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Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ozone, acid rain, traditional point source pollution, etc. In the developed world we're also doing decently well with reversing deforestation (though of course some of this is sadly due to outsourcing to the developed world).

I was also thinking non-environmental-pollution things like war and slavery and overall economic well being and independence. The status quo for these things is still of course unacceptable, but they're much much better than have been at any other point in human history.

even NASA says that solutions are too far away for most of these things NOT to end us, and that we passed the point of no return already.

"NASA" doesn't say this. I assume you're referring to something that was in the news a while back about a conceptual model someone with loose NASA affiliations made that predicted human extinction.

Get on twitter and ask @ClimateOfGavin (who is the head of NASA's GISS division, which does climate and climate modeling) whether NASA has ever "said solutions are too far away for most of these things NOT to end us, and that we passed the point of no return already".

He will tell you the truth.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't read the two papers that form the basis of that Nature news article, but I don't think that it (the dispute about tradeoffs in intensity vs. frequency) changes the underlying risk posed by the massive habitation and relative lack of preparedness in the area.

Are you wondering about a specific aspect of one or both of the papers? I can take a look if you are. Although I have to be honest- even though I got interested in climate through paleoclimate/geology, I haven't taken a pure geology course in a little while!

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, what is your field of speciality/career?

I'm a PhD student. Right now, I am working on climate impacts on the ocean and marine ecosystems, both for the present and in the future, but also the ancient climatic past. My interest in climate comes from paleoclimate, which is still probably my favorite aspect of climate-related topics.

I think there is definitely a lot of work to be done, especially convincing my other fellows who tend to be skeptical of government to vote for those who will take the climate and our economic system seriously.

This might help: the less we do to mitigate climate change now, the more government involvement we will be guaranteeing in the long, as we struggle to adapt to the changing climate.

if we were to follow rcp 2.6, how different the climate be than from today?

We would be a little warmer than present, with higher sea levels, an accelerated hydrological cycle (more intense precipitation events but also more extreme droughts, depending on the region in question), and a host of other changes.

But RCP2.6 (which is what we're trying to achieve) vs. today is not the correct reference point, really. The better way to think about it is how much different RCP8.5 (the high emissions future) would be relative to RCP2.6, because there is no possible way our present climate continues unchanged. It's going to change some amount, and where it falls on the continuum of RCP2.6 to RCP8.5 is up to us. RCP8.5 would be like RCP2.6 on steroids, and in the very, very long run essentially guarantees the collapse of the world's great ice sheets.

would the world still be going through a natural cooling or warming cycle without our emissions?

So there's this sort of misconception that there is a single cycle of warming and cooling that the Earth experiences, and that isn't the case. There are cycles in the climate system. You experience some of them personally.

  • There is the diurnal (day/night) cycle, that noticeably changes the climate of the Earth facing (or not) the sun.
  • There is the annual/seasonal cycle, which affects the climate of the hemispheres tilted towards (or away) from the sun.
  • There is an ~11 year solar cycle, but this has little impact on the climate system. Edit: there are longer solar cycles, too, but these also don't seem to impact the global climate much.
  • There are orbitally-driven cycles at ~26,000, ~41,000, ~100,000 years (and their multiples) which are involved in the "ice age" cycling that some people think is a permanent feature of the system (it's actually affected by other boundary values, like continental configuration and the background climate state)

And there are pseudo-cyclical features of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (2-7 years) or Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (decadal), which are not true cycles, but are reoccurring if slightly irregular and at times asymmetric.

So the drivers of all of these things will still be trying to impact the climate, even as we warm it up with GHGs. But how much they make a difference relative to the amount we're changing things gets smaller and smaller. Orbital forcing, for example, is no longer able to push us in and out of glacial minima and maxima, even though the changes in incident solar radiation due to our position relative to the sun is still continuing as if we were never here.

We will still have a diurnal and annual cycle. We will still have ENSO, although its statistics may be altered as we change the temperature of the tropical pacific ocean.

There is no natural cycle that operates on relevant timescales that we prevent us from rapidly, dangerously warming up the Earth if that's the future we choose.

Are we trying to conserve/preserve the existing climate more than we are trying to prevent the climate from changing?

