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Hello! I’m a physical oceanographer which means my job is to figure out how the water moves and delivers heat through things like math and models. Paleoclimate

Hello! I’m a physical oceanographer which means my job is to figure out how the water moves and delivers heat through things like math and models. Paleoclimate isn’t my expertise but I figured I’d chime in on some of the climate skepticism here. Oceanographers would be the first to admit that modeling-predicting changes in the ocean is very hard. Especially more regional features like an intensified warming in the Labrador Sea. That is because even state of the art models have coarse resolution and our initial conditions for far in the past are poor. However, anthropogenic climate change is not a regional effect. It’s like if first I asked you, what will happen if I hit this window with a hammer? It will break. Now what if I ask you where every piece will go? Also I’ve seen in this thread people saying that global climate change has been overhyped. From the science side this paper does a great job of evaluating our models from the past: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288430943.pdf https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288430943.pdf

waterthrowaway 5y ago
If you are interested in the irreducible imprecision of climate models this paper is fun too https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709 https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709
- moffkalast 5y ago
  I'm not sure if you're the guy to ask, but I'm sure you're aware of the continuing acidification of the oceans via CO2 absorption. From what I've heard it's highly unpredictable as to how it will actually affect ecosystems, but supposedly some molluscs are already having reproductive issues as their shells tend to dissolve at some point in the growing cycle. The predictions I've read point to a likely oceanic food chain collapse in 15-25 years, not to mention the decrease in fertility that fish seem to be experiencing from higher temperatures. Is that roughly correct?
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    I heard whispers of "its too late" in the early 90s, with respect to the top meter of ocean and the biological life cycles there being broken.. yet we had the international CFC ban and that was a success at breaking the Ozone Hole, which made things better.. Let's be eyes-open on every detail, but be aware of the despair aspect too .. "collapse in X-X+10 years" is overwhelming to many ears, and we do not know the future.. hth
    - jedmeyers 5y ago
      [flagged]
      - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
        I can’t tell if you’re trolling or legitimately arguing for ecofascism.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Trolling. The "because as we know, only the capitalist societies damage ecosystems" was the giveaway. Or perhaps not exactly trolling. Might be pointing out that this kind of thing is actually being seriously proposed as the solution in certain quarters.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Overfishing masks that effects also. There is not reason to think that fish fertility as a global concept would change. Some species would decrease and other increase but jellyfishes would be the real culprits in most cases if you see a big decrease or recruitment when the water is warmer.
echelon 5y ago
What's your impression of the Clathrate gun hypothesis [1]? Is this something to be concerned about? Are there any other runaway processes that could take us by surprise? Peat bogs and permafrost hydrates? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tomp 5y ago
> hit this window with a hammer? It will break. Isn't this more akin to saying, the window broke before the hammer hit it, so the hammer couldn't have been the cause?
- bena 5y ago
  Don't argue the metaphor. He's saying it's hard to predict results from certain causes because the process is chaotic.
  - ghotli 5y ago
    "Don't argue the metaphor" is such a good line for so many arguments. Noted and thanks.
    - chiefalchemist 5y ago
      Yeah. But truth be told, I think the use of the word "like" makes it an analogy.
      - dgb23 5y ago
        „Don’t argue with the rhetoric“
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        Actually the use of "like" it makes it a simile. It's the explanation that follows that makes it an analogy. Both analogies and similies are really just overlapping categorical subsets of metaphors.
  - shockeychap 5y ago
    I get that, but I think you might also be missing something in the urgency to derive one particular meaning from the metaphor. Imagine coming upon a window that was broken, and inferring that it must have been broken by "a thing". So you look for evidence - a rock, a hammer, something - all the while proclaiming that the cause was a given. All the while, you overlook that the initial fracture was there from the beginning and carried along every day by comparatively small amounts of thermal stress. Could that also be a metaphor for some of the climate change hype? (I don't use the word "hype" to imply false. I use it in the context of "to promote or publicize extravagantly".)
mempko 5y ago
I am often shocked how a community like HN could have so many global warming skeptics. It doesn't make sense to me because people who deal with software should understand complex systems. Should understand how hard understanding complex systems are. And should understand how dangerous it is to disrupt complex systems so dramatically like we did the climate.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  There is something about software engineering, and I'm going to get hammered for this, that seems to convince people that everyone are idiots and doing it all wrong. It might be from personal experience explaining their field to family and friends, or perhaps it's brought about by constantly building things for themselves, idk. They seem to have especial disdain for scientists, who have a long and stories reputation as the intellectual elite, which might just rub their egos the wrong way.
  - spiralx 5y ago
    > They seem to have especial disdain for scientists, who have a long and stories reputation as the intellectual elite, which might just rub their egos the wrong way. Doubly so for anything vaguely related to social sciences and other fields where theorising from first principles isn't the norm. "Historical" sciences such as astrophysics and epidemiology often get short shrift here as well. Engineers in general seem to be prone to opining outside of their area of expertise, the Salem Hypothesis that a creationist with an advanced degree was more likely to be an engineer than any other field was noted back in the early days of Usenet: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo
    - UnFleshedOne 5y ago
      To be fair, given recent reproducibility fiasco, social sciences were scorned for a good reason.
      - Teever 5y ago
cletus 5y ago
> It’s like if first I asked you, what will happen if I hit this window with a hammer? It will break. Now what if I ask you where every piece will go? I don't like this analogy. A better example might be that if we set fire to all the forests, it's going to get hotter. It's true in the short term but the long term effects can be debated. And unfortunately there's a history of predictions that haven't come true to deal with. There are a bunch of unanswered questions around rapid warming. Like the doom and gloom scenarios of a tipping point or runaway global warming. The obvious question I have is: if this is a real possibility, why hasn't it happened in the last several billion years? The Earth has been warmer than it is now. Another is that rapid warming over short periods isn't that unprecedented [1]: > One of the most surprising findings was that the shifts from cold stadials to the warm interstadial intervals occurred in a matter of decades, with air temperatures over Greenland rapidly warming 8 to 15°C (Huber et al. 2006) To be clear, I'm not a climate change denier. I'm a climate change fatalist. By this I mean that whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there's really nothing you can do about it now other than finding cheaper alternatives to bad behaviours (eg solar becoming cheaper than fossil fuels). If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that many people are staggeringly selfish and are quite willing to let other people die rather than they being mildly inconvenienced. There's no way people are going to make their lives more expensive or more inconvenient for climate change. [1]: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-cli...
- chana_masala 5y ago
  Thanks for adding the further context here. I'd like to add context to your point: > If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that many people are staggeringly selfish and are quite willing to let other people die rather than they being mildly inconvenienced. I don't believe that "anti-maskers", who you are probably referring to, are significantly more selfish than "maskers." If you understand that most of them truly believe masks are not helpful, and even some believe they are harmful, then to them it's more than just "I'd rather kill people than be inconvenienced." They don't believe they are killing anyone.
  - 5y ago

