Climate Scientists Encounter Limits of Computer Models, Bedeviling Policy (wsj.com) 219
magzteel shares a report: For almost five years, an international consortium of scientists was chasing clouds, determined to solve a problem that bedeviled climate-change forecasts for a generation: How do these wisps of water vapor affect global warming? They reworked 2.1 million lines of supercomputer code used to explore the future of climate change, adding more-intricate equations for clouds and hundreds of other improvements. They tested the equations, debugged them and tested again. The scientists would find that even the best tools at hand can't model climates with the sureness the world needs as rising temperatures impact almost every region. When they ran the updated simulation in 2018, the conclusion jolted them: Earth's atmosphere was much more sensitive to greenhouse gases than decades of previous models had predicted, and future temperatures could be much higher than feared -- perhaps even beyond hope of practical remedy. "We thought this was really strange," said Gokhan Danabasoglu, chief scientist for the climate-model project at the Mesa Laboratory in Boulder at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. "If that number was correct, that was really bad news." At least 20 older, simpler global-climate models disagreed with the new one at NCAR, an open-source model called the Community Earth System Model 2, or CESM2, funded mainly by the U.S. National Science Foundation and arguably the world's most influential climate program. Then, one by one, a dozen climate-modeling groups around the world produced similar forecasts. "It was not just us," Dr. Danabasoglu said.
The scientists soon concluded their new calculations had been thrown off kilter by the physics of clouds in a warming world, which may amplify or damp climate change. "The old way is just wrong, we know that," said Andrew Gettelman, a physicist at NCAR who specializes in clouds and helped develop the CESM2 model. "I think our higher sensitivity is wrong too. It's probably a consequence of other things we did by making clouds better and more realistic. You solve one problem and create another." Since then the CESM2 scientists have been reworking their climate-change algorithms using a deluge of new information about the effects of rising temperatures to better understand the physics at work. They have abandoned their most extreme calculations of climate sensitivity, but their more recent projections of future global warming are still dire -- and still in flux. As world leaders consider how to limit greenhouse gases, they depend heavily on what computer climate models predict. But as algorithms and the computer they run on become more powerful -- able to crunch far more data and do better simulations -- that very complexity has left climate scientists grappling with mismatches among competing computer models.
The scientists soon concluded their new calculations had been thrown off kilter by the physics of clouds in a warming world, which may amplify or damp climate change. "The old way is just wrong, we know that," said Andrew Gettelman, a physicist at NCAR who specializes in clouds and helped develop the CESM2 model. "I think our higher sensitivity is wrong too. It's probably a consequence of other things we did by making clouds better and more realistic. You solve one problem and create another." Since then the CESM2 scientists have been reworking their climate-change algorithms using a deluge of new information about the effects of rising temperatures to better understand the physics at work. They have abandoned their most extreme calculations of climate sensitivity, but their more recent projections of future global warming are still dire -- and still in flux. As world leaders consider how to limit greenhouse gases, they depend heavily on what computer climate models predict. But as algorithms and the computer they run on become more powerful -- able to crunch far more data and do better simulations -- that very complexity has left climate scientists grappling with mismatches among competing computer models.
By the time the models are accurate (Score:4, Informative)
Re:By the time the models are accurate (Score:4, Insightful)
The damage will be done and we'll be in mitigation/adaptation mode. I've said it before and I'll keep repeating it. Scientists and engineers should be thinking very hard about geoengineering strategies. Like it or not, we're almost certainly going to need them.
I've said it too, but not for the same reasons: Every politician out there has heard of geoengineering and is dumb enough to think that they don't have to do anything today (and risk their careers) because the clever climate scientists will fix it later.
It's ironic that the climate scientists that the deniers are mocking today will be the same climate scientists they call upon to geoengineer that fix for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Same as covid-iots running to the hospital for help by the doctors who they mocked for years.
Same as the fools and villains of most classic Sci-Fi... well, the villains sometimes die before they have a chance to ask for saving.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The damage will be done and we'll be in mitigation/adaptation mode.
Alternatively, we may find out we're systematically underestimating some feedback cycle or overestimating some other effect. I know, that's the optimistic view, and there's no guarantee it's right. That's the problem: we've heard for years "of course there's a problem" so most of us just implicitly believe it. But before we invest trillions addressing it, we should think about how possible it might be that we're getting it wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
...geoengineering...
