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Climate change not as threatening to planet as previously thought, per BS research

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prag16

Banned
Searched and didn't find anything.

Article

Computer modelling used a decade ago to predict how quickly global average temperatures would rise may have forecast too much warming, a study has found.

Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford and one of the study’s authors told The Times: “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.”

According to The Times, another of the paper’s authors, Michael Grubb, a professor of international energy and climate change at University College London, admitted his earlier forecasting models had overplayed how temperatures would rise.

At the Paris climate summit in 2015, Professor Grubb said: “All the evidence from the past 15 years leads me to conclude that actually delivering 1.5C is simply incompatible with democracy.”

But speaking to The Times he said: “When the facts change, I change my mind, as [John Maynard] Keynes said.

That last quote is an interesting way to frame it. The facts DIDN'T change. The "facts" in question weren't established yet at the time those models were created. And now that the "facts" have proven the models inaccurate, framing that as the facts "changing" is a bit disingenuous.

Anyway, it's important to note that this research was NOT put out by 'climate change deniers'.

They're kind of downplaying this, as I'm sure most of gaf will do. But it's important to note, as recently as, well, last week, anyone at all doubting those models or asserting that they were running a little too hot, was branded all kinds of angry derogatory names.

PDF of the actual research complete with charts and tables here.
 
"We have more time to save ourselves than we thought" is damn good news.

Unfortunately, this is going to read as "we don't have to do anything" to far too many people.
 
According to the article, we may essentially have an extra 20 twenty years to try to save ourselves before being completely F'd in the A.

Unfortunately, that headline is clickbait as all hell.
 

KHarvey16

Member
Let's play the "reconcile the headline with the study abstract" game. Here's that abstract:

The Paris Agreement has opened debate on whether limiting warming to 1.5 °C is compatible with current emission pledges and warming of about 0.9 °C from the mid-nineteenth century to the present decade. We show that limiting cumulative post-2015 CO2 emissions to about 200 GtC would limit post-2015 warming to less than 0.6 °C in 66% of Earth system model members of the CMIP5 ensemble with no mitigation of other climate drivers, increasing to 240 GtC with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation. We combine a simple climate–carbon-cycle model with estimated ranges for key climate system properties from the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Assuming emissions peak and decline to below current levels by 2030, and continue thereafter on a much steeper decline, which would be historically unprecedented but consistent with a standard ambitious mitigation scenario (RCP2.6), results in a likely range of peak warming of 1.2–2.0 °C above the mid-nineteenth century. If CO2 emissions are continuously adjusted over time to limit 2100 warming to 1.5 °C, with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation, net future cumulative CO2 emissions are unlikely to prove less than 250 GtC and unlikely greater than 540 GtC. Hence, limiting warming to 1.5 °C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, but is likely to require delivery on strengthened pledges for 2030 followed by challengingly deep and rapid mitigation. Strengthening near-term emissions reductions would hedge against a high climate response or subsequent reduction rates proving economically, technically or politically unfeasible.

Good luck OP.
 

Lunar15

Member
As with the previous thread on this topic, the situation is less that climate change is less of at threat, it's that some of the goals laid out by the Paris Accord may not be as difficult to achieve as we thought.

We still have to, you know, fight climate change just as hard, if not harder.
 

tuxfool

Banned
They're kind of downplaying this, as I'm sure most of gaf will do. But it's important to note, as recently as, well, last week, anyone at all doubting those models or asserting that they were running a little too hot, was branded all kinds of angry derogatory names.

Congrats OP.

You're a deep and independent thinker.
 

Toxi

Banned
Let's play the "reconcile the headline with the study abstract" game. Here's that abstract:

Good luck OP.
20090830.gif
 
As with the previous thread on this topic, the situation is less that climate change is less of at threat, it's that some of the goals laid out by the Paris Accord may not be as difficult to achieve as we thought.

We still have to, you know, fight climate change just as hard, if not harder.

Per the abstract it still sounds very, very difficult. Emissions below current levels in 2030, is of course possible but not promising at the moment with the West not doing anywhere near enough, India still growing its emissions, as is China (though at a reduced rate) and African countries likely to increase without any mandate yet for massive uptake of renewables...
 
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