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Articles like this seem to get published most often when a problem turns out to be worse than we thought. That makes sense - and I suspect that, on balance, we'

Articles like this seem to get published most often when a problem turns out to be worse than we thought. That makes sense - and I suspect that, on balance, we've been overly optimistic about how much warming will come from each source, but it can't always be worse than we thought. Presumably people making climate models must keep up on the latest info on how much each element contributes, with some of them being less warming than predicted. Are there places that collect that information? Is there any way to see the aggregate change in overall understanding?

sanderjd 3y ago
Yeah I think it's likely that we have been (and are being) over-optimistic about many things and under-optimistic about many others. But the outcome is very sensitive to exactly which things are which, and which feedback loops they contribute to in which direction. It's just genuinely hard to know where things are headed. The only thing for it is to gather and analyze as much information as possible, constantly, and adapt to it wisely as it comes in. But this isn't all that satisfying a conclusion for either the doom and gloom crowd or the optimistic crowd :)
- aeturnum 3y ago
  Yah - I guess what I am saying is that in order to write the, "factor X is worse than we thought" article - you need to know what factor X was before. So really...people who do this work must have a set of coefficients that go into their models. I don't think it's fair to expect popular reporting like this to cover every factor...but I think we could do a better job of sharing the most recent set.
kamilner 3y ago
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-06-new-analysis-shipping-emissions-reveals-air-pollution-has-larger-effect-climate https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-06-new-analysis-shipping-e... is the most recent example I can think of, not being an expert in the field.
- aeturnum 3y ago
  This article is so close to what I am asking about, but in the end it's once again about an unexpected increase in warming. Yet you can see that the information probably exists somewhere.... > ...analysed[sic] data on ship emissions as a model system for quantifying the climatic effect of human aerosol emissions in general. This analysis could produce a whole set of factors and a relatively up-to-date numerical characterization of their impact. Some will be higher, but some may be lower (which also matters for planning!). Instead we get a report on a single factor that's most alarming.
cjblomqvist 3y ago
https://www.ipcc.ch/ https://www.ipcc.ch/ has a different target group (policy makers/politicians) but otherwise has that very goal and seems to be highly regarded.

sanderjd 3y ago

Yeah I think it's likely that we have been (and are being) over-optimistic about many things and under-optimistic about many others. But the outcome is very sensitive to exactly which things are which, and which feedback loops they contribute to in which direction. It's just genuinely hard to know where things are headed. The only thing for it is to gather and analyze as much information as possible, constantly, and adapt to it wisely as it comes in. But this isn't all that satisfying a conclusion for either the doom and gloom crowd or the optimistic crowd :)

aeturnum 3y ago
Yah - I guess what I am saying is that in order to write the, "factor X is worse than we thought" article - you need to know what factor X was before. So really...people who do this work must have a set of coefficients that go into their models. I don't think it's fair to expect popular reporting like this to cover every factor...but I think we could do a better job of sharing the most recent set.

kamilner 3y ago

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-06-new-analysis-shipping-emissions-reveals-air-pollution-has-larger-effect-climate https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-10-06-new-analysis-shipping-e... is the most recent example I can think of, not being an expert in the field.

aeturnum 3y ago
This article is so close to what I am asking about, but in the end it's once again about an unexpected increase in warming. Yet you can see that the information probably exists somewhere.... > ...analysed[sic] data on ship emissions as a model system for quantifying the climatic effect of human aerosol emissions in general. This analysis could produce a whole set of factors and a relatively up-to-date numerical characterization of their impact. Some will be higher, but some may be lower (which also matters for planning!). Instead we get a report on a single factor that's most alarming.

cjblomqvist 3y ago

https://www.ipcc.ch/ https://www.ipcc.ch/ has a different target group (policy makers/politicians) but otherwise has that very goal and seems to be highly regarded.