Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why • Hacker News Board

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#101

Post by Angostura » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

justadudeama wrote: post #51

orev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tweaking the inputs would help one to identify what factor is causing the difference, which allows you to focus on that. It doesn’t mean you permanently leave it out. And it does not make a credibility issue. This is how science works — it is a process that strives to be as accurate as possible, not come up with a static answer and stick to it (that’s what religion does). The ability for science to change and adapt i…

These are valid points, and it is important to figure out what changes in the model is causing such a dramatic change and scrutinize it more. > The ability for science to change and adapt is what makes it so strong To me this article is them _resisting_ change, looking for a reason NOT to accept it, because it goes against what they previously said. Maybe this is all to early, and in a year or so we will be seeing 4…

Again, that's the way that science tends to operate - a la Kuhn and his Structure of Scientific Revolutions. You have some novel research that seems to contradict well-established consenus. It comes under close scrutiny, because science tends to be conservative. If after giving it a good kicking, its clear that the old consensus is wrong, science takes the wrecking ball to it. But it prefers not to get the wrecking ball out of it can help it.

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#102

Post by rezeroed » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

I’m a climate change skeptic almost entirely because I don’t trust models. I believe there are too many dynamic things happening in the world for anyone to be able to predict accurately say the next 100 years (solar, earthquakes, volcanoes etc). One way to make me a believer though is an experiment: if I were to give you a 100 year stretch of history and you were able to accurately predict with the models what exactl…

What are the downsides of going along with it, and finding out it was wrong?

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#103

Post by anonuser123456 » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

I’m a climate change skeptic almost entirely because I don’t trust models. I believe there are too many dynamic things happening in the world for anyone to be able to predict accurately say the next 100 years (solar, earthquakes, volcanoes etc). One way to make me a believer though is an experiment: if I were to give you a 100 year stretch of history and you were able to accurately predict with the models what exactl…

>I’m a climate change skeptic almost entirely because I don’t trust models.

You don't have to believe the models:

https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/climateletter.pdf

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#104

Post by Angostura » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

dls2016 wrote: post #71

justadudeama wrote: post #23

I am not a climate change denier by a long shot, but stories like these give a ding to the credibility of climate scientists. > "So we can't throw them out yet." This might be an elementary view of science, but I think there is a danger here that while everyone is making their models, if anyone is an outlier they go and tweak their model to match the patterns of others: 'Klaus Wyser’s group "switched off" some of the…

This part of climate "science" always makes me put on my Popper hat. The social aspect of being the outlier (grants dry up, career goes away) makes me skeptical of the IPCC reports, just not in the usual direction. I fear reality could be much worse. I can't ding the climate scientists too much, though... I'm not sure there's a better way to study this stuff.

In this case have grants actually dried up or careers gone away? Nope.

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#105

Post by hugh-avherald » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #78

justadudeama wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are valid points, and it is important to figure out what changes in the model is causing such a dramatic change and scrutinize it more. > The ability for science to change and adapt is what makes it so strong To me this article is them _resisting_ change, looking for a reason NOT to accept it, because it goes against what they previously said. Maybe this is all to early, and in a year or so we will be seeing 4…

If your model suddenly changes its predictions, you need to make 100% sure you know why and that is valid. Just imagine they would go public with this "Scientists found climate change is worse than previously thought with updated model" and then weeks later find an error in the changes made to the model "Scientists made mistakes, climate change less severe than previously thought". What do you think would hurt their…

Well this is the problem. People are reticient to make public a private finding that is different, because it is probably wrong and they'll probably lose credibility. But if everyone is doing that...

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#106

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #63

DennisP wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use models to try to nail down the details, not to see whether climate change from CO2 emissions is a real thing. That's well established by physics and geological history. A good presentation of this evidence is in a couple chapters of Hansen's Storms of My Grandchildren .

Could you point me to the academic, empirical research that quantifies the influence of CO2 on climate? Not a book, but from an academic publication.

[deleted]

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#107

Post by boyadjian » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

We have been warned about high birth rates and over-consumption in 1972, from the Meadows Report of the "Club of Rome", "The limits to Growth". Now we have reached those limits. So, what are we doing, now ?

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#108

Post by rayiner » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

derg wrote: post #19

adrianN wrote: post #3

Well, politicians aren't doing anything anyway, whether the models predict catastrophe or CATASTROPHE. Already according to the 3° sensitivity predictions we would need an effort that rivals WW2 to stay below 1.5°. Yet major countries are led by climate denialists.

Can you even imagine how a Total War economy/society based on transitioning to greener energies, cutting emissions and pollutants, and working on improvements to housing and urban planning would end up looking? Like ignoring the whole climate change thing for a moment (though we absolutely should not do that), just the quality of life improvements to our health and well being this kind of mobilization would bring wou…

> Total War economy/society > quality of life improvements to our health and well being this kind of mobilization would bring would be astonishing.

The impact on quality of life and society would be "astonishing," but they won't be improvements. The Soviets and Chinese tried similar "mobilization[s]" for food production. The idea was to direct society's efforts to producing enough food for everybody. Tens of millions of people died of starvation as a result. It turns out that governments are bad at running economies.

I don't know why so many people think that the same mechanism (a command-and-control economy) will lead to a different result just because you change the goal from food or industrial production to climate change mitigation.

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#109

Post by microtonal » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #85

orev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tweaking the inputs would help one to identify what factor is causing the difference, which allows you to focus on that. It doesn’t mean you permanently leave it out. And it does not make a credibility issue. This is how science works — it is a process that strives to be as accurate as possible, not come up with a static answer and stick to it (that’s what religion does). The ability for science to change and adapt i…

But it should make the scientists more circumspect about public policy recommendations. They're not making evidence-based policy, if yesterday's models are evidence and today's models are not. > This is how science works — it is a process that strives to be as accurate as possible, not come up with a static answer and stick to it (that’s what religion does). That's fine. Many public policy advocates throw around the…

But it should make the scientists more circumspect about public policy recommendations.

From the article:

Climate models have been doing a fine job projecting warming for a long time. A recent study compared models as old as 1970 with observations made in the decades since. Some models warmed up too much, and some too little, but 14 of 17 past projections turned out to be consistent with the measured path of global average temperatures.

Scientists can not give definite answers in such complex systems, but it is the closest we can get in extrapolating the trajectory that we are on and computing what the effect of various measures is.

I am not sure what else one could base policy on.

Re: Climate models are running red hot, and scientists don’t know why

#110

Post by ColanR » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

orev wrote: post #37

justadudeama wrote: post #23

I am not a climate change denier by a long shot, but stories like these give a ding to the credibility of climate scientists. > "So we can't throw them out yet." This might be an elementary view of science, but I think there is a danger here that while everyone is making their models, if anyone is an outlier they go and tweak their model to match the patterns of others: 'Klaus Wyser’s group "switched off" some of the…

Tweaking the inputs would help one to identify what factor is causing the difference, which allows you to focus on that. It doesn’t mean you permanently leave it out. And it does not make a credibility issue. This is how science works — it is a process that strives to be as accurate as possible, not come up with a static answer and stick to it (that’s what religion does). The ability for science to change and adapt i…

I think you're missing the point. From how I read the parent comment, the problem they see is how scientists are using the data available to them. When you make a hypothesis, you are supposed to validate or invalidate it based on its predictions - not change the predictions to fit the evidence.

If you change your model (hypothesis) to fit the facts, your model is merely descriptive of the evidence that is already available, and useless for prediction - as proven by the act of changing the model. That's how science works.