waterthrowaway 5y ago

If you are interested in the irreducible imprecision of climate models this paper is fun too https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709 https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709

moffkalast 5y ago
I'm not sure if you're the guy to ask, but I'm sure you're aware of the continuing acidification of the oceans via CO2 absorption. From what I've heard it's highly unpredictable as to how it will actually affect ecosystems, but supposedly some molluscs are already having reproductive issues as their shells tend to dissolve at some point in the growing cycle. The predictions I've read point to a likely oceanic food chain collapse in 15-25 years, not to mention the decrease in fertility that fish seem to be experiencing from higher temperatures. Is that roughly correct?
- mistrial9 5y ago
  I heard whispers of "its too late" in the early 90s, with respect to the top meter of ocean and the biological life cycles there being broken.. yet we had the international CFC ban and that was a success at breaking the Ozone Hole, which made things better.. Let's be eyes-open on every detail, but be aware of the despair aspect too .. "collapse in X-X+10 years" is overwhelming to many ears, and we do not know the future.. hth
  - jedmeyers 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - aaronbrethorst 5y ago
      I can’t tell if you’re trolling or legitimately arguing for ecofascism.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Trolling. The "because as we know, only the capitalist societies damage ecosystems" was the giveaway. Or perhaps not exactly trolling. Might be pointing out that this kind of thing is actually being seriously proposed as the solution in certain quarters.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Overfishing masks that effects also. There is not reason to think that fish fertility as a global concept would change. Some species would decrease and other increase but jellyfishes would be the real culprits in most cases if you see a big decrease or recruitment when the water is warmer.

echelon 5y ago

What's your impression of the Clathrate gun hypothesis [1]? Is this something to be concerned about? Are there any other runaway processes that could take us by surprise? Peat bogs and permafrost hydrates? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tomp 5y ago