That's some pretty dangerous thinking when we've just got done reading a summary about how we can't really tell what's going on.
Totally agreed. I also agree that, in the end we're likely to need geoengineering. However I think that's going to be a desperate last gasp hail Mary to try to save the last of the human race. It will almost certainly involve destroying ecosystems over huge amounts of the planet.
This means it all comes down to the same thing. We still no matter what need governments to strongly push change in the way that we get energy. On the one side much less use of fossil fuels for things like transport, mostly replac
Re: (Score:3)
You're right - humans are excellent at adapting to slow change. This one isn't going to be slow. Buckle up buckaroos, cause we're going for a ride.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, thousands of years.
Nope, it was not even 1000 years.
If it doesn't, it will probably never melt at all because the next Milankovich cycle will bring on the next Ice Age before it can melt.
No it wont. With the current CO2 levels there will never be an "ice age" again.
There aren't any rapid changes in climate.
You must be living under a rock. As we are right in the middle of the most rapid climate change except for an asteroid impact.
We have adapted to survive in regions where the annual temperature rang
Re: (Score:2)
>Nope, it was not even 1000 years.
And then, you googled it.
>No it wont. With the current CO2 levels there will never be an "ice age" again.
And then, you googled CO2 levels across planet's history and cross referenced it with ice ages.
>You must be living under a rock. As we are right in the middle of the most rapid climate change except for an asteroid impact.
And then, you googled what caused previous rapid climate changes.
>Simply: nope. Unless you want to claim that the Negev desert has in winte
Re: (Score:2)
2010 called. They want they wrong models back. Globally more deserts have been shrinking than increasing. Heck your bosses at Chinese Communist Party played their part in that one, though they were heck of a less successful than Indians for example.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you seen canals and irrigation systems in places like modern Egypt, where they literally wrestled a lot of marginal land from the desert in the last century? Have you seen Californian agriculture in what used to be borderline desert? Have you seen the massive Chinese project to move water from chronically flooded south to dry north?
We used to move when rivers dried up. Nowadays, we actually build massive irrigation systems. Technology advances.
Re: (Score:2)
"Don't Look Up" never had a scene where a "skeptic" argued that doing anything about the asteroid could be a dangerous mistake because scientists didn't know exactly what point of Earth it would strike, and yet here we are. Too bad, you could've made a cameo!
Re: (Score:2)
"Don't Look Up" never had a scene where a "skeptic" argued that doing anything about the asteroid could be a dangerous mistake because scientists didn't know exactly what point of Earth it would strike, and yet here we are. Too bad, you could've made a cameo!
That's a terrible comparison. If you think purposely making changes that might affect the climate in order to counteract changes that might be affecting the climate, when we can't model any of it correctly is a good idea... Well, I don't. At least not yet.
Re: (Score:3)
The mendacious and ridiculous part of what you're saying is the idea that we're uncertain of whether CO2 is affecting the climate, and that we "can't model any of it correctly" when in fact we know it's happening and that it's somewhere between extremely bad and unstoppably catastrophic, which is why I think I made a good comparison. We know damn well the asteroid is going to smash the hell out of the planet and should start a deflection mission immediately even if we don't know the details of just how bad
Re:By the time the models are accurate (Score:5, Informative)
That's some pretty dangerous thinking when we've just got done reading a summary about how we can't really tell what's going on.
No, we've just got done reading a summary where the Wall Street Journal, a notorious "business-oriented" opinion source (where "business oriented" translates to "please don't do anything about global warming"), tries to pump up uncertainty.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what the article said. It said the newly revised models have problems. They are being fixed. And the measures of global temperatures continue to rise, regardless of your inability to read and comprehend.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what the article said. It said the newly revised models have problems. They are being fixed. And the measures of global temperatures continue to rise, regardless of your inability to read and comprehend.
But we're going to model changes that we might purposely make correctly, no problem?
Re: (Score:2)
We can't even summon up the political will to do point source carbon sequestration much less atmospheric sequestration which costs something like an order of magnitude more. This is like a prisoner's dilemma game where everyone has been snitching for two generations. No one wants to assume the financial burden unless everyone assumes the financial burden and that cannot happen while industry is continually lobbying hard to keep major players from doing it.
We've had the tech for a long time to deal with this
Modelling Climate Change really is a hard problem (Score:5, Informative)
This might be related to how current climate models don't predict the kinds of extreme weather events we're already experiencing.
