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To me this is the great utility of the IPCC reports. If you look at the full report you can find subsections on many aspects of climate change and a discussion

To me this is the great utility of the IPCC reports. If you look at the full report you can find subsections on many aspects of climate change and a discussion of the state of the field complete with citations compiled by an expert.

barbazoo 3y ago
How would a layperson like myself judge what's in the IPCC report? The predictions are so dramatic that we have to act now and can't wait and see how it turns out. How is it different from this submission here?
- oceanthrowaway 3y ago
  I think if you read the full IPCC report you will see they are far from dramatic. Often news articles on the reports include calls to action (which I am all for given the path we are on). I believe the IPCC may also issue a statement about the report as a whole on release. However, if you read subsections of the full report you will see each domain specialist assign low medium or high confidence to each potential climate outcome. They also include useful descriptions of the physical mechanisms behind many climate phenomenon
- refulgentis 3y ago
  When you frame it that way, your question is "how can $NONEXPERTS confirm $EXPERTS" First and foremost: read. Second: don't demand certitude and table the idea that there's a universal judgement. Think: am I asking for an up/down vote on a conversation, or on an assertion? Uncertainty can't always be driven down to 0. People usually expect this from other fields and yet understand when it is silly in their own field. (imagine: climate scientist forum noting cosmic rays, asking how any system can possibly be secure given memory safety causes security issues, and cosmic rays can flip memory bits, then hand-wringing about how they can even figure out what software research to trust) This thread is itself a good example: OP has no issue with the research, or type of research, or anything, just is concerned how laypeople might believe it is certain and confirmed because it is in Nature. The paper itself makes no such claim, as the OP goes to great lengths to explain (c.f. it is statistical model)
- mikub 3y ago
  There is a great podcast that goes through the whole IPCC report in something like 70 episodes. It's in german though, so not quiet sure how helpfull it could be for you, but maybee there is something similar in english. The podcast mentioned is "https://dasklima.podigee.io/ https://dasklima.podigee.io/" . Discussion about IPCC goes on until episode 77, after that they discuss some broader topics.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    I happen to speak German, thank you!
- xorcist 3y ago
  Dramatic? The IPCC is perhaps the driest bit of prose there is.
timmg 3y ago
Speaking of which, I recently saw this: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-says-about https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-... which is kinda a review of what IPCC report says about "extreme weather". For me, this summary is a lot different than the way I see this aspect talked about in the media (and on Twitter, etc) even by climate scientists.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  This article isn't great. He says "the IPCC says we won't see extreme weather until 2100.... (except for extreme heat and cold which the IPCC says is already here)" Okay? A lot of the discourse is explicitly about the heat and cold.
  - Auracle 3y ago
    But every hurricane season we hear it, it’s been talked about with the Canadian wildfires, locally in Minnesota they’ve been blaming our recent droughts on it, etc. It wasn’t all that long ago that interviewed climate scientists would say that you couldn’t attribute individual events to climate change. Now they constantly do. I feel like I hear it every other time I tune in to NPR.
    - UtopiaPunk 3y ago
      I'm definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that it is impossible to point to one single event and say climate change is responsible for that event. Weather is dynamic, you know? But climate change does account for there being more events (more hurricanes, more days of record breaking temperatures, more wildfires, etc). And as someone on the west coast who now assumes there will be at least one or two weeks of miserable wildfire smoke every summer, I think that impact is worth taking seriously today.
    - tremon 3y ago
      you couldn’t attribute individual events to climate change. Now they constantly do "constantly"? It's ironic that you put these two statements together like they somehow prove your point, while you're actually undermining your own position. Here's what the climate scientists have been saying: "you can't attribute individual weather events directly to climate change. However, climate change will increase the likelihood of extreme weather events occurring". So, if the media (note, not scientists) is "constantly" talking about extreme weather events, that does seem to prove that extreme weather events are happening more often, right? Which kinda confirms what the scientists were predicting all along? It's not the individual events that prove climate change: it is the pattern of "constant" extreme weather events.

