7 ms·

Where can I read an unbiased summary of the current state of climate models? Last night I was called "alt-right" and a climate change denier by a peer for hesi

by pgt 7y ago

Where can I read an unbiased summary of the current state of climate models? Last night I was called "alt-right" and a climate change denier by a peer for hesitating to agree that we are in a climate crisis, because I said don't have enough information about the situation and I'm suspicious whenever too many people start shouting about something. The precautionary principle still prevails, though. The more uncertain you are, the more certain the course of action is, which is to avoid burning hydrocarbons. Edit: I meant to say precautionary principle, not "uncertainty principle".

serioussecurity 7y ago
Ipcc report
- elbasti 7y ago
  The IPCC report is actually biased--it's too conservative. It doesn't consider positive feedback loops that cause "runaway" change: > By largely ignoring such feedbacks, the IPCC report fails to adequately warn leaders about the cluster of six similar climate tipping points that could be crossed between today’s temperature and an increase to 1.5 degrees—let alone nearly another dozen tipping points between 1.5 and 2 degrees. These wildcards could very likely push the climate system beyond human ability to control. [0]: https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threat/ https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-t... (by Nobel prize winner Mario Molina)
  - mrpopo 7y ago
    Every statement in the IPCC report must be approved unanimously by a panel of authors from various countries. The theories that are not reaching consensus yet cannot be part of it. That's what gives the reports so much weight. Literally everyone should agree with it.
    - elbasti 7y ago
      Of course "weight" does not mean the same as "accuracy".
    - throwaway744678 7y ago
      It depends on your way of selecting the panel of authors, though. eg. if you only pick people who agree with you, it's not a scientific consensus, but an echo chamber.
      - mrpopo 7y ago
        There are delegates from more than 120 governments that have to approve every line from every report. Government-appointed delegates from Saudi Arabia have the same weight as from France, UK, the US. The whole thing is mandated and sponsored by the UN and every government can participate. It's not an echo chamber.
noiv 7y ago
Well, I'd start here: https://www.ipcc.ch https://www.ipcc.ch and claim that's the least biased information available. Don't know whether it fits your definition of summary or up-to-date.
sp332 7y ago
It sounds like you need to read more widely. You're probably not going to find a single source which is "unbiased" like that.
DataGata 7y ago
There isn't really such a thing as "unbiased" in climate unless you're an outright AGQ denier. There are a lot of different models, and the model you choose will give you different results. People have different foci- some people, like David Wallace Wells in the Uninhabitable Earth look at and warn about the most dangerous model. Others, like the IPCC, try to look at them broadly. Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know by Joseph Romm is a great read. Very basic. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken is a good follow up for understanding what is necessary and what can be done. The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen explains how historically Carbon has controlled the Earth's climate system. That's my best list for "unbiased".
cm2187 7y ago
I have the same reserves about the climate change hysteria going on now, but I agree, there are other reasons to stop burning hydrocarbons anyway, not the least health and comfort in big cities.
- skohan 7y ago
  I lean more toward the side that climate change is starting to become undeniable, even to subjective experience, but in either case it really is a Pascal's wager as far as I can see. The worst case if we act as if climate change is real and it's not real is that the economy might slow a bit, and the environment probably becomes quite a bit healthier. The worst case if we act as if climate change is not real and it is in fact real is that the only place we know of in the universe where our species can exist might become uninhabitable.
  - frogpelt 7y ago
    I disagree. If climate change is as catastrophic as it is being portrayed by most it's not going to a cause economic slowdown. It will cause massive economic upheaval. If all fossil fuel vehicles are replaced by 2030 think of the scale of that. Every gas station in the U.S. will close. 98% of the cars on road will become junk items.
    - chimprich 7y ago
      > If all fossil fuel vehicles are replaced by 2030 think of the scale of that What's the lifespan of a car? A large proportion of vehicles will be replaced anyway in 11 years.
      - frogpelt 7y ago
        Every used car lot in the country would disappear.
    - pritambaral 7y ago
      > Every gas station in the U.S. will close. 98% of the cars on road will become junk items. If we do act, what you say here will happen, but we'll have charging stations instead and cars of a different kind on the road. If climate change is real and we don't act: what you say will happen, with no replacement. The question isn't whether gas stations can stay. The question is if we can stay on this planet.
wuliwong 7y ago
I desire the same type of "unbiased" information myself but I do not believe it is attainable for this topic. The amount of emotion that people have about the effects of pollution on temperature makes it hard to take anything at face value. The best I do is try to read up on different opinions and ignore people telling me not to look or listen to something. Ultimately, though, I have a Ph.D. in physics and not meteorology, so there is a limit to how well I'm going to be able to understand the actual science involved. On the topic of physics >The uncertainty principle still prevails, though. The more uncertain you are, the more certain the course of action is, which is to avoid burning hydrocarbons. This is _not_ the uncertainty principle. At least not the one I'm familiar with. :)
- pgt 7y ago
  I meant the precautionary principle. Fixed, thanks.
- tito 7y ago
  Have you ever Googled "interactive climate model"? Thanks to your post, now I have. Looks like interesting stuff, and could be far better. Now I'm interested in building that better version. Thanks! https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=interactive+climate+model https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=i...
  - wuliwong 7y ago
    I have not but I will take a look! Sadly, it will probably just get added to the ever growing list of projects that I will pass away before working on them. :/
    - tito 7y ago
