3 ms·
It feels like we can never catch a break. If we do something like underestimate the amount of CO2 plants absorb it still does nothing to change our fate. Is th
by deadbabe 2y ago
It feels like we can never catch a break. If we do something like underestimate the amount of CO2 plants absorb it still does nothing to change our fate.
Is there anything in our climate models that if we got wrong would drastically reduce the estimated severity of long term impacts from climate?
- thrance 2y agoThe trend is what it is, our models only allow us to explain why it is that way and what can be done about it.
- akoboldfrying 2y agoWe don't ever actually know if any model is accurate -- that is, whether it actually models the underlying physical process. We just have a lot of models that have made predictions about the future that turned out to be more or less correct, much more often that you'd expect by chance, and so we develop trust in that correspondence with reality over time. It's possible that our current climate models are wrong, by a little or a lot. It's also possible that General Relativity is wrong -- gravity might stop at this time tomorrow. If you're interested, this issue is called the Problem of Induction in philosophy. (Confusingly, "induction" has a different meaning here than in mathematical induction.)