Live data from Hacker News

Do climate models predict extreme weather?

backreaction.blogspot.com

191–200 of 223 posts

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was perfectly fine with the initial take - vaccine once or twice, side effects are rare. Now that it's becoming vaccinate every six months, the outlook of the cumulative probability of side effects doesn't look that good anymore. And, going trough an inflammatory process every six months doesn't seem good on its own, even if the vaccine wouldn't have side effect.

> going trough an inflammatory process every six months Are you claiming this as a universal truth? Or your specific experience? My experience and that of two of my three adult children is that it was like a slight bruise at the injection site for about 24 hours. The other child felt slightly under the weather for a couple of days, similar severity to having a cold. We all had Pfizer. My impression is that my experie…

> My experience and that of two of my three adult children is that it was like a slight bruise at the injection site for about 24 hours. The other child felt slightly under the weather for a couple of days, similar severity to having a cold. We all had Pfizer.

so, an inflammatory response.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#192
post #31
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Climate models model and simulate physical and chemical condition on Earth. Modellers don't know what they say beforehand. Offhandedly portraying scientists and researchers as dishonest and conspirators in every opportunity possible seems the default here.

Models are constantly tweaked to make them more accurate. How do you do that without looking at output and then going back to tweak it?

You add more physical parameters. Climate models are not parameter fitting from the past data, they are physical models. Of course you test them with old data too, but they are mainly for verification and controlling for variables that are still missing.

They test these models with other planets too. Set in parameters for Mars or Venus and they precinct pretty well how those climates behave.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> going trough an inflammatory process every six months Are you claiming this as a universal truth? Or your specific experience? My experience and that of two of my three adult children is that it was like a slight bruise at the injection site for about 24 hours. The other child felt slightly under the weather for a couple of days, similar severity to having a cold. We all had Pfizer. My impression is that my experie…

> My experience and that of two of my three adult children is that it was like a slight bruise at the injection site for about 24 hours. The other child felt slightly under the weather for a couple of days, similar severity to having a cold. We all had Pfizer. so, an inflammatory response.

How is that bad? A vaccine is designed to cause a response by the immune system; this is certainly not pleasant, but exactly the trade against the potentially much worse effects of an actual infection.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#194
post #76
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Pick a spot offshore and measure the water depth, to the centimeter. Moment to moment, the precise value varies chaotically due to countless transient phenomena, from the direction and strength of the wind to the heading of the last boat to come anywhere near it. However the tides can be forecast years out. Just because weather is chaotic and unpredictable doesn't mean that climate is.

>Sure. Pick a spot offshore and measure the water depth, to the centimeter. Moment to moment, the precise value varies chaotically due to countless transient phenomena, from the direction and strength of the wind to the heading of the last boat to come anywhere near it. That's a good analogy of my skepticism for AGW. We are saying temps went up 1c over 100 years, taking daily measurements, and comparing them to ice c…

This is trivially falsifiable by a simple google search - "ice core resolution". You may want to reassess the general trustworthiness of your information sources.

Incidentally, the evidence for AGW, and indeed geologically sudden climate change without precedent, goes far beyond ice cores. Very little in science in predicated on lone observations that can't be cross checked. We have a wide variety of information sources that all paint a coherent picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record

Measuring historical temperatures is not unlike measuring distance. We know, for instance, that the Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away. How can we possibly make such a precise assertion so confidently? We started by measuring small, earthly distances, and used those to triangulate larger ones. We worked our way up the distance scale by a series of inferences. Thus, we built up a model of how things look at various distances. It's more or less the same type of methodology - yet mysteriously, the anti-AGW pundits don't seem to have a problem with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder

Climate scientists, believe it or not, know what they're doing. It is the height of arrogance to flippantly dismiss their efforts simply because you personally don't understand them, because you can't be bothered to research even basic things like the resolution of ice core data.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I not sure it can be considered a lie though Fauci later said that the reason they advised against masks was because of fears of a PPE shortage. So either Fauci admitted that his earlier position was a deception, or his later claim was itself deceptive.

> Fauci later said GP gave an actual quote, can you provide one for this as well?

Fauci admits to lying about masks and explains why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLXttHlUgK8

Maybe you think Fauci changed his mind based on new evidence on mask effectiveness, but he literally says they advised against masks due to a fear of PPE shortages, and not due to changing evidence. So either way he deceived: either he deceived about mask effectiveness thus spreading health misinformation, or he deceived about why he advised against wearing masks thus undermining public trust in his advice.