Rather than me paraphrasing I'll just point you at one of Sabine Hossenfelder's excellent videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
No-one is being willfully wrong, this is a case of the science being continously developed. Don't be surprised by more stories about "we were wrong, now the best indications are that...".
Re: (Score:2)
This might be related to how current climate models don't predict the kinds of extreme weather events we're already experiencing.
I wonder why that might be...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Modelling Climate Change really is a hard probl (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's more like chaotic equations don't necessarily have simple solutions. In some places there are attractors of various strengths, but not over most of the range.
It's really unreasonable to expect that all problems will be stated precisely enough to determine what the answer should be. One doesn't expect to predict the results of rolling a die, even if one can predict (pretty well) the average result of rolling a hundred dice.
What's significant here is that really small changes can have really large effects. And we can't predict which way things will twist when we get near the boundary conditions. Which is what we should have expected anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
Ultimately, this is Popper vs. Bayes. Do you insist on falsifiability as the answer to the demarcation problem, or do you rely on statistics to as a valid way to hedge your bets?
Of course, the problem with the bayesian view is the whole idea of stochastic systems - if you have a perfect model, but can't get the start conditions down to the nth decimal point, you simply cannot predict reliably, either with accuracy or precision.
In the end, until we agree on what demarcates between "science" and "pseudo-scie
Re:Modelling Climate Change really is a hard probl (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm understanding your point correctly, I should clarify that I don't think "data science" is "pseudo-science". I think it should be called what it actually is. "Intuition-based mathematical modelling". Word "science" should not be included in it in any shape or form, because it fundamentally isn't science nor is it pseudo-science.
It's simply a completely separate tool of expanding knowledge base of humanity, that is far less consistent and far more error prone than tools like science, but can be applied to ultimately beneficial ends as long as the problems with it are understood and corrected for.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that people see "data science", think it's related to science and/or is as reliable as science, which results in catastrophic failures in their conclusions based on this misunderstanding. Because conclusions derived from data science are nothing like conclusions that are derived from scientific process.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm agreeing with you as hard as I can.
Yes... (Score:2)
Data science and modeling should be religion to the stupid masses; they can not grasp the differences or how science works. They were / are just fine with BS in other aspects of life and for most of human existence, they were fine with complete fabrications in place of provable fact, logic, and observation.
Can't we attack religion like we do science for it's contradictions, flaws, failures? At least all forms of science work towards discovering reality.
BIG MONEY isn't threatened by religion, so it can cont
Re: (Score:3)
Ya, I'm sure the scientists would never think to test their models against actual conditions. Maybe you could tell them.
Re: (Score:3)
You cannot test models that predict distant future now. You can only test them by observing the future. This is why intuition has to fill this gap.
And almost all such models have been proven wrong in the future that they sought to predict. That's the point of the story above in fact.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What a load of bullshit.
You collect a massive amount of data and then come up with a model that is consistent with that data. You then use the model to predict new data before it is collected. When the model turns out to be wrong enough (outside acceptable error margins) you try to understand what was wrong with the model and fix it.
This is science.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's funny to me that you are literally posting in the story where a man who's primary job it is to do modelling fundamentally agrees with me. And you call it bullshit anyway, and back it up with... nothing.
Because again, science is a procedure of generating a hypothesis, and then repeatedly and rigorously testing it to see if it survives the challenge. There is no way to do this in data science. You cannot repeatedly test a complex system model attempting to predict remote future... without seeing the remo
Re: (Score:2)
The science is pretty simple. Hypothesis, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Experiment, shine some light through a glass container full of CO2, measure the temperature and compare with a glass container with other gas such as nitrogen. The experiments were done in the 19th century and consistently showed that yes, CO2 is a green house gas.
The next hypothesis was that increasing the CO2 content of the atmosphere would increase the temperature. Hard to experiment on the whole world so the prediction was that as the CO
Re: (Score:3)
Excellent. Now, comes the thing we actually try to model, rather than the red herring.
"How will the future climate change, and how much will it cost for humanity to adapt to it?"
Because that is the fundamental question being modeled across the world when we are talking about modelling climate change. Cure should not be worse than the disease. That requires both fundamental understanding of the disease and the cure.
And if you read the story above, these are people building the models telling you the exact sa
Re: (Score:2)
People openly projecting their vices on others is both funny and sad.