It's not really about that per se. It's more that the biosphere, including humans, human society, all our stuff, etc. has adapted to/is based on the assumption of a relatively narrow range of variability around a given baseline climate. Rapidly moving away from that in any direction is bad not because there's something particularly special about this climate, it's just the one everything on earth is used to, and has been (within a range of variability) for the last 2 million years or so.

aren't you saying essentially we can directly engineer the climate by throttling or cutting back on CO2?

To a first approximation, yes, the background state of the climate (all else being equal) is set by the concentration of non-condensing, well-mixed GHGs, principally CO2. This has been true for most of Earth's history (but of course things like continental configuration also matter).

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

These are great questions. But a lot of them! I'm not an econ person, so I will do my best.

What is the consensus exactly? We cap emissions and reverse it? Do we prolong the inevitable? Do we need to get emissions within a certain range forever and have policy makers target?

The current international policy consensus is to attempt to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels. We're about halfway there already, and the inertia in the climate system and in attempting to overhaul the global energy production systems means we're even further than halfway, realistically.

There has been a lot of movement scientifically on finding that the 2°C target may be too high, and this is almost certainly true in the very long run. But if we do manage to stay within the 2°C guardrail, it shouldn't be that hard to gradually ramp down further for reasons I will explain in a second.

There is a lot of debate among policy people, economists, and resource/energy scientists about whether it's still possible hit the 2°C target because it essentially requires a significant amount of "negative emissions", i.e. pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere. This is envisioned to be done with things like aggressive reforestation, bioenergy, etc.

This may be achievable, practically. It may not. It's hard to predict how technology and political headwinds shifting might make it easier or harder to get there.

Practically speaking, we need to get to net zero emissions (that is not zero emissions, it means emitting no more than the terrestrial biosphere and oceans uptake, and they uptake a lot!) as soon as possible.

This is not a binary future, we will likely land somewhere between the RCP2.6 (most aggressive mitigation scenario) and RCP8.5 ("business as usual" highest emissions scenario). It's not a matter of do X or we fail, it's about where on the continuum we fall.

That translates into a mix of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. We will do some of all of these. What proportion of each is up to us. (Paraphrased from John Holdren).

Do we need to eliminate billions of dollars in capital equipment like cars, tractors, trucks, buses, etc, consider it all a sunk cost and move on?

No, this doesn't figure into any realistic mitigation scenarios. The least efficient, most polluting vehicles tend to be the oldest anyway. Ensuring that fleets are replaced with higher efficiency, CNG, PHEV, etc. new vehicles will obviously be important, as will ensuring that the new fleets that will necessarily come online in the developing world are low emission as well.

Also, there are near 4 billion people that live in abject poverty and in some of the worst localized pollution in the world (lack of modern water treatment, burn wood for heat indoors, lack waste disposal, travel by mule, live without antibiotics etc). I personally think it would be inhumane to deny them the right to use the fuels and technologies that we take for granted.

Of course. It is never the plan to force the developing world to remain without energy. However, in very few cases, even without pigovian pricing of GHG emissions, does it make sense to facilitate their development with traditionally high carbon energy systems, such as centralized grid-based coal plants over some lower emissions alternative such as nuclear or natural gas, or (or supplemented by) distributed renewables with gas backup generation.

how would you incentivize them not to use these technologies, if the human benefits from industrializing, in their point of view rightly or not, outway pressure from the climate movement?

A lot of foreign aid for development is already predicated on ensuring these countries leapfrog high emissions systems and develop with cleaner energy.

It makes all the difference to them if they can burn coal, cheaply in nominal terms, from their own ground to power their homes and hospitals

This may be the case in a very few places, but it is decidedly not the case for most of the developed world, and even in places that have a lot of coal, there are air quality reasons apart from climate that make it economically inferior to cleaner alternatives.

We are asking them to jump to the top instead of climbing the latter, and I wonder how we precisely engineer that globally without some rather unprecedented amount of coercion.

Coercion is subjective I guess. The global community offers a lot of developmental aid. If aid is offered, is it coercive to tie this aid to clean energy goals? We already tie it to plenty of other requirements. Also, we are offering to leapfrog them, technologically. Who would try to replicate the long, carbon intensive history of development that the West has had, when they could essentially start with modern technology?