      Haha I know the feeling! To solve that, I made the choice 3 years ago to focus my curiosity (is that possible...) on climate topics. I worked with a bunch of HN readers to build "Carbon Doomsday", an interactive chart of carbon dioxide levels, like Coinbase charts. It got really great comments on HN about a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332595 http://carbondoomsday.com http://carbondoomsday.com
tito 7y ago
Let's build something like Coinbase Charts for climate models. Interactive, select different variables and even studies. Here's an iPhone app version: https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-pathways/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-pathways/
tito 7y ago
The climate world needs more curiosity. Ask questions and go find answers. Share what you find along the way. Have you tried Google for "interactive climate model"? I'm reading through the results now, interesting stuff. Needs better software. https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=interactive+climate+model https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=i... Here's a nice interactive model I found for Bay Area sea level rise from 2019 - 2100: https://explorer.adaptingtorisingtides.org/explorer https://explorer.adaptingtorisingtides.org/explorer Also, this isn't a model, but we built CarbonDoomsday, an interactive chart of carbon dioxide levels: http://carbondoomsday.com http://carbondoomsday.com
Pxtl 7y ago
NASA is usually a good place to start. Their articles are clearly written for laymen, they're proven to do good science, and you can't say that NASA is overly political. Basically, the consensus I can find is this: 1) The earth is warming, and it's our fault. There is no credible debate here - CO2 causes warming, and we release a crapload of CO2. 2) We're on track for something like 4°C by the end of the century. That's the difference between an ice-age and current temps (https://xkcd.com/1379/ https://xkcd.com/1379/). So we're on track to find out what the opposite of an ice-age is by 2100. 3) What does "the opposite of an ice age" mean, besides warmer? Wetter. 4) All the models have thick error bars, though. For temperature, think of everything as being plus-or-minus something like 25%. Our current warming is well within current error bars, despite what deniers will tell you. 5) Sea level rise will happen, but of course slower than Gore and the like said - those previous predictions were using worst-case-scenario things. Remember, error bars. Also, when talking about sea-level-rise, don't think of it as "Miami swallowed by the ocean", but think about storm surges and floods creeping further and further in land. A house doesn't have to be permanently under-water to be inhospitable due to sea-level-rise - an annually-flooded-basement will do that just as well. 6) What else? That's where it gets iffy. There are millions of different theories with varying amounts of evidence supporting them - some of them quite apocalyptic. Extreme weather, shifting climates like desertification, heat waves, etc. vicious-cycle positive-feedback-loops like cloud collapse (https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/climate-change-kills-off-clouds-over-the-ocean-in-new-simulation/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/climate-change-kills-off-c...). The biggest threat of climate change is what happens if the Global South becomes inhospitable. There are billions of poor people who cannot survive if their countries become deserts. And if that doesn't sound like Your Problem, remember that some of those people have nukes.
- xorcist 7y ago
  One thing to notice is that models and measurements are a lot more exact than they were only 20 years ago (when most of the modern controversies surroundies these issues started). As those error bars have shrunk it is clear that early models were in fact too cautious. That's important to keep in mind as some pundits drop the word hysteria. So far, anything from the IPCC has been shown to be the opposite.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I wouldn't call you all-right however I do have my suspicions about comments like this. The evidence is very strong now yet here you are casting some doubt. Why?
- wuliwong 7y ago
  >I do have my suspicions about comments like this Suspicions about what?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    About the motives for making the comment.
- smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
  I’m in the same boat as the person you replied to. In the past I’ve read arguments for and against anthropogenic climate change. Both were compelling to me when I read them. I’ve come to the conclusion that I just won’t understand the climate models enough to evaluate them on my own without spending months or years studying the topic. If my opinion on climate change ever matters, I will side with the vast majority of climate scientists, but I will always have my doubts.
  - xorcist 7y ago
    There are no credible arguments against the fact that an increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gives a warmer climate. The physics is well known, we've seen historical evidence of how it's happened before, and it's easy to demonstrate experimentally. We know pretty well how much hydrocarbons we burn every year, global production of both oil and other hydrocarbons are public figures. The oxidization process of hydrocarbon is high school chemistry. Anyone who went to school should be able to understand these processes. Climate models are complicated, but they're something else. They are helpful to understand exactly how the climate changes. That may be where scientific discourse is, but very far from the public one.
tasty_freeze 7y ago
If you really care to spend the time, here's how. (1) read the research published by climate research (2) ignore the press which tries to report the climate research, and bloggers, and youtube videos. You might ask, why believe the climate researchers? I'll point out that even the climate change deniers who claim that climate researchers are in the pocket of Soros (or something equally crazy) have no problem taking climate research as fact if they think it supports their claims. Eg, they'll point out that there have been various earlier epochs of high CO2, or high temps or low temps, etc, all facts which are based on the work of the same climate researchers they disagree with.
jdjjdflknfjj 7y ago
The problem with the precautionary principle is that there are many doomsday scenarios, so it is not clear which one to take precautions against. Also taking precautions has a cost.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
This YouTube channel from a former oil and gas surveying geologist and technology columnist does a good job of conveying the science while taking care not to spook people who are on the right of the political spectrum (like he is) and have absorbed too much misinformation: https://youtu.be/D99qI42KGB0 https://youtu.be/D99qI42KGB0

