a doctor, or do you sit at home assuming it’ll all be fine? What is so wrong with seeking to mitigate risk? Would you sooner wait until it’s metastatic, and probably going to kill you, or have a potentially pointless surgery but definitely exclude the possibility of a painful death?
- roenxi 8y ago
  That analogy doesn't speak to me. It brushes over a lot of complexity, infuses value judgments and trivialises important issues. 1) Global warming is not really comparable to cancer. Cancer is a healthy system getting disrupted and ending, global warming is simply a system changing. The type of change threatened by AGW is very scary and expensive, but the future is going to involve radical change anyway. Deciding what the change is likely to entail and how many resources to set aside for dealing with it is an important part of the debate. 2) It appears you are invoking a variant of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager is fundamentally unsound. It ignores the fact that we make decisions in a finite world, and some risks are too small to devote attention to (because there are an effectively infinite number of trivial risks that we need trivial effort to deal with, resulting in an infinite demand for finite resources). Resources are limited, if we did believe that climate change was 'not real', then devoting anything to motigating it would be unacceptable.
  - jhanschoo 8y ago
    If we should change the perspective over from a person to the immune system of a person, it should be an apt analogy. Death by cancer is a system changing from an environment hospitable to the immune system to one extremely hostile to the immune system.
- hindsightbias 8y ago
  In some weird universe, people who think that dumping 10 gigatons of CO2 every year into the atmosphere “is not a problem” would have to prove that. But you don’t live in that universe. The onus is on you.
ghthor 8y ago
A counter argument is presented here that I encourage everyone to consider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntrGv_d8XU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntrGv_d8XU
- polotics 8y ago
  Nope! YouTube vieos is not how science is done. Why do you think we all should invest time to watch this? Has it been peer reviewed? What does it say?
- jhanschoo 8y ago
  The argument here is this: scientists have each identified, in isolation, various factors that work opposite global warming, and have determined, in isolation, that these factors, considered individually, cannot balance out global warming. In video 3, the author identifies natural phenomena that he says climate models have failed to factor in, such that the effect is that they far too heavily weigh the impact of humans on the climate. Unfortunately, the video author makes a failure common to many climate change skeptics. First, the author failed to make a positive claim with justification that yes, indeed, the cooling phenomena identified in isolation when considered holistically counteracts warming. Next, he fails to propose a model that provides a cause of the extraordinary current increasing trend. Considering the lack of a positive model, I would still have to accept the IPCC findings as the most plausible model.

27 points by cardamomo 8y ago

Will these people lose any reputation if the possible grand solar minimum happens? EDIT: Also: "The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change announced last week that 157 million more people were exposed to heatwave events in 2017, compared with 2000." There are about 1.5 billion more people in 2017 vs 2000, only 10% being exposed to heat waves seems like a good thing. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-populati...

JasonFruit 8y ago
Will they lose any reputation in any case? There seems to be no career downside to sounding an alarm, whether the calamity occurs or not.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  Global warming has been proceeding as was estimated back in the ~1980s so how do you know if there is a downside when the calamity does not occur?
  - nonbel 8y ago
    Interesting. Can you give a 1980s source for the prediction matched with current data?
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      good starting point: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-advanced.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-adva...
      - nonbel 8y ago
        Thanks. That is also my favorite prediction paper: https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pdf https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_ha02700w.pd...
gameswithgo 8y ago
No, as that would not have a huge impact on global warming, and it would be a short term impact at that. https://www.skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-barely-dent-AGW.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/grand-solar-minimum-barely-...
- nonbel 8y ago
  That page does not address the actual issue. It argues: >"We're fortunate that the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface is very stable." The actual issue is totally different. It has to do with a (supposed) link between solar magnetic field activity and cloud formation on earth. Your source is simply irrelevant since it argues against a strawman.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    As far as I can tell no domain expert thinks that is an actual issue. You are at this point wondering if a magnetic activity event MIGHT occur in the future that then MIGHT have some indirect effect on clouds that then might impact global warming substantively. We might also get a supervolcano eruption which would cool things for a while!
    - nonbel 8y ago
      It all depends on who you call a domain expert. That is a political (in the general sense), not scientific, term.
  - ghthor 8y ago
    Really frustrating that this is still the argument presented by skeptics. The Suspicious Observers community has been debunking the solar radiance theory for years. Looks like the next major disruption in science is coming concerning whether the sun is gaseous or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7VFVwAA5U&t=0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A7VFVwAA5U&t=0s
  - yongjik 8y ago
    Some people have this weird idea that anthropogenic global warming is just a bunch of data simulation that will crumble like a house of cards if only we could find the right reason for why the temperatures are changing... Every steps of how mankind's activity leads to increased CO2 level to increased infrared absorption to increased temperature is very well understood. If for some reason science discovers yet another source of global warming, that won't be what you fancy it would be. It won't disprove AGW or absolve us of our responsibility. Instead, it will be an "Oh shit, we are truly fucked" moment. I have a hard time understanding why some people are attracted so much to this possibility. ...Heh, who am I kidding. I know perfectly well why.
mikeash 8y ago
That’s an increase of 300% over the average. Still seem like a good thing?
- nonbel 8y ago
  What is an increase of 300%?
  - mikeash 8y ago
    157 million more people being exposed to heatwaves.
    - masonic 8y ago
      Given the corresponding population increase of 1.5 billion over the study period, most of that in areas subject to heatwaves... is that figure even noteworthy?
      - mikeash 8y ago
        Four times as many people experience heat waves in a period where the population increased by ~20%. You don’t find that problematic?
    - nonbel 8y ago
      More people -> more people exposed to heatwaves. It is a flawed metric to use for assessing an effect of climate change.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        ~20% more people, ~300% more people exposed to heatwaves. This change is clearly not due to population growth.
        nonbel 8y ago
        >"~20% more people, ~300% more people exposed to heatwaves." One interpretation: 90% of people born in the last 20 years or so are not being exposed to an increased number of heatwaves. They only tell us an increase of 157 million people since 2000, not sure what the baseline is and don't feel like signing up for the lancet article. If you want to check it please share the baseline percentage of people? I just know its a rabbit hole... I'd start asking stuff like: is this people exposed at least once in their life to a heatwave, what is the definition of heatwave and how has the definition changed, in general how is this measured? >"This change is clearly not due to population growth." This is wild speculation, it all depends where the population growth has occurred.