> hit this window with a hammer? It will break. Isn't this more akin to saying, the window broke before the hammer hit it, so the hammer couldn't have been the cause?

bena 5y ago
Don't argue the metaphor. He's saying it's hard to predict results from certain causes because the process is chaotic.
- ghotli 5y ago
  "Don't argue the metaphor" is such a good line for so many arguments. Noted and thanks.
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    Yeah. But truth be told, I think the use of the word "like" makes it an analogy.
    - dgb23 5y ago
      „Don’t argue with the rhetoric“
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Actually the use of "like" it makes it a simile. It's the explanation that follows that makes it an analogy. Both analogies and similies are really just overlapping categorical subsets of metaphors.
- shockeychap 5y ago
  I get that, but I think you might also be missing something in the urgency to derive one particular meaning from the metaphor. Imagine coming upon a window that was broken, and inferring that it must have been broken by "a thing". So you look for evidence - a rock, a hammer, something - all the while proclaiming that the cause was a given. All the while, you overlook that the initial fracture was there from the beginning and carried along every day by comparatively small amounts of thermal stress. Could that also be a metaphor for some of the climate change hype? (I don't use the word "hype" to imply false. I use it in the context of "to promote or publicize extravagantly".)

mempko 5y ago

I am often shocked how a community like HN could have so many global warming skeptics. It doesn't make sense to me because people who deal with software should understand complex systems. Should understand how hard understanding complex systems are. And should understand how dangerous it is to disrupt complex systems so dramatically like we did the climate.

SubiculumCode 5y ago
There is something about software engineering, and I'm going to get hammered for this, that seems to convince people that everyone are idiots and doing it all wrong. It might be from personal experience explaining their field to family and friends, or perhaps it's brought about by constantly building things for themselves, idk. They seem to have especial disdain for scientists, who have a long and stories reputation as the intellectual elite, which might just rub their egos the wrong way.
- spiralx 5y ago
  > They seem to have especial disdain for scientists, who have a long and stories reputation as the intellectual elite, which might just rub their egos the wrong way. Doubly so for anything vaguely related to social sciences and other fields where theorising from first principles isn't the norm. "Historical" sciences such as astrophysics and epidemiology often get short shrift here as well. Engineers in general seem to be prone to opining outside of their area of expertise, the Salem Hypothesis that a creationist with an advanced degree was more likely to be an engineer than any other field was noted back in the early days of Usenet: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo
  - UnFleshedOne 5y ago
    To be fair, given recent reproducibility fiasco, social sciences were scorned for a good reason.
    - Teever 5y ago

cletus 5y ago

> It’s like if first I asked you, what will happen if I hit this window with a hammer? It will break. Now what if I ask you where every piece will go? I don't like this analogy. A better example might be that if we set fire to all the forests, it's going to get hotter. It's true in the short term but the long term effects can be debated. And unfortunately there's a history of predictions that haven't come true to deal with. There are a bunch of unanswered questions around rapid warming. Like the doom and gloom scenarios of a tipping point or runaway global warming. The obvious question I have is: if this is a real possibility, why hasn't it happened in the last several billion years? The Earth has been warmer than it is now. Another is that rapid warming over short periods isn't that unprecedented [1]: > One of the most surprising findings was that the shifts from cold stadials to the warm interstadial intervals occurred in a matter of decades, with air temperatures over Greenland rapidly warming 8 to 15°C (Huber et al. 2006) To be clear, I'm not a climate change denier. I'm a climate change fatalist. By this I mean that whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there's really nothing you can do about it now other than finding cheaper alternatives to bad behaviours (eg solar becoming cheaper than fossil fuels). If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that many people are staggeringly selfish and are quite willing to let other people die rather than they being mildly inconvenienced. There's no way people are going to make their lives more expensive or more inconvenient for climate change. [1]: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-cli...

chana_masala 5y ago
Thanks for adding the further context here. I'd like to add context to your point: > If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that many people are staggeringly selfish and are quite willing to let other people die rather than they being mildly inconvenienced. I don't believe that "anti-maskers", who you are probably referring to, are significantly more selfish than "maskers." If you understand that most of them truly believe masks are not helpful, and even some believe they are harmful, then to them it's more than just "I'd rather kill people than be inconvenienced." They don't believe they are killing anyone.
- 5y ago