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

sciencemag.org

61–70 of 242 posts

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

#61

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…

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

#62
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…

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

#63
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…

Your comment contains hypotheticals ("run random models and wait long enough you will always be able to find at least one model that predicted the current observations") that are NOT what the present study did.

As noted in TFA, they looked at 17 forecasts from 14 models and found that the temperature predictions of 10 of them were consistent with what has happened in the meantime. And if you adjust for forcing (CO2, methane) then the predictions improve further.

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

#64
post #53

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?

Lead by example and institute policies that strongly support taking aggressive action. This won't happen while Trump is in office, unfortunately.

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

#65
post #35
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not. There were a small number of scientists that wrote about possibilities of global cooling, but vast majority of scientists were concerned with warming.

Citation needed. Beyond the OP

http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11584/1/2008bams2370%252E1....

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

#66
post #51
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Henri was suggesting to use specific models for specific predictions, he added this note: > Note to reader: I was going to use Arctic sea ice in 2100 as an example, but there probably won’t be any lol

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.

Life will undoubt survive our mistakes.

The question is whether we will. Civilization is a fragile thing.

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

#67
post #51
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Henri was suggesting to use specific models for specific predictions, he added this note: > Note to reader: I was going to use Arctic sea ice in 2100 as an example, but there probably won’t be any lol

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.

We're just a small planet, the universe - even our galaxy - heck, even our very solar system! - will be just fine.

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

#68
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…

>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.

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

#69
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…

They compared both temperature over time and temperature vs forcing. The latter test factors out the "quantity of emissions" which as you say are much harder to predict (geopolitical), so just measures the quality of the climate modelling.

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really true that the scientific concensus was in favor of ice age in the 70s? I have heard people say this before but I have never seen the historical evidence.

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 economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,'' warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, ``because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.''" -- Newsweek, April 28, 1975

Check out the apocalyptic tone of the last paragraph: http://agem.com/GlobalCooling.htm

Not just Newsweek, but Time, the New York Times, and other outlets reported on it.

Elementary school children were taught it. I was one of them.

I read now that meteorologists (this is before "climatologist" was a real thing) were divided on whether there was cooling or warming. (But it seems that they were mostly in agreement that something catastrophic was going to happen!)

This global cooling episode does not teach us that there was a scientific consensus on cooling in the 70s, or that climate research since then is equally unfounded. However, it is a really interesting story.

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