5 ms·

This is an interesting, coarse grained analysis. If you were looking for a false sense of security, or evidence to use in a melodramatic argument, this would fi

This is an interesting, coarse grained analysis. If you were looking for a false sense of security, or evidence to use in a melodramatic argument, this would fit. The fundamental problem with climate change is the amount of uncertainty it brings. All of civilizations infrastructure has been built assuming a constant climate system. With 1-6 ft of sea level rise possible, and 1.5 - 6 degrees of warming possible, and completely uncertain impacts to local climates, I can’t tell you where to build the next sea port, farm, and city.

VariableStar 5y ago
Exactly. Also there is no mention of how temperatures are distributed and how extremes occur. A +3°C increase does not merely mean a linear shift of the temperature records but also an increase in the spread of the values, often meaning making tails fat, i.e. increasing the likelihood of high temperature extremes.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  And on the high end, those extremes coupled with humidity can kill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_temperature_and_health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_... Neal Stephenson's latest novel, Termination Shock, starts with an Indian city hitting this point and having the power grid fail due to demand for air conditioning, resulting in millions dead. It's fairly plausible.
  - kornhole 5y ago
    You were referring to Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book, The Ministry for the Future. I have read both and recommend both highly.
    - tomrod 5y ago
      Thanks for the recommendations!
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Ack, you're right! Thanks! Mixing up my recent readings, whoops.
gmuslera 5y ago
Focusing on economic gains? Cities flooded by each time more frequent heavy rains or directly sea rise won't come cheap, and that is where most of human population lives (and most will lose everything they have). It is not that new land opens elsewhere while everything else keeps being in exactly the same way as today. It could mean death by extreme weather, starving, more frequent wars for billions, but I suppose that if they aren't in the top 1% it doesn't matter nor have an economic value to be weighted by those equations. And it is a process. Is not something that will slow down or stop till we get back to the amount of GHG and feedback loops of 100-200 years ago, and we don't have an advanced technology enough to be undistinguishable from magic regarding this. Things will keep getting worse, maybe not at the level of Venus by Tuesday, but bad enough to risk most of life on the planet (including ours).
- thepangolino 5y ago
_0w8t 5y ago
Stable climate have never existed. 9000 years ago the average temperature was likely higher than presently by 1 - 1.5 degree. 1000 years ago Northern Atlantic and Pacific were warmer than today. Vikings called Newfoundland Wine Land due to grapes that where grown there. Then that rapidly shifted into much colder conditions. And then the next ice age can start within the next 1000-2000 years which is much worse for the civilization than global warming to the point that perhaps pumping CO2 into atmosphere is not a bad idea if it allows to stop that.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  In general it is true, that climate changes are normal. But the drastic, artifical change we are about to wittness, is something new. https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- f-securus 5y ago
  Current climate change is happening at an incredibly fast rate compared to historical fluctuations. I don't think they are comparable. But the point is nobody knows for certain so when it comes to modifying our environment at a grand scale we should probably try to be conservative.
  - _0w8t 5y ago
    There were a lot of rather abrupt changes even during Holocene [1]. We do not understand what could have been triggers for those changes. Which really emphasizes that we do not know how the climate works and as a civilization should have being preparing for the worst. [1] - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16006-1_2 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16006-...
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    This is not true at all. During the recent period known as the Younger Dryas average global temps changed about 5°C over a few decades and then did it again in the opposite direction 1000 years later. The post-industrial period is so short it wouldn't even register on most historical proxies.

VariableStar 5y ago

Exactly. Also there is no mention of how temperatures are distributed and how extremes occur. A +3°C increase does not merely mean a linear shift of the temperature records but also an increase in the spread of the values, often meaning making tails fat, i.e. increasing the likelihood of high temperature extremes.

ceejayoz 5y ago
And on the high end, those extremes coupled with humidity can kill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_temperature_and_health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature#Wet-bulb_... Neal Stephenson's latest novel, Termination Shock, starts with an Indian city hitting this point and having the power grid fail due to demand for air conditioning, resulting in millions dead. It's fairly plausible.
- kornhole 5y ago
  You were referring to Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book, The Ministry for the Future. I have read both and recommend both highly.
  - tomrod 5y ago
    Thanks for the recommendations!
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Ack, you're right! Thanks! Mixing up my recent readings, whoops.

gmuslera 5y ago

Focusing on economic gains? Cities flooded by each time more frequent heavy rains or directly sea rise won't come cheap, and that is where most of human population lives (and most will lose everything they have). It is not that new land opens elsewhere while everything else keeps being in exactly the same way as today. It could mean death by extreme weather, starving, more frequent wars for billions, but I suppose that if they aren't in the top 1% it doesn't matter nor have an economic value to be weighted by those equations. And it is a process. Is not something that will slow down or stop till we get back to the amount of GHG and feedback loops of 100-200 years ago, and we don't have an advanced technology enough to be undistinguishable from magic regarding this. Things will keep getting worse, maybe not at the level of Venus by Tuesday, but bad enough to risk most of life on the planet (including ours).

thepangolino 5y ago

_0w8t 5y ago

Stable climate have never existed. 9000 years ago the average temperature was likely higher than presently by 1 - 1.5 degree. 1000 years ago Northern Atlantic and Pacific were warmer than today. Vikings called Newfoundland Wine Land due to grapes that where grown there. Then that rapidly shifted into much colder conditions. And then the next ice age can start within the next 1000-2000 years which is much worse for the civilization than global warming to the point that perhaps pumping CO2 into atmosphere is not a bad idea if it allows to stop that.

hutzlibu 5y ago
In general it is true, that climate changes are normal. But the drastic, artifical change we are about to wittness, is something new. https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
f-securus 5y ago
Current climate change is happening at an incredibly fast rate compared to historical fluctuations. I don't think they are comparable. But the point is nobody knows for certain so when it comes to modifying our environment at a grand scale we should probably try to be conservative.
- _0w8t 5y ago
  There were a lot of rather abrupt changes even during Holocene [1]. We do not understand what could have been triggers for those changes. Which really emphasizes that we do not know how the climate works and as a civilization should have being preparing for the worst. [1] - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16006-1_2 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-16006-...
- akvadrako 5y ago
  This is not true at all. During the recent period known as the Younger Dryas average global temps changed about 5°C over a few decades and then did it again in the opposite direction 1000 years later. The post-industrial period is so short it wouldn't even register on most historical proxies.