Always err on the side of caution (Score:2)
Remember when working with models: always err on the side of caution. Assume that your estimates of breaking strength needed are the minimum breaking strength you need to target. If you have error bars in your results, assume that the actual numbers are towards the end that produces the least desirable outcome. Remember this, an optimist is usually disappointed when things go worse than expected while a pessimist is usually pleasantly surprised when things go better than predicted (which is also an easier p
Quite a Mouthful (Score:5, Insightful)
What is really being said here? As near I can tell, it's: our models were wrong, we rewote them, they're still wrong, only now in a different way. Stay tuned.
Re: (Score:2)
What is really being said here? As near I can tell, it's: our models were wrong, we rewote them, they're still wrong, only now in a different way. Stay tuned.
But *we are still right*.
Re: (Score:2)
What is really being said here? As near I can tell, it's: our models were wrong, we rewote them, they're still wrong, only now in a different way. Stay tuned.
It depends on the quantity that you want to consider "wrong". No, the models are not off by 100% and so climate change isn't real. Much more likely, the models are off by a small amount.
Re:Quite a Mouthful (Score:4, Insightful)
Not precisely. The refined models are predicting really horrible results, but we don't think the actual results will be really that bad, so we're looking for how to fine tune them so they aren't so catastrophic.
This isn't really implausible, but it's certainly not very comforting. Perhaps the clouds will reflect more UV than the model predicts, so things won't warm up quite as much. (That's a correction made to a model around a decade ago, and they decided that the correction was actually correct.) I don't know the details of this one, but the summary indicates that it has something to do with the behavior of cloud wisps.
It's really a mistake to believe in these models as "this is what will happen". One should think of them as "This is an alarm bell. DANGER. Don't get too close.". They're modeling a chaotic system, and when you approach various boundaries to that kind of system you get behavior that depends on excruciatingly fine details. "The wings of a butterfly" is the traditional way to talk about the kind of detail that you need to know as you approach the boundary, so the real answer is "Don't get near that boundary!!!!"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right!
But we've had 20+ years of
1) it's settled science, we know what we're doing
2) we must take extreme action right now or the world will end in 2012, then 2016, then 2020, then...
And then they realize It's Complicated (R). Will the IPCC still recommend extreme action right now?
Re: (Score:2)
You are an idiot.
2) we must take extreme action right now or the world will end in 2012, then 2016, then 2020, then...
That is a lie. No scientist ever "predicted" anything like that.
assumptions (Score:2)
My dad always said assumptions make an ass out of you and me, ass-u-me.
How Predictive Are the Models? (Score:2)
If anybody knows of such an article, please let me know where to find it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah - if only that had happened.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Good way to get a new toy (Score:2)
Every time I want a new computer I complain that mine can't do the job, and I usually get a new one. I don't see much of a difference between me and the climate scientists.
"Don't Look Up." (Score:2)
The yearly average death toll from changes that have already occurred now runs in the thousands, with heat waves, floods, fires, and associated disasters occurring on levels found to b
Re: (Score:2)
Over and over, fossil fuels made cities almost unlivable at times, forcing governments to pass laws dialing them back in this way or that: Getting rid of lead from gasoline, capturing more soot from smokestacks, mandating catalytic converters, and so on.
They
Re: (Score:2)
they are not elected. They are an international set of advisors. Probably appointed by their local science councils.
Who? Rupert Murdoch. (Score:4, Insightful)
Where these people elected, democratically, and by whom, exactly?
This is a Wall Street Journal report. Rupert Murdoch selected the people who wrote the article.
And he selected ones that follow his agenda of casting doubt on climate science.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
New news item: glaciers are melting faster than predicted. Many poor countries rely upon glacier melt. The fish in the Atlantic are moving North and South to escape the warm water, so much so that fisherman on the East Coast are complaining they have to use too much expensive fuel to get to them. The Arctic will soon be ice free in the summers. Siberia is suffering forest fires. The American West and Central America is in an unprecedented drought.
Nope, no global warming.
Re:Who? Rupert Murdoch. (Score:4, Informative)
Of course I didn't say "no global warming" I said no manmade global warming.
The understanding of the greenhouse effect is so well grounded in well-understood physical principles that it would be very hard to believe that the case for man-made global warming is wrong but some secret cabal is suppressing the truth. I'd want to see some very solid scientific work before crediting that case.