SiempreViernes 8y ago

Amazing how after decades of deterioation broadly along the lines predicted, people still have time to talk of climate change like it is a political conspiracy.

madaxe_again 8y ago

Looking at the comments here so far, it is, as ever, the never-ending debate as to whether climate change is real or not. I look at this really straightforwardly: You discover a lump on your skin. It looks like cancer. Do you go to a doctor, or do you sit at home assuming it’ll all be fine? What is so wrong with seeking to mitigate risk? Would you sooner wait until it’s metastatic, and probably going to kill you, or have a potentially pointless surgery but definitely exclude the possibility of a painful death?

roenxi 8y ago
That analogy doesn't speak to me. It brushes over a lot of complexity, infuses value judgments and trivialises important issues. 1) Global warming is not really comparable to cancer. Cancer is a healthy system getting disrupted and ending, global warming is simply a system changing. The type of change threatened by AGW is very scary and expensive, but the future is going to involve radical change anyway. Deciding what the change is likely to entail and how many resources to set aside for dealing with it is an important part of the debate. 2) It appears you are invoking a variant of Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager is fundamentally unsound. It ignores the fact that we make decisions in a finite world, and some risks are too small to devote attention to (because there are an effectively infinite number of trivial risks that we need trivial effort to deal with, resulting in an infinite demand for finite resources). Resources are limited, if we did believe that climate change was 'not real', then devoting anything to motigating it would be unacceptable.
- jhanschoo 8y ago
  If we should change the perspective over from a person to the immune system of a person, it should be an apt analogy. Death by cancer is a system changing from an environment hospitable to the immune system to one extremely hostile to the immune system.
hindsightbias 8y ago
In some weird universe, people who think that dumping 10 gigatons of CO2 every year into the atmosphere “is not a problem” would have to prove that. But you don’t live in that universe. The onus is on you.

ghthor 8y ago

A counter argument is presented here that I encourage everyone to consider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntrGv_d8XU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HntrGv_d8XU

polotics 8y ago
Nope! YouTube vieos is not how science is done. Why do you think we all should invest time to watch this? Has it been peer reviewed? What does it say?
jhanschoo 8y ago
The argument here is this: scientists have each identified, in isolation, various factors that work opposite global warming, and have determined, in isolation, that these factors, considered individually, cannot balance out global warming. In video 3, the author identifies natural phenomena that he says climate models have failed to factor in, such that the effect is that they far too heavily weigh the impact of humans on the climate. Unfortunately, the video author makes a failure common to many climate change skeptics. First, the author failed to make a positive claim with justification that yes, indeed, the cooling phenomena identified in isolation when considered holistically counteracts warming. Next, he fails to propose a model that provides a cause of the extraordinary current increasing trend. Considering the lack of a positive model, I would still have to accept the IPCC findings as the most plausible model.