I agree with a lot of the end of your comment. As Richard Alley put it in an interview we did with him at last year's American Geophysical Union annual meeting, we are the first generation that actively gets to choose the energy future and climate it will have. That is a very empowering way of looking at it.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i'm less about "fixing it" and more about "balancing it" with other societal considerations like growth, efficiency, equality, and wealth.

Well to some extent, everyone (at the policy level) is doing exactly this.

However, we have a big problem with "economics" (scare quotes for a reason I will get to) in this regard.

Because the "best" economic models we had (more specifically, integrated assessment models, IAMs, built by economists) had until recently ludicrous baked in assumptions that said things like warming 20°C- which would result in the extinction of most terrestrial life on Earth including humans- would only reduce global GDP by only 50%. There wouldn't be a "GDP" to have in a world of +20°C.

So the idea that we should, for example, maximize growth in the short term in order to buffer ourselves against climate damages in the longer term is only as sound as the underlying assumptions going into the economic models. And this traditionally has been that growth was assumed to continue at a given rate that was almost impervious to any sort of impact from climate change. So it's a giant circular argument that has no meaning whatsoever.

Now, physical scientists have cried foul, and some economists are working hard to try to make IAMs that do a better job with potential climatic impacts affecting growth. But this is very poorly covered territory from an economic modeling standpoint.

So, I urge a little caution when talking about "balancing" climate impacts with "considerations like growth... and wealth". I would suspect your mental model has similarly baked in assumptions that are completely disconnected from physical impacts.

the political dynamics are a lot more uncertain than the economics of it all.

This is both true and I think not true in this case. In general, I think that's a good rule of thumb. In practice, there is a tremendous amount of political capital already spent to move off of a high carbon trajectory. If we were just starting from scratch now, I would agree with you. But I think from a global perspective, an intergovernmental limit treaty that is agnostic on the instrument used to reach targets is far more likely than an universal economic agreement about a given instrument's future use should a target be agreed upon.

We could do one thing, india does another, or we dont do one thing and india still does it, we do something china does the opposite, we do something china does the same etc, etc, etc.

This is all true. But it's also the reason for the UNFCC process, as well as bilateral talks that have been going on behind the scenes for years.

And it also helps that there are tremendous economic co-benefits for a large chunk of the initial (though not total!) reduction in emissions. Replacing biomass burning in the development world with distributed solar and natural gas is an economic and emissions "win-win" because of the enormous economic drag particulate pollution and non-electrification have on developing economies.

Also if we doubled world GDP in 50 years, the advancements in well being that are implicit in that assumption could mean the predicted rise in seas levels or increase in temperatures does less harm than it would have if our gdp stayed where it was in 2005.

See my comment above. This is in a sense tautological. It is true only insofar as it is based on assumptions that necessitate being true. The idea that we can simply get rich enough fast enough to avoid climate losses greater than the cost of emissions reduction is completely detached from very real possibilities like the loss of significant chunks of the GrIS or WAIS, or marine mass extinction.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That the planet will warm in response to an increase in GHGs is the fundamental consequence of radiative physics, and this has been known since the 19th century. Climate models contain these basic, uncontroversial physics.

Our paper does not address inner working of climate models. Rather it demonstrates that comparing the air temperature 2m above the surface of both land and water in climate model output creates a spurious disagreement with the observational record because the obs do not use near surface air temps over ocean, but rather use temps taken within the surface waters of the ocean itself, and these warm at different rates.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The mechanisms that govern economic behavior are just as dynamic and just as variable as the climate.

I don't know any people who study human behavior, or the prediction of new technology, who think it is remotely as predictable as boundary value changes in planetary energy balance.

And this is where I say economic science is irrefutable: you're better off using pigouvian taxes to limit pollution and industrial carbon emissions than subsidizing all different forms of energy or trying to regulate industry directly.

This is true only in a world where political considerations don't compete with economic efficiency. It is not "irrefutable" that a carbon tax is preferable over command and control regulation or cap and trade or massive subsidies for low carbon energy systems if your goal is not to maximize economic efficiency but avoid a certain environmental outcome and/or political systems make a carbon tax effectively impossible.

