3 ms·

A climate model approximation that could change the climate movement

40 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

gardenfelder 3y ago
>This is a story of how the ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases’ narrative came to be, and an inquiry into whether the real climate narrative should really be ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle’ .
- freilanzer 3y ago
  > ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle’ . ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle + τ’, where τ is all the rest.
swader999 3y ago
The author posits that we may be worse off because deforestation. Yet forest cover is increasing from when models variables were set due to increased CO2 so perhaps the higher bounds won't be reached.
- throwawayqqq11 3y ago
  From an authors comment: > Water also will heat up the earth too, because it is a greenhouse gas. So when water evapotranspires it is both heating up the earth and also cooling it. Its a competition. So we have to do the calculations to see which wins out, to see if the water greenhouse warms more or the latent heat infrared radiation cools more. My guess is that when they take the nonlinear dynamics of convection more into account, they will find the latent heat infrared radiation wins out. The biotic effect may also come into play here, as it can cause more convection upwards. To me, this article classifies as FUD, even though the non-linear heat transfer of water vapor could be a significant factor, one should wait and compare the parameterized static models and non-parameterized dynamic ones in conjunction with land mass changes to call it news. As the auther notes it above themself. At most, this is a valuable contribution to the unsettled scientific discourse but not as a pop-sci article. And even then ... wether the water dynamics beeing a net cooler or heater is insignificant for the past observation of global warming. And also insignificant to the fact that CO2 is an accumulating greenhouse gas. Also a good indicator of FUD is, how the other commentators jump on "the climate scientist got it wrong!" What bothers me especially about this, is that the uncertainty is targeted towards "should we even care about CO2?". Yes we should. We _have to_ take care long term of all our waste products to achieve sustainability! You can tackle climate change and many other of our problems _without even mentioning them_ simply with the logic of sustainability. But people get hooked else where...
- n4r9 3y ago
  I went to a talk by forest ecologist Suzanna Simard last year. One interesting point she made is that the carbon sequestration abilities of a woodland depends on more variables than simply the coverage. If I remember rightly, mature woodlands with a diverse ecology and rich soil environment (with plenty of fungal matter) are much better at capturing CO2. Chopping down an ancient forest cannot simply be compenstated by a huge monoculture plantation somewhere else.
epgui 3y ago
Nobody who works in the field believes global warming is “only” due to greenhouse gases… So much for the premise of the article.
- swader999 3y ago
  Well we should be moving on from CO2 because in this area the effect is nearly saturated. Doubling CO2 from it's current level won't have nearly the impact the previous doubling had.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    CO2 levels are current 1.50 times pre-industrial levels, so "previous doubling" is misleading.
    - swader999 3y ago
      Right but it's not going to do much of anything temp wise from here, maybe .7C higher at worst. This is a useful tool to see this: https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/ https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
      - acqq 3y ago
        No. sixbrx explanation applies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37772724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37772724
  - sixbrx 3y ago
    It's not the saturation at the peak absorbtion frequencies that is driving the warming, it's the widening of the curves which raises absorbtion levels in nearby frequencies. The "saturated" argument was one of the first objections when the science was poorly understood. Krauss's book Physics of Climate CHange has a good account of this history. Check IPCC summaries to see how many models from the literature predict flattening at 0.7C additional warming if we don't curb emissions (spoiler alert: slim to none with many positing 5C or more additional warming in the 2100's if emissions aren't curbed).
joak 3y ago
I've posted the original article to hn. Seemed to me more informative than the comment. Thanks however to poster from bringing attention to the topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37775817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37775817

40 points by gardenfelder 3y ago

>This is a story of how the ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases’ narrative came to be, and an inquiry into whether the real climate narrative should really be ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle’ .

freilanzer 3y ago
> ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle’ . ‘Global Warming = Greenhouse Gases + Land Degradation affects Water Cycle + τ’, where τ is all the rest.

swader999 3y ago

The author posits that we may be worse off because deforestation. Yet forest cover is increasing from when models variables were set due to increased CO2 so perhaps the higher bounds won't be reached.

throwawayqqq11 3y ago
From an authors comment: > Water also will heat up the earth too, because it is a greenhouse gas. So when water evapotranspires it is both heating up the earth and also cooling it. Its a competition. So we have to do the calculations to see which wins out, to see if the water greenhouse warms more or the latent heat infrared radiation cools more. My guess is that when they take the nonlinear dynamics of convection more into account, they will find the latent heat infrared radiation wins out. The biotic effect may also come into play here, as it can cause more convection upwards. To me, this article classifies as FUD, even though the non-linear heat transfer of water vapor could be a significant factor, one should wait and compare the parameterized static models and non-parameterized dynamic ones in conjunction with land mass changes to call it news. As the auther notes it above themself. At most, this is a valuable contribution to the unsettled scientific discourse but not as a pop-sci article. And even then ... wether the water dynamics beeing a net cooler or heater is insignificant for the past observation of global warming. And also insignificant to the fact that CO2 is an accumulating greenhouse gas. Also a good indicator of FUD is, how the other commentators jump on "the climate scientist got it wrong!" What bothers me especially about this, is that the uncertainty is targeted towards "should we even care about CO2?". Yes we should. We _have to_ take care long term of all our waste products to achieve sustainability! You can tackle climate change and many other of our problems _without even mentioning them_ simply with the logic of sustainability. But people get hooked else where...
n4r9 3y ago
I went to a talk by forest ecologist Suzanna Simard last year. One interesting point she made is that the carbon sequestration abilities of a woodland depends on more variables than simply the coverage. If I remember rightly, mature woodlands with a diverse ecology and rich soil environment (with plenty of fungal matter) are much better at capturing CO2. Chopping down an ancient forest cannot simply be compenstated by a huge monoculture plantation somewhere else.

epgui 3y ago

Nobody who works in the field believes global warming is “only” due to greenhouse gases… So much for the premise of the article.

swader999 3y ago
Well we should be moving on from CO2 because in this area the effect is nearly saturated. Doubling CO2 from it's current level won't have nearly the impact the previous doubling had.
- hollerith 3y ago
  CO2 levels are current 1.50 times pre-industrial levels, so "previous doubling" is misleading.
  - swader999 3y ago
    Right but it's not going to do much of anything temp wise from here, maybe .7C higher at worst. This is a useful tool to see this: https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/ https://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
    - acqq 3y ago
      No. sixbrx explanation applies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37772724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37772724
- sixbrx 3y ago
  It's not the saturation at the peak absorbtion frequencies that is driving the warming, it's the widening of the curves which raises absorbtion levels in nearby frequencies. The "saturated" argument was one of the first objections when the science was poorly understood. Krauss's book Physics of Climate CHange has a good account of this history. Check IPCC summaries to see how many models from the literature predict flattening at 0.7C additional warming if we don't curb emissions (spoiler alert: slim to none with many positing 5C or more additional warming in the 2100's if emissions aren't curbed).

joak 3y ago

I've posted the original article to hn. Seemed to me more informative than the comment. Thanks however to poster from bringing attention to the topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37775817 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37775817