Where can I read an unbiased summary of the current state of climate models?<p>Last night I was called "alt-right" and a climate change denier by a peer for hesitating to agree that we are in a climate crisis, because I said don't have enough information about the situation and I'm suspicious whenever too many people start shouting about something.<p>The precautionary principle still prevails, though. The more uncertain you are, the more certain the course of action is, which is to avoid burning hydrocarbons.<p>Edit: I meant to say precautionary principle, not "uncertainty principle".
Interesting. It's unfortunate that this will be used as ammunition for climate skeptics.<p>It seems that ice cliffs are very different than ice sheets - the things currently melting. Ice cliffs were previously supposed to account for up to 6 feet of sea level rise, instead of the much more toned-down projections we have seen in the last few years.<p>The subtle distinction between ice cliffs and ice sheets will be lost in the media re-telling of this. Sometimes I wonder if science can ever truly be put to work for mass society? It seems not.
A lot of people are going to read only the headline and shout "MIT says global warming isn't true" into their science denial bubbles!<p>From my reading of this, the study does not say that sea-level rise won't happen, it's just saying one theoretical mechanism for RAPID sea-level rise might not be correct, so it'll be slower than some models predict.<p>The study relates to ice cliffs on land and the theory that if the ice shelves in the sea break apart, then the ice cliffs on land will break apart rapidly, contributing to rapid sea-level rise. Ice already in the sea doesn't raise sea-levels but ice currently on land would. The study uses modelling to demonstrate that runaway event is unlikely, so the sea-level rise from that even should be removed from estimates.<p>There's another paper about this from February_:<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0901-4" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0901-4</a><p>Some quotes from the papers:<p>- "We’re saying that scenario, based on cliff failure, is probably not going to play out. That’s something of a silver lining. That said, we have to be careful about breathing a sigh of relief. There are plenty of other ways to get rapid sea-level rise."<p>- Ice cliff collapse... "is not required to reproduce sea-level changes due to Antarctic ice loss ... without it we find that the projections agree with previous studies (all 95th percentiles are less than 43 centimetres)."<p>A couple more things:<p>- Both papers still agree that sea-level rise will happen, but maybe not so fast and not so much. (Whether your house is under one foot of water or two doesn't make much difference to if you can live there.)<p>- If your discussion point against climate change is based on the models being wrong/inaccurate/too varied, then you have to discount this evidence, as it too is based on modelling.<p>- MIT's press department need to write better headlines.
Let's build an interactive display of different models. Like Coinbase.com/charts but for climate models.<p>You can check and uncheck various factors (ice sheets, greenland, methane tundra).<p>Interesting?
What % of overall sea level rise predictions did this effect contribute? Do we still have to worry about New York and other coastal cities being inundated in the next few decades, or not?
I get suspicous when people start shouting and screaming that the only way to do anything about climate change is X - where X might or might not reduce greenhouse gases but definately aligns with there politial prirors.<p>I also don't like the fact that these same people seem to have no respect at all for economic growth. I firmly believe that any realy solution will be an encouragement to growth not a discouragement.
> Scientists have assumed that ice cliffs taller than 90 meters (about the height of the Statue of Liberty) would rapidly collapse under their own weight, contributing to more than 6 feet of sea-level rise by the end of the century — enough to completely flood Boston and other coastal cities.<p>If I understand correctly, these are icebergs. I don't understand how melting icebergs should impact the sea level in the first place. If I melt an ice cube in a cup the water lever remains unchanged. Don't the icebergs already displace as much water as they would contribute? Is there something about icebergs that mean they displace less water, or am I somehow misunderstanding what is going on?
I may be completely missing something, but I was under the impression that floating ice has zero impact on sea levels - a unique characteristic of water. Ice floating in water in a cup already at the top won’t overflow when it melts.
It seems like only land-supported ice sheets would have any impact at all anyway. Where were they getting the 6 foot rise in the first place? The violent water displacement when the cliff falls?
For hundreds of years there have been people predicting some kind of nightmare scenario 'in about 30 years'. In the 1960's and 1970's they were predicting a new ice age, that oil would completely run out, etc etc.<p>More recently they have been predicting extremely rapid climate change, global warming, 'cities underwater', etc.<p>Look at the graph of anticipated sea level rise: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise</a><p>Notice anything suspicious? It goes along pretty flat (the historical data looks as linear as it could possibly be), then as soon as you get to right now it jumps up and to the right with exponential growth. If a startup pitched that growth trajectory everyone would know exactly what was going on - high hopes and lies. Except that well meaning idiots have been pitching this for the last 30 years, exponential up and to the right growth of temperature and sea level, and it never materializes. Every few years they just update the graphs to show the small increase that actually occurred and move the exponential explosion so it's always in the near future.<p>Edit: I have noticed people down-voting this comment, that's fine of course, but I wonder whether it's because you think the oceans are going to start rising exponentially - starting right now - or if you think it's dangerous to question climate change dogma because it empowers climate change deniers or something? Or are you just down-voting it because it seems like something you don't like?
Here's the academic paper the article references:
<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL084183" rel="nofollow">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...</a><p>Not showing up on Scihub tho. Anyone found it?
Articles like this should discuss how the impact it does have contributes to the whole, climate change is a feedback loop.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback</a>
regional hegemons enforce embargoes on nations which refuse to behave according to new standards. a carbon non-proliferation treaty backed with coordinated blockades and cyber-attacks of critical infrastructure, initiating limited civil wars. the top level view is mutual cooperation to avoid global catastrophe.<p>this would require america and russia to stop selling their terrestrial missile technology and fossil fuels to the rest of world. once the current generation of inventory and raw energy is cleared it, orbital space based weapons can be deployed, obsolescing land and sea nuclear delivery and defense. this might explain china and india's rush to space, in order to have a bargaining chip in the future discussion about their territorial and energy sovereignty it is necessary for them to have a significant presence in low earth orbit.<p>things typically don't escalate dramatically during international disputes, and it's likely that the russians and americans will just use blackmail diplomacy to freeze, then develop the rest of the world with new energy they control. in order to avoid public scrutiny it's important to paint this as a critical emergency rather than a strategic sharing of influence between continental superpowers.<p>i suspect this will play out slowly over the next century, all the while regular people will be cowed by the ever looming threat of total extinction. not a very original sequel, a real throwback your parents might enjoy, cold war 2: fight the heat. the science on anything hardly matters, since scientific truth is subservient to pragmatism and political realities. given the massive investment in government information collection, it is clear that any large popular movement would quickly be steered towards desired policy goals, which should reinforce some version of the above story i laid out.
the hubris of man is that we have enough data to understand the earth at any given moment.<p><a href="https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0" rel="nofollow">https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0</a>