tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post979624561655011339..comments2024-03-18T15:45:32.866-04:00Comments on bensozia: Fake News and the Truth ProblemJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-55347448689928783382016-12-26T15:55:14.513-05:002016-12-26T15:55:14.513-05:00Will it be fake news? :-)
Will it be fake news? :-)<br />Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-63094426492881863602016-12-26T14:49:06.036-05:002016-12-26T14:49:06.036-05:00I know a quite a bit about climate science, since ...I know a quite a bit about climate science, since it is important for my profession. And I know two real experts who are very much up on the latest science, with whom I talk on a regular basis, and they feel the same way I do: the predictions are guesses. They both think that rising CO2 concentrations should probably lead to rising temperatures, but they don't think our models are good enough to generate the detailed predictions regularly cited in the literature.<br /><br />No existing model can be run backwards to get us the climate we have know happened in the past.<br /><br />No existing model can explain why CO2 concentrations began to rise at the end of the last Ice Age. It might be the sun, but then again it might not. (http://benedante.blogspot.com/2015/08/carbon-dioxide-and-end-of-last-ice-age.html)<br /><br />No existing model can explain why the rise in global temperatures slowed so much from 1945 to 1970, a time when CO2 concentrations were skyrocketing.<br /><br />Given these uncertainties, it seems like hubris to says things like "global temperatures will rise 2 degrees in this century" or whatever. Nobody is going to get any argument from me about the wisdom of phasing out fossil fuels, since for all we know the temperature rise might actually be much worse than predicted, instead of better. <br /><br />But I think making detailed predictions is dangerous, because they will open science up to mockery if the details turn out to be wrong.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-4114825324047693702016-12-26T11:29:50.624-05:002016-12-26T11:29:50.624-05:00"I think the scientific community is making a...<i>"I think the scientific community is making a terrible mistake by proclaiming the certainty of climate projections that are nothing but educated guesses. As I have said many times, I worry about the effects of filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and wish we would stop this mad experiment, but I think models of the climate future are no more reliable than election polls."</i><br /><br />The terrible mistake is yours, and that of countless other ignorant laypeople who refuse to believe what scientists have been trying to tell them for decades.<br /><br />These are not mere "educated guesses". We have <i><b>5 million years of temperature records from sediment cores.</b></i> We have staggering amounts of data telling us what global temperatures were like over that time period, and how that affected the planet. This is not guesswork - this is cold, hard, overwhelmingly verified, scientific fact.<br /><br />Let's put some things in perspective here.<br /><br />Roughly 20,000 years ago, during the coldest part of the last ice age, much of North America (including where you live in DC) was under a sheet of ice <i><b>half a mile thick</b></i>. At this point, the average global temperature was 4.5 degrees celsius lower than the average temperature of modern times.<br /><br />By the end of this century, without sudden and massive decreases to our global greenhouse emissions which frankly don't look like they're going to happen, we're going to see global temperatures rise <i><b>another</b></i> 4.5 degrees celsius compared to the modern average.<br /><br />In roughly 80 years, the temperature of the planet is going to increase by as much as it did over the course of the previous 20,000 years. Another century after that, it'll happen again, and we're going to see temperatures on par with the cretaceous hothouse, which will literally produce sea level rises of 200+ meters, melt every glacier on the face of the planet, and result in palm trees being able to grow at the poles.<br /><br />Again, this is not conjecture. This is not guesswork. We know exactly how much energy enters the atmosphere from the heat of the sun, and we know exactly how much energy the atmosphere radiates back out into space, and we know exactly how increasing amounts of greenhouse gases reduces the atmosphere's ability to radiate that heat, and consequently we know exactly how much extra heat the planet is going to retain if we keep dumping these gases into the atmosphere.<br /><br />Historical temperature change has been slow and linear, and even then, it completely reshaped the face of the planet. We are now approaching <b><i>exponential rates of change</i></b> on a scale multiple orders of magnitude more drastic than anything we've ever seen even the slightest evidence for in all of history.<br /><br />We are racing headlong toward a cliff. We have a few scant decades to stop ourselves plunging over the edge.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com