by pgt 7y ago

serioussecurity 7y ago

Ipcc report

elbasti 7y ago
The IPCC report is actually biased--it's too conservative. It doesn't consider positive feedback loops that cause "runaway" change: > By largely ignoring such feedbacks, the IPCC report fails to adequately warn leaders about the cluster of six similar climate tipping points that could be crossed between today’s temperature and an increase to 1.5 degrees—let alone nearly another dozen tipping points between 1.5 and 2 degrees. These wildcards could very likely push the climate system beyond human ability to control. [0]: https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-threat/ https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/climate-report-understates-t... (by Nobel prize winner Mario Molina)
- mrpopo 7y ago
  Every statement in the IPCC report must be approved unanimously by a panel of authors from various countries. The theories that are not reaching consensus yet cannot be part of it. That's what gives the reports so much weight. Literally everyone should agree with it.
  - elbasti 7y ago
    Of course "weight" does not mean the same as "accuracy".
  - throwaway744678 7y ago
    It depends on your way of selecting the panel of authors, though. eg. if you only pick people who agree with you, it's not a scientific consensus, but an echo chamber.
    - mrpopo 7y ago
      There are delegates from more than 120 governments that have to approve every line from every report. Government-appointed delegates from Saudi Arabia have the same weight as from France, UK, the US. The whole thing is mandated and sponsored by the UN and every government can participate. It's not an echo chamber.

noiv 7y ago

Well, I'd start here: https://www.ipcc.ch https://www.ipcc.ch and claim that's the least biased information available. Don't know whether it fits your definition of summary or up-to-date.

sp332 7y ago

It sounds like you need to read more widely. You're probably not going to find a single source which is "unbiased" like that.

