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Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

sciencemag.org

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Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#21

Post by rsynnott »

nickysielicki wrote: post #10
minikites wrote: post #2

People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.

What about the person who believes in anthropogenic climate change but doesn’t believe that humans will ever be able (or have ever been able) to cooperate to the extent that is necessary to prevent it, and questions whether required technological advances will ever be made? Asking for a friend...

The goal is really no longer preventing it; that’s not realistic. The goal is keeping it at ‘merely very bad’ rather than extinction level.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#22

Post by guelo »

nickysielicki wrote: post #10
minikites wrote: post #2

People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.

What about the person who believes in anthropogenic climate change but doesn’t believe that humans will ever be able (or have ever been able) to cooperate to the extent that is necessary to prevent it, and questions whether required technological advances will ever be made? Asking for a friend...

Humans have cooperated plenty. Many universal or nearly- universal treaties have been signed by all nations. In fact humans already cooperated on an atmospheric pollution treaty when we prevented the destruction of the Ozone layer.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#23

Post by p1mrx »

bagacrap wrote: post #4
minikites wrote: post #2

People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.

I watched the documentary about flat Earthers and I think they're just having harmless fun.

It's all fun and games until someone falls off the edge.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#25

Post by eanzenberg »

nickysielicki wrote: post #10
minikites wrote: post #2

People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.

What about the person who believes in anthropogenic climate change but doesn’t believe that humans will ever be able (or have ever been able) to cooperate to the extent that is necessary to prevent it, and questions whether required technological advances will ever be made? Asking for a friend...

Or that:

1) Actual solutions to climate change are not taken seriously (nuclear power, natural gas)

2) Effect size is still unknown or small. 0.3C over decades is not much to write home about.

3) Solutions to climate change have to include developing / third world countries.

And most importantly:

4) Oil/gas with capitalism has lead to the greatest throughput of innovation known to mankind, lifting billions out of poverty, medical and scientific advances, and allows 7B people to live on earth. Removing and replacing this will have consequences that IMHO go beyond a 0.3C increase in temp and a few cm increase in water level. Just MHO.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#27

Post by olliej »

rshnotsecure wrote: post #15
whatshisface wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really true that the scientific concensus was in favor of ice age in the 70s? I have heard people say this before but I have never seen the historical evidence.

Yes please see Stephen Schneider’s book talked about in The NY Times in 1976. He worked at NASA at one point: https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/20...

I appreciate having a link to a known pseudo science resource, but that article is referencing non-anthropogenic climate change - specifically that there are relatively mild temperature cycles measured in the spans of hundreds of years. Dropping a couple of degrees would (and in relatively recent history has) significantly impacted crop failure rates.

However that is kind of moot, because human driven climate change has been pushing temperatures up faster than any natural temperature reduction has ever achieved. Even if we would otherwise be experience a reduction in average global temperature it doesn't matter because human driven warming would overcome that.

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#28

Post by huffmsa »

minikites wrote: post #2

People who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change at this point are no better than people who believe the Earth is flat.

Such hubris.

Since you've clearly got it all figured out, Tell me, how are we going to address China's runaway coal plant development? Bangladesh's rampant deforestation?

Are you so bold as to say that you know what's best for the people in those countries?

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#29

Post by jml7c5 »

I'm not sure if he'll pop in here, but one of the co-authors (Henri Drake) has a comment thread on /r/science if anyone wants to ask any questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/e63ic5/of_17_clima...

EDIT:

Here is some of the code used in the paper: https://github.com/hausfath/OldModels

Here is a blog post on the paper, written by one of the authors: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/12/how-go...

EDIT AGAIN:

The "supporting information" .docx at the bottom of this page has a lot more detail, for those (like me) who can't get past the paywall ( :-/ ): https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...

Re: Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming

#30

Post by svara »

Svante Arrhenius got it basically right in 1896 [1]. There is no scientific controversy and there never has been.

Unfortunately, arguing about this might just reinforce the mistaken view that there are different valid "sides" to this.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_...

Edit: That doesn't detract from the article's more subtle point about the precision of climate models in the past, I was reacting to the comments here viewing this in the light of a fictive controversy.

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