The WSJ is working hard to make relatively small differences between models seem catastrophic, but the question is about the range of warming, not whether it exists at all.
It would be much more convincing if alarmists didn't exaggerate and lie so much.
I agree that the catastrophizing doesn't help, but, sorry, the deniers have been flat-out lying for decades, so it's a little hard to be sympathetic.
The fear mongers [Re: Who? Rupert Murdoch.] (Score:3)
I think a lot of the denial is just blow-harding to fight the catastrophizers.
I think you have it backwards. The catastrophizing got ramping up because people were getting increasingly frustrated with the (fossil-fuel incited) propaganda saying "it's nothing, don't worry, it probably isn't even real."
The reality is most just have an issue with the politics of fear intended to shutdown thinking and get people to take whatever insane regulation they want to ram up the public's ass.
The fear-mongering about "the gumment is just using this to increase their power!" is coming from the denialists. What the fossil fuel companies discovered is that merely attacking the science wasn't really working, so they funded libertarian think-tanks to make an attack on the "this i
The scientific literature, of course [Re:Who?...] (Score:3)
If incontrovertible proof existed that the models we have been using are all crap, where exactly would you hear about this?
Such proof doesn't exist, but if it did, I would look for it in the scientific literature, of course.
Not the popular press, and definitely not the Wall Street Journal.
I know that there are conspiracy theorists like you who work hard to convince people that scientists are liars and the scientific literature is fraudulent", but turns out they are not.
Re: (Score:2)
> With a look of horror on her face she said "Oh no. This is terrible".
And then, everybody clapped, and Albert Einstein handed back his Nobel Peace Prize.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not elect bureaucrats. You elect politicians who oversee and make decisions that bureaucrats offer to politicians and implement. This is why long term political class that is in tune with needs of its people as a whole is so important and why liberal democracies, once established for a few generations are as stable as a form of governance as they are.
And this is why the current state is so destabilizing. Upper and upper middle class are now so busy with their struggle for status in the world of massi
Re:"an international consortium of scientists" (Score:4, Funny)
You're making too much sense. Expect to be downmodded :)
Re:"an international consortium of scientists" (Score:5, Insightful)
Visible in everything from accusations of *isms and *phobias currently in vogue in upper class circles directed primarily at lower classes, i.e. "these protesting truckers are racist, sexist, homophobic"
And then...
Global warming alarmism isn't the goal. It's simply means to an end. To a very human end of status seeking.
Your complaint comes across as vague and emotional. A summary of the sentiment of a large swath of right-leaning people. The only specific I see in there is the implication that climate change doesn't matter, which is a bit of a hot take (pun intended) for the usually science-minded Slashdot.
I'm not saying your post is entirely invalid, but I am saying that it doesn't deserve a 5, Insightful.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Your complaint comes across as vague and emotional. A summary of the sentiment of a large swath of right-leaning people.
If you see "vague" and "emotional" only in right-leaning people, then you should check your bias. It's universal.
The only specific I see in there is the implication that climate change doesn't matter
There two specific claims that you missed in your rush to post. One is that "Ultimately, we'll almost certainly be fine. We as species are best at adapting to slow change in our environment." Another is "Global warming alarmism [has the goal of] status seeking." There was a whole paragraph written supporting the latter, I'm not sure how you missed it.
Re: "an international consortium of scientists" (Score:2)
TL;DR climate change denial bullshit
Re: (Score:2)
This is the religious mind at work. "Conclusions reached do not align with mind, therefore arguments are heresy".
Re: "an international consortium of scientists" (Score:2)
I'm not saying your post is entirely invalid, but I am saying that it doesn't deserve a 5, Insightful.
Bots. Certain topics attract strange moderation behavior, it's a pattern here.
Re: (Score:2)
This is a "just so" story that ignore the actual history of science. The scientific question was settled (meaning that the burden of proof was established) decades before before it got on any political radar screens.
Re: (Score:2)
while successfully adapting to hottest parts around the equator as they heated up in the wake of the ending of the said Ice Age. ... the Sahara dried out and consequently heated up. Other areas, too. Global warming basically means: the cold areas get pretty warm. And: central continental masses, like central north America or Siberia get pretty warm: in summer.
No the equator did not heat up. You have an fucked up idea what an "ice age" is
Re: (Score:2)
I know that as someone who didn't even know that Northern Europe still gets winters that are colder than -20C in winter, you also fundamentally do not understand that humans like all species adapt to the extremes, not the averages. Because it's the extremes that damage you.
