Browser-based climate change simulation • Hacker News Board

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#141

Post by asdf21 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #123

multiplegeorges wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems you misunderstand what scientists are saying and forming an incorrect opinion from that. > I will confess, referring to climate models that are literally estimated projections of future temperatures as "facts", very much rubs me the wrong way. The projections are statistical models. They have a range of values and probabilities associated with them. Without major change, the probabilities of catastrophic cli…

> It seems you misunderstand what scientists are saying and forming an incorrect opinion from that. I feel highly confident that I don't actually misunderstand what scientists are saying, but rather you have misunderstood (misinterpreted due to heuristic modification during interpretation) what I have said. Would you be willing to quote particular statements I've made that you consider to be mistaken? > The projectio…

Case in point, I believe in climate change... that it's man-made (so to speak), that it results from higher than normal levels of carbon, that it will cause sea level rise, etc.

But I disagree on some core orthodoxies. I think the root cause is deforestation / removal of carbon sinks, and a even lower-level root cause is simple human overpopulation. The amount of missing biomass from trees over the last few hundred years tracks very neatly with CO2 levels, as does of course human population levels.

I also know for a fact that other countries are much worse offenders when it comes to Carbon emissions and pollution in general, compared to the US or any other Western nation. Therefore, I don't understand nor support most US policy changes to "combat" climate change... I think these are at best a farce, and at worst cynical money grabs by professional fleecers.

How exactly is any US policy going to stop a poor farmer in Brazil from cutting down trees to make money to support his family? How will any US policy prevent the other 4 Billion or so impoverished people who are doing similar things?

As far as stopping China from polluting, we probably can't do much better than the effect Trump's tariffs have had, and are continuing to have... but Heaven forbid you tell anyone that who proclaims to care about the environment.

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#142

Post by breakyerself » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #106

ocschwar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fact 1: The earth has been warming since the last ice age. The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. > Fact 2: Solar output has increased recently Citation needed. Furthermore, if you can explain how an increase in the solar output woudl warm the arctic more than the tropics, there's a Nobel waiting for you. > Fact 3: Water vapor accounts for almost all of the gre…

> The Milankovitch cycles have crested since that warming. Without the CO2 we would be cooling. This is not a fact, this is a theory. This is common in 'science' that scientists believing something 'should be happening' and then attempt to pencil in details after-the-fact to explain something that doesn't fit their preconceived model. > Citation needed. From [1]: > Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from…

By what mechanism is water vapor increasing to be the primary driver of the warming? We know why co2 is going up. What can cause water vapor to go up and stay up when it only has a residence time of 72 hour and do you have any peer reviewed work supporting this idea that h2o can be a primary driver of climate?

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#143

Post by asdf21 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

plutonorm wrote: post #91

dmix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t even think that’s the primary problem. I think the average person doesn’t give a shit about stuff like this, at least not to the point where they have to make personal sacrifices. It’s very very easy to live your daily life and not see any real world consequences outside of some sometimes shrill activists who aren’t the most persuasive people to the average lowest common denominator people. For one thing thes…

They don't give a shit because the news they read, the entertainment they watch all tell them not to. The narrative has been set by private interests for decades - perhaps hundreds of years. So now these opinions look like they are coming from the grass roots.

>They don't give a shit because the news they read, the entertainment they watch all tell them not to

No, they don't give a shit because they don't need to. It doesn't affect their daily lives.

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#144

Post by svara » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

allovernow wrote: post #116

solarwind wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about climate it's about political control. It's a political boogeyman. Left wing politicians have successfully brainwashed a generation to believe they’re gonna die in 12 years unless socialists and communists control our planet and the lives of everyone on it. I was a huge believer in Climate Change as a youth. I wanted to save the environment. Then I caught one lie. Then two. Then three. Then I read the c…

One other interesting point to add to the list. If you look at plots of historic CO2 estimates derived from the Vostok ice core [1], you'll notice that we are presently at the very peak (in time) of a climate cycle that aligns almost perfectly with four other cycles from the last ≈400k years. Now two points here: 1. It is extremely unlikely that anthropogenic emissions would align so conveniently with the tip of a na…

You're probably confused by the fact that (1) they are plotting ice core based CO2 concentrations as years before 1950 and (2) the time resolution of the ancient ice core data is quite low, while all the anthropogenic action happened in the last 150 y or so (and about 50% of the CO2 addition happened in the last 50).

Look at [0] for a more authoritative source and specifically compare the 800 and 400 ky data to the 2000-year (Law Dome, Antarctica) data. This will show you that we are indeed at the top of a very slow CO2 cycle, but that we added about 100 ppm on top of that in the past ~100 y! This is more than the amplitude of the underlying cycles.

[0] https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#145

Post by pharke » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

hmd_imputer wrote: post #124

So, in the best-case scenario, there will be a mere 1.0degree Celcius increase and in the worst-case scenario, the average increase will be 6.5degree Celcius. I don't know how it is possible to model technological breakthroughs. I mean if we have a working Nuclear Fusion technology by 2100, that could drastically change everything - (almost) free energy = unlimited desalinated water = full aforestation, even in the d…

The knock on effects from unlimited energy go a lot further.

We could use technology we have today for CO2 capture since it is heavily energy dependent and simply scale it massively. The bulk of industry processes that currently require coal, oil, or gas to provide cheap heat could be fully electrified. Prices of a lot of commodities would drop dramatically. Indoor farming would be a cinch. People and governments would abandon internal combustion for the cheaper alternative.