DataGata 7y ago

There isn't really such a thing as "unbiased" in climate unless you're an outright AGQ denier. There are a lot of different models, and the model you choose will give you different results. People have different foci- some people, like David Wallace Wells in the Uninhabitable Earth look at and warn about the most dangerous model. Others, like the IPCC, try to look at them broadly. Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know by Joseph Romm is a great read. Very basic. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken is a good follow up for understanding what is necessary and what can be done. The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen explains how historically Carbon has controlled the Earth's climate system. That's my best list for "unbiased".

cm2187 7y ago

I have the same reserves about the climate change hysteria going on now, but I agree, there are other reasons to stop burning hydrocarbons anyway, not the least health and comfort in big cities.

skohan 7y ago
I lean more toward the side that climate change is starting to become undeniable, even to subjective experience, but in either case it really is a Pascal's wager as far as I can see. The worst case if we act as if climate change is real and it's not real is that the economy might slow a bit, and the environment probably becomes quite a bit healthier. The worst case if we act as if climate change is not real and it is in fact real is that the only place we know of in the universe where our species can exist might become uninhabitable.
- frogpelt 7y ago
  I disagree. If climate change is as catastrophic as it is being portrayed by most it's not going to a cause economic slowdown. It will cause massive economic upheaval. If all fossil fuel vehicles are replaced by 2030 think of the scale of that. Every gas station in the U.S. will close. 98% of the cars on road will become junk items.
  - chimprich 7y ago
    > If all fossil fuel vehicles are replaced by 2030 think of the scale of that What's the lifespan of a car? A large proportion of vehicles will be replaced anyway in 11 years.
    - frogpelt 7y ago
      Every used car lot in the country would disappear.
  - pritambaral 7y ago
    > Every gas station in the U.S. will close. 98% of the cars on road will become junk items. If we do act, what you say here will happen, but we'll have charging stations instead and cars of a different kind on the road. If climate change is real and we don't act: what you say will happen, with no replacement. The question isn't whether gas stations can stay. The question is if we can stay on this planet.

wuliwong 7y ago

I desire the same type of "unbiased" information myself but I do not believe it is attainable for this topic. The amount of emotion that people have about the effects of pollution on temperature makes it hard to take anything at face value. The best I do is try to read up on different opinions and ignore people telling me not to look or listen to something. Ultimately, though, I have a Ph.D. in physics and not meteorology, so there is a limit to how well I'm going to be able to understand the actual science involved. On the topic of physics >The uncertainty principle still prevails, though. The more uncertain you are, the more certain the course of action is, which is to avoid burning hydrocarbons. This is _not_ the uncertainty principle. At least not the one I'm familiar with. :)

pgt 7y ago
I meant the precautionary principle. Fixed, thanks.
tito 7y ago
Have you ever Googled "interactive climate model"? Thanks to your post, now I have. Looks like interesting stuff, and could be far better. Now I'm interested in building that better version. Thanks! https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=interactive+climate+model https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=i...
- wuliwong 7y ago
  I have not but I will take a look! Sadly, it will probably just get added to the ever growing list of projects that I will pass away before working on them. :/
  - tito 7y ago
    Haha I know the feeling! To solve that, I made the choice 3 years ago to focus my curiosity (is that possible...) on climate topics. I worked with a bunch of HN readers to build "Carbon Doomsday", an interactive chart of carbon dioxide levels, like Coinbase charts. It got really great comments on HN about a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332595 http://carbondoomsday.com http://carbondoomsday.com

tito 7y ago

Let's build something like Coinbase Charts for climate models. Interactive, select different variables and even studies. Here's an iPhone app version: https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-pathways/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-pathways/

tito 7y ago

The climate world needs more curiosity. Ask questions and go find answers. Share what you find along the way. Have you tried Google for "interactive climate model"? I'm reading through the results now, interesting stuff. Needs better software. https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=interactive+climate+model https://www.google.com/search?ei=CMmtXdKDMvjG0PEPwJSakA4&q=i... Here's a nice interactive model I found for Bay Area sea level rise from 2019 - 2100: https://explorer.adaptingtorisingtides.org/explorer https://explorer.adaptingtorisingtides.org/explorer Also, this isn't a model, but we built CarbonDoomsday, an interactive chart of carbon dioxide levels: http://carbondoomsday.com http://carbondoomsday.com