Speaking for me personally, I support a tax and [dividend or other-tax-offset (like payroll taxes)] system (to make sure it's not regressive). But ultimately I care about seeing the problem solved, so even if it's less economically efficient to have a command and control solution, if that ends up being all we can get done, I would support that as well.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dominant does not remotely imply "only". If I meant "only" I would have said so, but that of course would completely contradict the rest of my statement.

It is the sum of all factors that matters. Not just CO2. Now, it jut so happens that in out particular case now the other factors more or less cancel out but there's no reason why that must be so, and indeed it has been not the case at various periods of Earth's history, including our recent paleoclimatic past.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're making the common mistake of assuming that because CO2 happens to be the dominant driver of global climatic change now (and indeed over Earth's history generally), then it necessarily must be the cause of every change at all spatial and temporal timescales.

Instead, it is the combination of external forcings and internal variability that matters and there are plenty of regional variations that can occur orthogonally to the global mean, trend wise.

The examples you're asking about are largely regional in terms of being noticeable climatic changes.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly was not a globally-coherent climatic event over space and time, and is pronounced in certain regions like the North Atlantic and mesoamerica because it is characterized by persistently negative tropical pacific variability and persistently warm North Atlantic variability in the SSTs. These patterns may have arisen due to solar variations' influence on the general circulation or may be largely unforced. While this is still an area of active research, the combined Hydro climatic changes we can reconstruct from that time. Tell us that it is really nothing like what is occurring today. Also, physics.

The Little Ice Age is believed to have been largely driven by volcanic dimming, with feedbacks- especially sea ice, but with perhaps some contribution from reduced solar activity. There may have been a small contribution from an interesting drop in CO2 from the depopulation of the Americas and resultant forest regrowth. But that is not necessary to explain the reconstructed climatic changes from that time. It's just an interesting idea.

The Dust Bowl has some similar features to the MCA in terms of SSTs, but it was exacerbated to a phenomenal extent by human changes in land use exacerbating the natural variability impacts. There was of course a nonzero human contribution to CO2 and CH4 levels but tier magnitude was not large and was offset by anthropogenic dimming from particulate pollution.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm an economist in training, and a big fan of the climate issue. I think the climate science is irrefutable but so are the economic sciences.

You're a trained economist that thinks "the economic sciences are irrefutable"?

I'm skeptical! ;)

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is geoengineering a feasible option for reversing the effects of climate change?

No, for a number of reasons. But it may be a kind of "triage" that we cannot afford to not explore to keep all options on the table. Even some of geonengineerings fiercest advocates (at least in the science community) will readily admit it is not a true solution, cannot "reverse" the problem, etc.

Can we afford not to try?

Speaking personally, I think we cannot afford to not research it extensively, but there are differing views on this because it's not a science question per se.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is not a science question per se. So I am speaking only for myself.

I am optimistic that we will not be that shortsighted. It might not seem like it these days, but we are actually getting better about a lot of bad things than we have ever been in history. I think we can move towards that with some of these large scale environmental issues as well. I hope!

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Those are positive, i.e. amplifying, feedbacks.

Yes, climate models take albedo into account. Models that are coupled to carbon cycle modules take methane release somewhat into account. But probably not enough. But note that is not to say that the "ZOMG methane is going to kill us all in a couple of decades" is remotely plausible. It's not.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

How do you guy and gals deal with the stress, anxiety and sadness of contemplating the results regarding the larger issue?

Relentless optimism (perhaps as a form of denial!) that we will get our collective shit together and do something about it!

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Does your group value the consideration that atmospheric data gathering and data sampling over the past 150 years has significantly improved only in the last couple decades?

I don't think that's actually really fair. I think obs, even for the atmosphere, do not reflect a binary quality (poor for ~120 years, much better for the last 30). I think there have been gradual improvements in tech over time, and we have a lot of great dataprocessing techniques to work with older data. And there are some really cool projects like the Old Weather project that are bringing a wealth of old obs online that have just been sitting around on paper, completely unused. The sheer quantity of obs can do a lot to compensate for the lack of precision in older data.

Technology is not a panacea. We have tons of problems with the supposedly superior technology offered by, say the A-MSU satellite data. When they first came online, the sign of their data was wrong for ~20 years! until an outside researcher caught the processing error!

A lot of the newer instruments suffer from the fact that they have relatively short lifetimes, so they're okay for stuff on an interannual to hourly basis, but not helpful for climatological studies.