We could do absurd things that no one would even consider today like greening deserts as you mentioned or settling the arctic. You might be able to replace concrete with basalt if you could cleverly design a system for melting stone and casting the resulting lava in a form. Hell, you could banish winter by putting radiant heat in everything, walls, sidewalks, streets, and adding supplemental lighting like Moonlight Towers[0] except I suppose they would be Sunlight Towers in this case. The list goes on.

The world would change so much it would be like living through the first half of the 20th century again. From horses, coal, and brick buildings to jet aircraft, nuclear power, and glass skyscrapers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_tower

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#146

Post by pharke » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

papreclip wrote: post #111

mar77i wrote: post #77

No sane setting gets us down to 2°C. I don't feel taken seriously. Can I get a slider for the frequency of volcanic eruptions? On a slightly more serious note, can we tame volcanoes by somehow - ideally - producing energy and ... prevent eruptions, somewhat comparable to the way earth wires actively do so with lightning strikes?

I want a slider that lets you shrink the population (not just "low growth"). Climate change is just one of many ways that overpopulation is negatively impacting all life on earth.

What would be the units? Number of gas chambers?

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#147

Post by svara » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #82

hanniabu wrote: post #66

This is great and all, but what can we do about the people that don't believe this data? That's where the real issue is. I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to get funding. "Follow the money" is a common thing they say in regards to this, but also conveniently disregarded and deny that big oil/coal have…

Some thoughts for your consideration, delivered with collaborative intent: > I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to get funding. FWIW, I also happen to harbor this suspicion. How might one actually know whether there is an element of truth to it? > "Follow the money" is a common thing they say in regard…

> FWIW, I also happen to harbor this suspicion. How might one actually know whether there is an element of truth to it?

It's probably good to have some baseline level of cynicism, since individual people do often act in egotistical ways.

However, what you're proposing seems to imply that either (1) there is a vast conspiracy of climate scientists, who are engaging in that conspiracy for ultimately very little gain or (2) climate scientists are incredibly stupid, and keep repeating incorrect things as fact to each other while being blind to other evidence.

I'm a working scientist myself (in a totally different field), and my own cynical view of science is quite incompatible with these possibilities: There's nothing scientists love more than attacking each other's interpretations of data, to prove that they're smarter than the next guy.

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#148

Post by linuxftw » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

allovernow wrote: post #116

solarwind wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about climate it's about political control. It's a political boogeyman. Left wing politicians have successfully brainwashed a generation to believe they’re gonna die in 12 years unless socialists and communists control our planet and the lives of everyone on it. I was a huge believer in Climate Change as a youth. I wanted to save the environment. Then I caught one lie. Then two. Then three. Then I read the c…

One other interesting point to add to the list. If you look at plots of historic CO2 estimates derived from the Vostok ice core [1], you'll notice that we are presently at the very peak (in time) of a climate cycle that aligns almost perfectly with four other cycles from the last ≈400k years. Now two points here: 1. It is extremely unlikely that anthropogenic emissions would align so conveniently with the tip of a na…

There's also evidence that CO2 lags temperature increase historically, meaning CO2 was not the causative agent for temperature increase, rising CO2 might be an artifact of increase temperatures.

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#149

Post by linuxftw » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

breakyerself wrote: post #132

efa wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Water vapor has a habit of coming down as rain. Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying water vapor is not a significant greenhouse gas? https://climate.nasa.gov/causes lists it as the most abundant greenhouse gas.

It has a residence time in the atmosphere of 72 hours. Water vapor only works as a feedback. It isn't a prime mover of climate change.

The sun is the prime mover of climate change, literally everything else is feedback. If increased temperature creates increased water vapor, and increased water vapor causes increased solar radiation retention due to greenhouse effect (resulting in further temperature increases), that's a positive feedback cycle.

Water vapor is undisputed as the the #1 greenhouse gas.

Re: Browser-based climate change simulation

#150

Post by selfishgene » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #79

hanniabu wrote: post #66

This is great and all, but what can we do about the people that don't believe this data? That's where the real issue is. I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to get funding. "Follow the money" is a common thing they say in regards to this, but also conveniently disregarded and deny that big oil/coal have…

I'm inclined to believe this data because I trust MIT and believe that climate change is a very serious problem. But this app alone doesn't do a good job of convincing anyone of anything. For starters, it's just a bunch of graphs. I doubt most people who deny climate change are going to understand what they're looking at. But most importantly, there's no straightforward way for anyone to verify this data on their own…

>I'm inclined to believe this data because I trust MIT

Really? After the missile defense fraud cover-up at MIT Lincoln Laboratory that was exposed by Prof. Ted Postol or the deliberate "anonymization" of donations from convicted child rapist Jeffrey Epstein (both at the direction of President Rafael Reif) ... or how about the former deputy dean of the Sloan School of Management, Gabriel Bitran, who ran a $500 million hedge fund scam for which he's just finishing up his prison time in a federal penitentiary down in Philadelphia (after narrowly escaping charges that he sexually assaulted one of his secretaries a decade earlier). The Sloan School is the same MIT institution that bestowed a prestigious entrepreneurship prize on Brandon Wade, who has recently spoke on campus about what it's like to start one of the largest and most successful online prostitution businesses in the world, on which some MIT girls apparently advertise their services (supposedly to help cover the sky-high tuition that funds the bloated MIT administration).

Trust MIT? Really?