Fauci admits to moving the goalposts on vaccination rates and explains it's because of his "gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks":

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

I think public health officials like Fauci really shot themselves in the foot by undermining their credibility so early on. Public health officials in a public health crisis should be beyond reproach, but that's not how they've been acting, and continued partisan support of these figures only further deteriorates trust in scientific institutions and journalism.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#196
post #69
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://xkcd.com/2500 I am unable to find any 1982 Exxon prediction that would meander like the line in that graph. The only plot I was able to find is this [1] from this 1982 Exxon report [2], which is just a slightly curved upward rising sketch, not nearly as detailed as in the xkcd graph. > the Exxon model from 1982 I also failed to find any signs of there having been any "1982 Exxon model". What [2] is, is a 39…

Oh right, I misinterpreted the xkcd plot. It's only the single (x)-marked dot in the top right of the graph, that is the Exxon prediction. Not the graph itself.

Perhaps a bit more epistemically humility is in order.

For all of us, myself included.

That said, even highly adversarial climate models greated almost half a century ago have tremendous predictive power.

Large systems are modelable. Not with any degree of precision, of course, but a high degree of accuracy.

Otherwise insurance companies wouldn’t exist.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#197
post #5

One of the things about "extreme weather attribution" that makes me uncomfortable is the asymmetry of it. To be clear: I'm in no way an expert (or even educated) in the area. To give an example. Let's say there's a 1% chance every year that there will be a catastrophic wildfire in some particular area. Now let's say climate change increases a chance of drought in that area. Then we get a wildfire one year and the att…

> No one is going to bother doing an attribution study to say, "Climate change is 20% responsible for the fact that we didn't have a fire this year."

This is not true. In fact, I'm aware of several papers that have made an argument that climate change will lead to more rain in California. They don't appear to be winning the argument but for many years this was a contentious discussion among atmospheric scientists. Academics absolutely do the research you are describing.

Would those papers make their way to mass media or social media discussions? Probably less so. But they are there amongst the communities that matter most in the conversation.

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada they said masks don't work and even make things worse, despite every Asian country using them at the time.

Can you find a source for an actual authority (ideally a health authority) saying that? There’s a similar meme going around the US, but I’ve yet to find any (except one, noted below) health expert who actually said “masks don’t work” rather than “we don’t know that masks work.” The one exception I’ve been able to find was the US Surgeon General Jerome Adams. This seems like a clear example of health authorities shari…

https://torontosun.com/news/national/do-masks-work-dr-tam-st...

From the chief public health officer of Canada who is also a WHO advisor. She's also said other very questionable things (which are all Googleable and which pretty much every Canadian can tell you as it's been a bit of an ongoing scandal, among others...).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Tam

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#199
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sure. Pick a spot offshore and measure the water depth, to the centimeter. Moment to moment, the precise value varies chaotically due to countless transient phenomena, from the direction and strength of the wind to the heading of the last boat to come anywhere near it. That's a good analogy of my skepticism for AGW. We are saying temps went up 1c over 100 years, taking daily measurements, and comparing them to ice c…

Ice core measurements give you a value for each year. You’re looking for changes in the ice that are driven by yearly seasonal changes, notably the periods of summer where the ice received 24hour of sun for weeks. It’s perfectly reasonable to take daily measurements, average them into yearly measurements. Then compare them to yearly averages taken from ice cores. The only reason we can even use ice cores for temperat…

That makes sense and forgive me if I'm ignorant on the subject, willing to learn.

What I am talking about is charts like this from the NOAA: http://www.climate.gov/media/5147

Thes resolution is yearly going back only about 2000 years. Everything beyond that, the resolution is much lower. Where is that data from and don't you see how much "smoother" it is?

Re: Do climate models predict extreme weather?

#200
post #17
post #5

One of the things about "extreme weather attribution" that makes me uncomfortable is the asymmetry of it. To be clear: I'm in no way an expert (or even educated) in the area. To give an example. Let's say there's a 1% chance every year that there will be a catastrophic wildfire in some particular area. Now let's say climate change increases a chance of drought in that area. Then we get a wildfire one year and the att…

Climate change means you can have an extreme drought, followed by a fire, followed by extreme rain then mudslides.

Doesn't that seem wrong on some level? It's like saying climate change will make weather "worse" which seems too anthropocentric.
Post reply on HN