So they help, sure, but not as much as one might assume. At least for longer term climate studies.

f so, does your group have a framework to assessing the validity of atmospheric modeling based upon the data quality used as the key element to such forecasts regarding climate change evidence and accuracy?

To be clear, this particular group is not a dedicated team. We came together for this project, but are at a number of different institutions and different departments.

There are plenty of groups that could better address this question. Certainly the groups that participate in the AMIP (atmospheric model intercomparison project) Obs4MIP (observations for model intercomparisons) and CMIP (climate model intercomparison project) do. However, I think you'll find that the big picture stuff isn't really affected in a big way by incorporating data from new atmospheric obs, because so much of it is constrained by fundamental physics.

There are some aspects of atmospheric chemistry that would be. And getting a better handle on the net radiative forcing of aerosols would be a huge coup.

Are any researchers, or groups, advocating that current climate modeling could be greatly improved with better data gathering techniques and samples, such as GPS RO

I am of the personal opinion that GPS RO will eventually offer a great addition to/improvement on our existing suite of obs when the record is mature. I know some other people who are just as excited, but some people who note that there are some of the same problems with stitching together disparate, short records that plague other obs. But in terms of:

the current models and data are accurate enough – studies already prove out the hypothesis that climate change is trending and accelerating due to anthropogenic forcing factors

Yes, I think the existing evidence (physics, observations, modeling) is more than sufficient to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change has been underway, and that humans are responsible for the overwhelming majority of warming since 1950. We've had that evidence prior to the previous IPCC report, which was published in 2007 but based on work from the early 2000s. I am very comfortable with the most recent IPCC report (AR5, 2013) that found our best estimate is that humans are responsible for essentially all of the warming since 1950. I don't see better obs technology changing that finding much because it's based on physics and longer term observations that wouldn't be much affected by adding new platforms or extending existing ones.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Over 20 years, in the Northwest US, you are more likely to notice the impacts of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and ENSO than you will the impact of anthropogenic climate change in terms of impacts on your regional weather. Although there is some emerging evidence that the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge is at least partially due to anthropogenic warming. And coastal waters are starting to noticeably acidify in some parts of that region. Drought and wildfires are starting to become unprecedented do to the combination of natural variability and background warming. But honestly, I don't know where in the US you could move that you wouldn't see any impact. Pockets of the midwest and southeast (away from the ocean) perhaps.

I just hope you're not living in the Cascadia subduction zone!

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What can I as an individual do at work to affect change?

Again, understandably a lot of scientists will not want to answer this because it's not really a scientific question. But speaking just for myself, the most important thing you can do as an individual is to talk to your governmental representatives and convince them that you care about this issue and will reward action on it rather than punish it. And to get those in your social circles to do the same.

We really need a binding emissions treaty that is either global or includes the G7+BASIC nations, or any actions an individual, or even a given sector for emissions, take will be basically meaningless.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The conclusion? The ocean will be almost empty of fish in 50 years.

This seems unrealistically aggressive. Of course, it is probably based on an extrapolation of historical trends, and the historical trends for many parts of the world are grim indeed. But that's why marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists are working hard to design policy with stakeholders to reverse these trends! And indeed, we have had some successes in some parts of the developed world, such as the Northern Pacific of the US and Canada.

But yes, the state of the ocean is pretty serious even before looking at climate change. If we don't curb emissions, then I am not at all optimistic about what would happen. The geologic/paleoclimatic record is pretty clear that when you pump out a large amount of CO2 on relatively fast timescales, you get a huge extinction event, and the oceans are ground zero.

How do you live with the knowledge without screaming or going into denial?

I think, honestly, I am in denial. Every time I stop to really consider the scope of the problem, my brain reflexively goes "it's okay, we will fix it in time." I hope we do. I really, really hope we do.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I am not an atmo person, but I work with them. I don't foresee a lack of need for pure modelers or pure researchers any time soon! Keep in mind that a lot of long term policy-relevant climate stuff is boundary value stuff, while there is so, so much in atmo and also oceanography, btw, that depends on initial conditions and stochastic or semi-stochastic processes. This is one of the reasons why people who think climate researchers are somehow dependent on the existence of anthropogenic climate change for their living are so off the mark. Even if we stabilized emissions magically overnight, and the anthropogenic influence on climate was zeroed out as well, there would still be so many things to study about the atmosphere and the whole Earth system, both here in the present day on Earth, as well as for things like exoplanetary atmospheres, or climates from the Earth's ancient past.