So the statement above is indeed about adaptation to the extremes, something as self evident as the fact that Northern Europe does in fact get winters colder than -40C even with global warming.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, elected officials are certainly scientifically trained enough for making climate predictions. By the way, I hear your doctor was not elected to make medical decisions. Better go to your local elected officials for that.
Re: (Score:2)
One way or another humans are doomed. Too many being born, too many resources required, too many weapons, too important to have green rather than being green. We will change our ways certainly, but human nature dictates that it wont be until disaster is at hand, and then it will have been 100 years too late. If you think we're fine, just wait another 50, 100 years. Eventually the pain will come. 10-20 billion living comfortably without environmental destruction doesnt seem plausible.
This is how I see it. We've got some serious problems and everyone wants to fix them in ways that just cause other problems.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
you're a member of the most adaptable species on the planet. We're going to be fine.
Re: (Score:2)
you're a member of the most adaptable species on the planet. We're going to be fine.
The human species survived the bubonic plague pandemic in the 14th century and multiple world wars in the 20th century, but it wasn't smooth sailing. I have never seen any climate change models showing the planet being uninhabitable for humans any time soon, but that really isn't the concern. The concern what happens to coastal settlements as water rises, and the amount of arable land we will still have in 100 years as world population caps at around 10 billion (among many other worries). Billions of humans
Re: (Score:2)
It'll be OK, though. Rich people will be able to set themselves up with breeding colonies of the prettiest people to keep themselves afloat while millions upon billions die horribly or live short, brutal lives outside the compounds of the elite. GO TEAM!
Re: (Score:2)
The concern what happens to coastal settlements as water rises
What's the prediction for 2100 ... 1 meter of rise?... So costal populations relocate to higher ground over the course of a century. Not the end of the world.
, and the amount of arable land we will still have in 100 years as world population caps at around 10 billion (among many other worries).
Climate change increases not decreases aggregate arable land. The big question will continue to be how lands are managed locally. In many areas of the world lands are being severely mismanaged and the predictable consequences are being blamed on global warming.
world population caps at around 10 billion (among many other worries). Billions of humans dying of starvation or being forced from their homes isn't going to wipe out the species, but it is still pretty horrible.
The more demand there is for food the more money is spent on its production. Currently US pop
Re: (Score:2)
Climate change increases not decreases aggregate arable land.
And how do you come to that retarded idea?
It most certainly does not do that in countries like Germany and Thailand.
In many areas of the world lands are being severely mismanaged and the predictable consequences are being blamed on global warming.
Droughts, because of lack of rain or snow, are caused by global warming. Not by "mismanagement".
Re: (Score:2)
In 100 years time you can expect food to be produced far more efficiently in terms of labor, water and land use and be far more available than it is today.
That assumption is not only plain stupid but utterly retarded. The increase you mention: spends under 1/10th of DPI on food a trend that has ticked down continuously for decades is bought by the abuse and mismanagement you mention: lands are being severely mismanaged
How much more mismanagement do you want to tolerate to get a short term increase in yie
Re: (Score:2)
The funny thing is that even if that isn't true, our best chance for adaptation is to believe that it is :)
Re: (Score:2)
FTFY
Those who survive the changes will eventually be fine.
Future may not be so grim [Re:Future looks grim] (Score:2)
One way or another humans are doomed. Too many being born, too many resources required, too many weapons, too important to have green rather than being green.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
your points in order:
Too many being born:
Might be a solved problem. Birth rates across the globe are dropping. This is, to a large extent, a consequence of the diffusion of birth control tech into the world at large.
too many resources required:
A technology problem: we need to develop technology to use less resources, but keep our standards of living
too many weapons:
The imminent threat of nuclear war was the big fear... in the previous century. Strangely, nuclear weapons have not been use
Re: (Score:3)
Remember when h0m3rs1mps0n predicted a new ice age by 2010? I don't know why he even bothers to post, he's been wrong so many times.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, you don't think made up anecdotes are good evidence?
Who is "they" [Re:The models are wrong.] (Score:5, Informative)
Who is "they"?
The predictions by the actual scientists can be found in the old IPCC reports, all of which are archived online: https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ [www.ipcc.ch]
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty much by definition, all models are wrong. It does not mean they are not useful.
