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If climate models were predicting the temperature of your city on March 21, 2120 then your intuition here would be wise. But that is not at all what these model
by thwayunion 4y ago
If climate models were predicting the temperature of your city on March 21, 2120 then your intuition here would be wise. But that is not at all what these models are predicting. They are predicting global average annual temperatures and other gross, planet-scale statistics.
"Average annual global temperature in a given year" and "temperature in my city tomorrow" are fundamentally very different types of predictions.
Often it is easier to accurately forecast gross dynamics on a long time frame than it is to forecast precise dynamics the exact same process over a short time frame.
You don't even need to understand the math or physics to see why this is intuitively true.
Consider e.g. predicting minutiae about the behavior of a fetus over the next week ("how many fist clenches", "how many kicks") vs. predicting which week the baby will be born -- the latter is substantially easier than the former despite the longer time frame.
Or, more to the point, consider forecasting the position of a particular cloud of molecules in a pot of water being bought to boil vs forecasting the temperature of the water in the pot in 5 minutes. The latter is hilariously trivial -- a small child can be taught how to do this with excellent accuracy. The former is some horrendously difficult phd level fluid mechanics and even then hard/impossible.
In some sense, an educated intuition is exactly the opposite of yours -- it'd be surprising if we were this good at extremely fine-grained weather prediction but couldn't guess the annualized average temperature of the entire system in 50 years. The latter is a much simpler statistic because the timescales and physical scales take a lot of the difficult stochasticity out of the forecasting problem.
- johnnymorgan 4y agoThe point he is making is the disconnect between models and reality. Also when are people held accountable for their models being wrong and the output that comes from that. Climate models has a terrible track record and have failed to materialize over and over again. We have environmental crises all over the place which we should be focused on. The two are not the same thing and climate activism seems to not care about that at all, ie the issue of EVs and their super non green batteries or the near slave labor in terrible conditions resource extraction. There is a good reason to be skeptical of the regulations derived from these models when they are wrong all the time.
- mrmanner 4y agoBut the models aren’t wrong. They’re surprisingly accurate. Some media reporting has been alarmist, choosing absolute worst cases and stating them as fact. But in general, the changes we’ve seen so far are in line with predictions and there’s no reason to be more skeptical than normal of this science. (As a side note, the resource extraction required to run a petrol engine is also not very green and often connected to human rights abuses. Not to downplay the issues in lithium sourcing, there are horrible conditions that need to be fixed, but the solution is not “oil”.)
- ratboy666 4y agoNo they are not "surprisingly accurate". I have actually made more money in direct bets AGAINST climate models. From 1970 to present. Indeed, the challenge I make to climate doomsayers is simple: make one prediction in the 5 year out timeframe and stick to it. I'll simply take the opposite. So far, I have won... every time. Let me have a look at my trading accounts: cenovus up, pembina up, taiwan semi up, everything else down. And that is the current recession. Now, I am worried about china, so I may trade the tsm. The only "surprise" for me is that alcoa is down. I'll ride that one. The "no oil" people may be right; that would make me a horrible person. But, make the prediction -- I'll "convert" if it comes true. Science for the win.
- thwayunion 4y ago> direct bets AGAINST climate models... None of the things you mention after this sentence have anything to do with climate models. > cenovus up, pembina up, taiwan semi up At best, this is equivalent to saying health nuts have been disproven because you made money buying Coca Cola stock.
- YeahNO 4y agoYes, they are in fact, "surprisingly accurate." https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-mo...
- 4y ago
- 6nf 4y agoPredictions so far have been terrible compared to what actually happened.