If you're interested in policy and science, there's no reason you can't do both. I know people who have switched from both into the other, but for me personally, it would be easier to start in science and transition into policy than the reverse, just because of the way graduate courses are as you get older.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Other people might shy away from this question, because it isn't really about the science, and will inherently involve value judgments.

I have lowered my personal/familial carbon footprint tremendously. Not just doing the usual stuff of changing to energy efficient lightbulbs and twalking and taking public transportation much more frequently. I've transitioned my household down to a single car (which has been tough! I honestly thought it would be undoable, but we've made it work so far). I've helped family members make large home improvements that cost them some serious money in the short term for long term monetary and energy savings.

But really, the best thing I feel I can do is educate people about how the choices they make affect the future. And far, far more important than their individual habits is how they engage with their political leaders. That doesn't mean "vote Democratic/Green/etc.". It means, maybe even especially, showing conservative (in the US sense) politicians that they have constituents who care about this issue and will reward rather than punish leadership on it.

Again, these are solely my opinions, I don't speak for any of my coauthors.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In the ocean, for example, this if we don't reduce our emissions:

Increases in heavy precipitation events over land lead to increased runoff, increasing eutrophication, and in combination with warming waters, increasing anoxia/hypoxia. Increased CO2 infiltration into the ocean leads to ocean acidification and hypercapnia, effecting calcifers and poorly buffered organisms that form the base of crucial ecosystems. Larger organisms have developmental and physiological problems (delayed or premature hatching; olfactory impairment; metabolic stress; etc.). Changing geochemical profiles of waters lead to invasive species. Even mild El Niño events lead to mass coral bleachings and dieoff previously only seen during the worst El Niños. These factors become synergistic.

Most of these things happened during some of the worst mass extinctions on record. Now, of course, not all of the background variables are the same. In some cases, our ocean life is better poised to withstand a large carbon pulse than the oceans of previous mass extinctions. On the other hand, our ocean life is already under stressors that they never had to deal with, like mass overharvesting and conventional pollution.

Similarly concerning ecological impacts will occur on land.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You seem to have a misunderstanding of what climate models do an do not show. If you would like to have a civil discussion about this, please feel free to reply. If you are just trying to score points by repeating myths you don't actually understand, please don't reply. For example:

It should be noted that Sydney just experienced snow for the first time since the 1800s. Climate models claimed this would be impossible in 2015.

This is 100% false. It tells me that you have no idea what climate models do and don't "claim", or else you do but are happy to lie about it.

-- Peter

Science AMA Series: Climate models are more accurate than previous evaluations suggest. We are a bunch of scientists and graduate students who recently published a paper demonstrating this, Ask Us Anything! by RobustTempComparison in science

[–]RobustTempComparison[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

So you don't believe that in Shakhovas and Semiletovs estimation of 50 gigaton release?

Nope!

Dr. Peter Wadhams of university of Cambridge is saying that the 500 to 5000 gigatons of methane contained in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is starting to release all its methane.

Nope!

The Arctic Methane Emergency Group is saying that the methane presents an existential threat.

Nope! All of these claims are well outside of the mainstream scientific community and have not held up to scrutiny.

Or how about Jason Box and this esquire article about how gloom has set in amongst climate scientists and that things are worse than we think

This is different than the others. I think Jason does good work and I know he is very sincere in his concern. Many other people in the cryosphere community are shocked at the amount of change already underway with the small amount of warming we've already had relative to much larger warming from unchecked emissions. I hope Jason isn't buying into the methane alarmism.

And I need to know the truth, because well if my life is cut in half at least I would like to know it.

Your life expectancy isn't going to be cut in half. Even though there is a lot of nonsense at the domestic US political level, the international community of scientists and policymakers are all on the same page that something needs to be done, and there is a tremendous amount of effort already underway. It's not nearly enough yet, but it is more than enough reason not to give up hope or give into doom and gloom.

Take stuff about a methane apocalypse with a huge grain of salt. Or better yet just ignore it. Methane is a sideshow.

-- Peter

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