Look at models that predict hurriccan trajectories. They are fairly inaccurate, but they are still useful for the purpose of telling which areas to evacuate, which ones to shelter in place, etc.
Look at weather forecasting, it is also fairly inaccurate, but it is still fairly useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Look at models that predict hurriccan trajectories. They are fairly inaccurate,
That might have been true 30 years ago.
Next hurricane, I advice you to watch TV. The trajectories are usually 99% correct. There is not really anything to predict. It is basically simply physics. What is a bit more of a problem is the question how quickly it spreads out and/or rains out. That includes wind speeds.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why I bother responding to a drive-by snark from an anonymous coward, but no: every climate model ever made starts with the solar input and understands that Earth's climate is a system.
As for the "driven by the galactic circuit" thing, well, no. Orbital period of the sun around the galactic center is 230 million Earth years. Even if there were some reason to think there was some effect on climate (and there isn't), we're talking here about changes many orders of magnitude faster than that.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Yeah but "they" said Einstein was wrong, but actually he was very clever.
2. They say that our esteemed OP is wrong, therefore he is very clever.
With that kind of person, there's a huge amount of ego wrapped up in going against the established knowledge because in his mind it is proof that he's as smart as Einstein. It doesn't matter that pretty much everything in his mind from reasoning to historical and recent facts are completely wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't Obama have a house on Nantucket? Another island. Ironically, an island that is actually a moraine resulting from the last glaciation. Those boobs from Atlantis warmed the climate up 6 degrees C and flooded themselves, Dogger Bank, Beringia, and a good part of Indonesia.
And Kerry hasn't given up his private jet yet either. On the other hand Jeff Bezos just bought a big-ass sailboat. He is ready for whatever may come.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, John Kerry is worth $250 million. Not bad for someone who spent their time as a public servant.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, John Kerry is worth $250 million. Not bad for someone who spent their time as a public servant.
He married Teresa Heinz. It's mostly Ketchup money.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
Why itâ(TM)s still there, same beach same place same ocean level.
Your arguments are faulty in two respects. 1) We have empirical non-modeled data that proves that sea levels have risen in Honolulu. We have tide gauges and satellites measuring this shit. So it's weird that you would base your argument on something that's easily proven using simple tools.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.... [noaa.gov]
2) Your baseline argument is a strawman. The Outrigger Waikiki is like 8' above sea level. The models are predicting about 2' of sea level rise over the next 100 years.
That's like sayin
Re: (Score:2)
If you're implying that "that much code is bound to have bugs", then I agree. They're modeling something really complex, though, and it's my guess that 2M LOC indicates that their model is oversimplified.
If, instead, you're trying to imply that the world weather system could be adequately modeled with a lot less code, I invite you to try to do so. I predict you'll fail a lot more clearly than this model did.
(Yes, this model is clearly wrong. But you make the best prediction you can. You don't expect to
Re: (Score:2)
I think we are royally screwed if we need models with more than 2 million lines of code to accurately model climate because pretty much anything could throw those models off.
I am not a fan of complex or large models, much less models that no one person, or a small group of people could fully understand and / or independently replicate.
Multiply that by a thousand if the model also requires precise calibration to generate good outputs.
I would sooner trust a regression model for climate than I would a 2 milli
Re: (Score:2)
The model is not 2million LOC.
The whole system with pulled in libraries is.
BTW: the space shuttle had about 2million LOC, too. Computer wise: it worked just fine! (2 bugs found and fixed in production).
Re: (Score:2)
The world is a big place with lots of interactions in special cases, like how black is this mountain side, and how well does it retain heat.
If you're expecting the climate model to be correct, you're expecting more than it can possibly deliver. What it can do is tell you "This is something to be avoided" and "If you move into this section of the projection, bad things will happen". It can't tell you the precise boundaries. Not if you're after a livable climate. It *CAN* tell you that when you approach t
Re: (Score:2)
I work on an enterprise application that's probably about that big. The only figure I'm confident of is the server side of the GUI, which is mostly what I'm responsible for, and that's about 0.5 million LOC. The rest is bigger, but I don't know how much bigger.
Refactoring is improving the design or implementation of a program without changing its behaviour. If the program produced the wrong results, and you change it to produce the right results, or (as seems likely in this case) results that are less wrong
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how JWs are these days, now that it's clearly past the absolute latest possible date for their prediction of the end of time.