Pxtl 7y ago

NASA is usually a good place to start. Their articles are clearly written for laymen, they're proven to do good science, and you can't say that NASA is overly political. Basically, the consensus I can find is this: 1) The earth is warming, and it's our fault. There is no credible debate here - CO2 causes warming, and we release a crapload of CO2. 2) We're on track for something like 4°C by the end of the century. That's the difference between an ice-age and current temps (https://xkcd.com/1379/ https://xkcd.com/1379/). So we're on track to find out what the opposite of an ice-age is by 2100. 3) What does "the opposite of an ice age" mean, besides warmer? Wetter. 4) All the models have thick error bars, though. For temperature, think of everything as being plus-or-minus something like 25%. Our current warming is well within current error bars, despite what deniers will tell you. 5) Sea level rise will happen, but of course slower than Gore and the like said - those previous predictions were using worst-case-scenario things. Remember, error bars. Also, when talking about sea-level-rise, don't think of it as "Miami swallowed by the ocean", but think about storm surges and floods creeping further and further in land. A house doesn't have to be permanently under-water to be inhospitable due to sea-level-rise - an annually-flooded-basement will do that just as well. 6) What else? That's where it gets iffy. There are millions of different theories with varying amounts of evidence supporting them - some of them quite apocalyptic. Extreme weather, shifting climates like desertification, heat waves, etc. vicious-cycle positive-feedback-loops like cloud collapse (https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/climate-change-kills-off-clouds-over-the-ocean-in-new-simulation/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/climate-change-kills-off-c...). The biggest threat of climate change is what happens if the Global South becomes inhospitable. There are billions of poor people who cannot survive if their countries become deserts. And if that doesn't sound like Your Problem, remember that some of those people have nukes.

xorcist 7y ago
One thing to notice is that models and measurements are a lot more exact than they were only 20 years ago (when most of the modern controversies surroundies these issues started). As those error bars have shrunk it is clear that early models were in fact too cautious. That's important to keep in mind as some pundits drop the word hysteria. So far, anything from the IPCC has been shown to be the opposite.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I wouldn't call you all-right however I do have my suspicions about comments like this. The evidence is very strong now yet here you are casting some doubt. Why?

wuliwong 7y ago
>I do have my suspicions about comments like this Suspicions about what?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  About the motives for making the comment.
smudgymcscmudge 7y ago
I’m in the same boat as the person you replied to. In the past I’ve read arguments for and against anthropogenic climate change. Both were compelling to me when I read them. I’ve come to the conclusion that I just won’t understand the climate models enough to evaluate them on my own without spending months or years studying the topic. If my opinion on climate change ever matters, I will side with the vast majority of climate scientists, but I will always have my doubts.
- xorcist 7y ago
  There are no credible arguments against the fact that an increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gives a warmer climate. The physics is well known, we've seen historical evidence of how it's happened before, and it's easy to demonstrate experimentally. We know pretty well how much hydrocarbons we burn every year, global production of both oil and other hydrocarbons are public figures. The oxidization process of hydrocarbon is high school chemistry. Anyone who went to school should be able to understand these processes. Climate models are complicated, but they're something else. They are helpful to understand exactly how the climate changes. That may be where scientific discourse is, but very far from the public one.

tasty_freeze 7y ago

If you really care to spend the time, here's how. (1) read the research published by climate research (2) ignore the press which tries to report the climate research, and bloggers, and youtube videos. You might ask, why believe the climate researchers? I'll point out that even the climate change deniers who claim that climate researchers are in the pocket of Soros (or something equally crazy) have no problem taking climate research as fact if they think it supports their claims. Eg, they'll point out that there have been various earlier epochs of high CO2, or high temps or low temps, etc, all facts which are based on the work of the same climate researchers they disagree with.

jdjjdflknfjj 7y ago

The problem with the precautionary principle is that there are many doomsday scenarios, so it is not clear which one to take precautions against. Also taking precautions has a cost.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

This YouTube channel from a former oil and gas surveying geologist and technology columnist does a good job of conveying the science while taking care not to spook people who are on the right of the political spectrum (like he is) and have absorbed too much misinformation: https://youtu.be/D99qI42KGB0 https://youtu.be/D99qI42KGB0