4 ms·
In addition, when I see the phrase "climate models", I think of the global simulations that scientists use to try to predict the future effect of climate change
by lftl 13y ago
In addition, when I see the phrase "climate models", I think of the global simulations that scientists use to try to predict the future effect of climate change. This article seems to instead be about an historical reconstruction of a past climate.
But aren't the two extremely tightly coupled? I know nothing of climatology, but it's hard for me to imagine how you would construct a future model that didn't rely massively on our picture of how the Earth reacted historically to different pressures. It would seem to me that adding a rather large chunk of ice, and changing past sea level measurements would have a large effect on the predicted future response of the system.
- snowwrestler 13y agoNot as much as you might think. Models simulate a small range of time centered around the present, and are constructed by combining measurable physical quantities with physics equations. Basically, they attempt to simulate "the truth" starting from first principles. Historical reconstruction is about really advanced ways of observing, estimating, and proxying data. The end product is a story of past climates, not a simulation or prediction. It's sort of like the difference between an evolutionary biologist experimenting on fruit flies, and a paleontologist. You need both to get a complete picture of life, but neither's work depends much on the other. In this case I'd be surprised if there is much impact on near-term climate predictions, because isostatic rebound is really slow at century timescales.