barbazoo 3y ago

How would a layperson like myself judge what's in the IPCC report? The predictions are so dramatic that we have to act now and can't wait and see how it turns out. How is it different from this submission here?

oceanthrowaway 3y ago
I think if you read the full IPCC report you will see they are far from dramatic. Often news articles on the reports include calls to action (which I am all for given the path we are on). I believe the IPCC may also issue a statement about the report as a whole on release. However, if you read subsections of the full report you will see each domain specialist assign low medium or high confidence to each potential climate outcome. They also include useful descriptions of the physical mechanisms behind many climate phenomenon
refulgentis 3y ago
When you frame it that way, your question is "how can $NONEXPERTS confirm $EXPERTS" First and foremost: read. Second: don't demand certitude and table the idea that there's a universal judgement. Think: am I asking for an up/down vote on a conversation, or on an assertion? Uncertainty can't always be driven down to 0. People usually expect this from other fields and yet understand when it is silly in their own field. (imagine: climate scientist forum noting cosmic rays, asking how any system can possibly be secure given memory safety causes security issues, and cosmic rays can flip memory bits, then hand-wringing about how they can even figure out what software research to trust) This thread is itself a good example: OP has no issue with the research, or type of research, or anything, just is concerned how laypeople might believe it is certain and confirmed because it is in Nature. The paper itself makes no such claim, as the OP goes to great lengths to explain (c.f. it is statistical model)
mikub 3y ago
There is a great podcast that goes through the whole IPCC report in something like 70 episodes. It's in german though, so not quiet sure how helpfull it could be for you, but maybee there is something similar in english. The podcast mentioned is "https://dasklima.podigee.io/ https://dasklima.podigee.io/" . Discussion about IPCC goes on until episode 77, after that they discuss some broader topics.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  I happen to speak German, thank you!
xorcist 3y ago
Dramatic? The IPCC is perhaps the driest bit of prose there is.

timmg 3y ago

Speaking of which, I recently saw this: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-says-about https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-the-ipcc-actually-... which is kinda a review of what IPCC report says about "extreme weather". For me, this summary is a lot different than the way I see this aspect talked about in the media (and on Twitter, etc) even by climate scientists.

mrguyorama 3y ago
This article isn't great. He says "the IPCC says we won't see extreme weather until 2100.... (except for extreme heat and cold which the IPCC says is already here)" Okay? A lot of the discourse is explicitly about the heat and cold.
- Auracle 3y ago
  But every hurricane season we hear it, it’s been talked about with the Canadian wildfires, locally in Minnesota they’ve been blaming our recent droughts on it, etc. It wasn’t all that long ago that interviewed climate scientists would say that you couldn’t attribute individual events to climate change. Now they constantly do. I feel like I hear it every other time I tune in to NPR.
  - UtopiaPunk 3y ago
    I'm definitely not an expert, but my understanding is that it is impossible to point to one single event and say climate change is responsible for that event. Weather is dynamic, you know? But climate change does account for there being more events (more hurricanes, more days of record breaking temperatures, more wildfires, etc). And as someone on the west coast who now assumes there will be at least one or two weeks of miserable wildfire smoke every summer, I think that impact is worth taking seriously today.
  - tremon 3y ago
    you couldn’t attribute individual events to climate change. Now they constantly do "constantly"? It's ironic that you put these two statements together like they somehow prove your point, while you're actually undermining your own position. Here's what the climate scientists have been saying: "you can't attribute individual weather events directly to climate change. However, climate change will increase the likelihood of extreme weather events occurring". So, if the media (note, not scientists) is "constantly" talking about extreme weather events, that does seem to prove that extreme weather events are happening more often, right? Which kinda confirms what the scientists were predicting all along? It's not the individual events that prove climate change: it is the pattern of "constant" extreme weather events.