Even 50-year-old climate models correctly predicted global warming • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #81

bitlax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we convince China and India to lessen their CO2 production in any meaningful way?

India and China are not against fighting climate change together. What they need is fairness. CO2-equivivalents per capita is the fair measure stick (maybe adjusted to imported and exported co2eq) Government level climate skepticism is mainly problem in Anglo-Saxon countries. China and India are enemies and competitors but they work together in energy sector. They are trying to push renewables and nuclear. It's just…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by droithomme » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:01 AM UTC

bhk wrote: post #70

rsynnott wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s _nearly_ an urban myth. Some people did say we were due an ice age, but in the “within the next few millennia” range of accuracy, not ‘any day now’. Basically, it’s a good story, but that’s all.

"Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. ... If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. ``A major climatic change would force…

I too heard back then about how scientists were nearly unanimous in their consensus.

I wonder how old these people are swearing that we are wrong and hallucinating. Most of them were undoubtedly born long after these events.

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

#113

Post by bduerst » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:02 AM UTC

bitlax wrote: post #53

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…

How do we convince China and India to lessen their CO2 production in any meaningful way?

China is the largest green energy producer in the world, doubling the output of the U.S.

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

#114

Post by chimprich » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:02 AM UTC

ccsnags wrote: post #83

nickysielicki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It’s not the cooperation that’s the issue. Every country can come together for the Olympics. It’s the cost. Green energy and co2 emissions reduction needs to have a cheaper price point to be globally adopted. If being green meant being more efficient and cost reduction it would be a no brainer. This is the challenge of green tech. We have to create the alternative. No one is willing to jump in a lifeboat made out of…

> If being green meant being more efficient and cost reduction it would be a no brainer.

The studies indicate that it's a lot cheaper to avert climate change than to deal with the consequences. So, economically speaking, it is a no-brainer.

> Politics isn’t how we will get out of this, imho. Science and engineering is the key.

We mostly have the technological means now to deal with the issue, but politics are the impediment. We can't convince people to do things we know are the sane way forward.

Technological improvements will help if they come through, but it's madness to bank the future of our civilisation on future breakthroughs that may or may not happen.

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

#115

Post by geekone » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #97

merpnderp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just a Newsweek cover story. There were still major news cycles on the coming ice age in the early 80's.

The ice age hysteria was big in the 70s as well. I don't know what year it started but 70s through 80s climate scientists were saying a global ice age was all but certain, based on sound science and those who disagreed were science haters and all around bad people. Interesting the guy noting this historical fact above has been flagged and censored and this subthread removed. The truth isn't allowed to be known on HN.

Can you provide some source to this truth you're asserting?

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

#116

Post by daenz » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

take_a_breath wrote: post #104

daenz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Where is the story here though? The motive here is the "trust climate scientists now because they've been right about everything all along" narrative. There's no other reason for it.

The motive could be “think twice before dismissing climate scientists because they have a pretty good track record.” Your interpretation seems to display the exact bias you are attributing to others.

The bias I'm suggesting is an appeal to authority, and you'll have to be more clear on how I'm displaying that, since I am neither suggesting I am an expert, nor am I showing off my long history of "being right" about other things.

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

#117

Post by mistermann » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

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…

> Standard conservative responses

Standard, according to?

In case you're wondering what my point is, consider the possibility that from a human psychology perspective, comments like this may be harmful to your cause, despite being popular among like minded people.

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

#118

Post by mturmon » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:06 AM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #59

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…

Yeah, this could be survivorship bias: https://motls.blogspot.com/2017/03/selection-of-climate-mode... As someone who's written basic fluid dynamics codes, I'm blown away by the complexity of climate models. The errors I ran into in debugging my relatively straightforward codes were incredibly subtle. Like pressures, velocities still "looking right" but still being wrong, due to numerical viscosity and other artifact…

This blog post is highly misleading and poorly-informed. The author of it does not seem to know that climate scientists do test their models against reality, leading him/her to waste a lot of words explaining how cargo cult science is bad, and how overfitting is being done, etc. These points are valid in the abstract, but don't represent how real climate science works.

Amazingly, the author at one point says:

"In proper science, the different theories are bloodily competing with each other."

as a contrast to climate science, where supposedly these models are just peacefully cooperating to raise more funds. Anyone who has been in the middle of a conference where people with competing models are comparing results (to each other and to observations) knows how off-base this is.

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

#119

Post by svara » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:07 AM UTC

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…

So, you dismiss this work based on your speculation on what the authors could in principle have done wrong?

There would actually be substance to your comment if you could point us to the models the authors didn't consider.

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

#120

Post by m0zg » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 1:07 AM UTC

That's not "prediction". Prediction is when you say something will happen and then it does, at least somewhat reliably. Better yet, if you have some skin in the game, such as your scientific reputation. I.e. if you say there won't be any polar bears by 2020, their population better not quadruple to thwart your prognostications.

https://fee.org/articles/the-myth-that-the-polar-bear-popula...

It's very easy to find a model that predicts this retrospectively. It's also completely worthless. Predicting the future is much harder.

That's my main beef with climate science: not only do they do this kind of hand picking retroactively and claim they're able to "predict", they also sometimes go back and _tweak the input data_ to fit the models better, or make it up entirely where coverage is inadequate. This is not how science is done in any other field. This also doesn't feel like it's being treated as an existential threat would be treated, in terms of scientific rigor. I understand it's a very complex problem, sure, but that doesn't give you a license to take arbitrary liberties with scientific method or ground truth data.