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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

#71

Post by keithnz »

ekianjo wrote: post #48

Where is the story hère though? So they looked retroactively and found some models in the past that fitted with current observations even though they had no clue that China would become such a powerful force in terms of CO2 emissions? If you run random models and wait long enough you will always be able to find at least one model that predicted the current observations. That does NOT mean the models were right, it me…

while I generally agree with your comment, I don't think it is necessary you'd actually have to know about China, you just need to know the general growth trends and if emissions seem to correlate with it, whether that meant cocentrated manufacturing in China or distributed around the world, or even concentrated somewhere else seems like a "detail"

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

#72

Post by huffmsa »

gowld wrote: post #55
huffmsa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been sea ice in the Arctic for well under 50% of the planets history. Life thrived The Sahara desert was a grassland 5000-10000 years Life thrived.

Most people are interested in a particular subset of life thriving.

You don't think we will?

Perhaps not as many of us. But that's part of the problem isn't it? Too many humans, chopping down forests, over fishing, sucking melted dinosaurs out of the earth.

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

#73

Post by namirez »

ekianjo wrote: post #48

Where is the story hère though? So they looked retroactively and found some models in the past that fitted with current observations even though they had no clue that China would become such a powerful force in terms of CO2 emissions? If you run random models and wait long enough you will always be able to find at least one model that predicted the current observations. That does NOT mean the models were right, it me…

> even though they had no clue that China would become such a powerful force in terms of CO2 emissions

I think you're making the same mistake that you're attributing to the story. It really doesn't matter what China does per se. The global energy consumption, roughly, follows a log-linear trend. If the energy comes from fossil fuels, the CO2 emissions would also follow the same trend [1]. It doesn't matter whether it's China or someone else; the CO2 emission would go up if we don't innovate and rely on fossil fuels.

As an analogy, think about the Moore's law. Does it matter whether the chip is made by Intel or AMD?

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_co2_emissions...

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

#74

Post by jakeogh »

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.

It's utility is not to convince you earth is flat. If you made a list of the uses of that term here, what would you find?

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

#75

Post by lukifer »

huffmsa wrote: post #45

Its almost like they're predicting that we're a few thousand years into the process of coming out of an ice age. More at 11.

I don't think there's any disputing the overall trendline, which far predates the Industrial Revolution. Yet that doesn't mean that human activity isn't also meaningfully impactful. Though it's hardly scientific, from a layperson's perspective, I find xkcd's climate history megacomic instructive: https://xkcd.com/1732/. That rapid-ish spike after 1900 is by no means a smoking gun, but it's a hint that there may be more going on than a ten-thousand-year gradual geological process (which I don't think any climate scientist disputes the presence of).

I know of at least a few cases, where skeptics have changed their minds due to new evidence (Richard Muller [0] comes to mind). I'm curious if there are any instances of reputable scientists with sufficient training in the relevant fields, who went from true believers to significant skepticism of anthropogenic influence.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of...

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

#77

Post by deftnerd »

p1necone wrote: post #61
woodandsteel wrote: post #36

Standard conservative responses: --The globe is not getting warmer --We don't know if the globe is getting warmer or not --We do know the globe is getting warmer, but we don't know why --We do know the globe is getting warmer, but it has a different cause than human activities --We do know the globe is getting warmer, and it is in part due to human activities, but any action to counter this would be more harmful than…

[flagged]

If you don't care about your transgressions, the public won't care either or you will weather the PR storm. They're been spot on about that.

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

#78

Post by huffmsa »

yaks_hairbrush wrote: post #43
huffmsa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Erm... I feel like you're maybe projecting and/or arguing a strawman. Acknowledging that humans are causing the climate to change is quite a far cry from demanding actions from China's population.

China isn't doing dick diddly squat to reduce emissions and "go green". If they're not optimizing and complying, nothing the rest of us do will matter.

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

#80

Post by ltbarcly3 »

This reminds me of the models I made a few years ago to predict where a Frisbee will land after you throw it. I made about 14 different models, some of them correctly predict where the Frisbee will land. That's right, I have a model that can tell you where the Frisbee you are about to throw will land, it correctly predicts Frisbee throws.

Here is how it works: You input all the factors of your Frisbee throw. Then you throw the Frisbee, and that's it! Well, I guess there is one more step, since all 14 models make wrong predictions about where the Frisbee will land. But you can just go back and adjust the models and input better data after you already know where the Frisbee actually ended up, and then some of them correctly predicted where it will land!

Don't down-vote me, this is definitely what the phrase 'correctly predicted' means, and I'm not being misleading at all.

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