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0 pointsacdha3y ago0 comments

It’s not news that scientific consensus becomes more precise over time. The point was simply that scientists have a good track record of making accurate predictions decades out, which is quite the contrast of how deniers have flitted from wrong prediction to wrong prediction. Don’t feel bad for them, however — they get paid a lot better than climate scientists do and are probably old enough to miss out on the worst of it.

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revelio3y ago· 2 in thread

It got less precise. Look at the range of ECS estimates. They are now wider than they ever were. It's quite the controversy. Even guys like Hausfather and Schmidt are sounding the red alert over it.

acdhaOP3y ago

Do you have any examples you could point to? Most of their public comments on the topic of this thread look like this, noting the accuracy of predictions:

https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1597660277188677632

https://www.science.org/content/article/even-50-year-old-cli...

Based on what little details you gave, I’m assuming you’re referring to the “hot models” paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01192-2

If so, the key point is that neither the IPCC nor NASA GISS reports are affected because they weight the models based on their accuracy predicting the past. This looks like the normal scientific process at work: ¼ of models are overly sensitive to CO2, careful validation caught it, and the major reports don’t have that problem because that review process worked. We also know that this is an increasing challenge human efforts do have a significant impact and if emissions go down that’ll be used by critics as proof that earlier predictions were wrong.

From a policy perspective, it’s also worth noting that there’s no credible reason to think warming will halt or reverse. At this point we have roughly half a century of models accurately predicting that we will have a big problem unless we stop polluting and we know the costs of the unavoidable warming are already measured in trillions. Trying to reduce error bars is always good but at this point it’s clear that acting seriously now will save many lives and enormous sums of money compared to letting the fossil fuel companies continue to encourage more rounds of “debate” on whether the problem is real.

revelio3y ago

>> the key point is that neither the IPCC nor NASA GISS reports are affected

You: scientific consensus got more precise over time.

Me: it got less precise over time and there's no consensus on the right answer for a core variable.

You: if you drop models you "know" are wrong then it's got more precise!

That isn't a rebuttal it's a confirmation. The models have been getting less precise about core variables over time and they don't know why. IPCC try to cover this up to some extent by downweighting models they "know" are wrong, but as the article you cite says, most climatologists don't do this and continue to act as if all models are equally correct even though they're diverging and so that can't be true. Result: not only is there no consensus on ECS but there's not even any consensus on what to do about its divergence. No precision, no consensus.

>> there’s no credible reason to think warming will halt or reverse

Temperature trends have halted or reversed even in just the last few decades so that can't be true, although climatologists like to go back and edit the record to try and remove these embarrassing episodes. See: global cooling becoming global warming, and "the pause" e.g.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S167492781...

"Issues related to the pause of global warming in the last decade are reviewed. It is indicated that: (1) The decade of 1999–2008 is still the warmest of the last 30 years, though the global temperature increment is near zero; "

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