Scientists Give Earth a 50-50 Chance of Hitting Key Warming Mark By 2026 (npr.org) 202
The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted. NPR reports: With human-made climate change continuing, there's a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday. The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40% and a decade ago it was only 10%.
The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there's a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going. "We're going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change," said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.
The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there's a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going. "We're going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change," said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.
Yet stil (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone will pop up from the rabbit hole and tell us this is all normal climate variation or the sun (because obviously trained climate scientists with phds never thought of that) or it was just this warm in the past in medieval warm period/roman times/etc nothing to see here. move along please. I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.
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Indeed. It does not look good and continues to get worse. Reminds me of those dying from COVID that denied it exists (because obviously the whole medical field is clueless) right up until they died from it. Although COVID was a minor irrelevant blip compared to what is coming with climate change.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4, Informative)
Those faux conservatives never wanted to protect the country from Sharia Law, they only wanted their own Sharia version.
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Yes. Abortion. Soon the US' human rights well be as good as those of Afghanistan. Those faux conservatives never wanted to protect the country from Sharia Law, they only wanted their own Sharia version.
I've already taken to calling them the American Taliban. Banning books and gutting education, taking away women's rights, hatred of LGBTQ people, and trying to force their religious ideas on everyone....
Yes, they are not quite as extreme as the real Taliban, yet, but the resemblances are still disturbing.
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Compulsory banjo lessons in school.
They could learn to play just like in that movie Deliverance!
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Sorry, Fetuses are not equivalent to living humans.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Get some medical facts before completely disgracing yourself. A fetus has a specific potential, which in most cases (75%) the body of the woman affected decides on its own to not realize. When it becomes a human is debatable, but it is long after conception and basic system like circulation start to work.
The attempts to outlaw abortion are just one thing: The insane religious fuckups wanting more flock, no matter how bad and morally corrupt that approach is. And hence they basically define that a fertilized egg is a human being, against all rationality, and, in addition, do their best to outlaw contraception in addition.
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Okay, I'll bite. When, exactly, does a fetus become a human? And why then, as opposed to earlier or later?
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It's a human being at First Breath. It's unquestionable at that point. It's the only way to protect the rights of the mother who was a human being all along in case you forgot.
DNA is NOT a tiny homunculus (Score:2)
Pretty well worded, though I disagree with your second paragraph. I think the religious loons are mostly confused. They think the DNA defines a unique human being.
I actually count that as one of my largest recent revisions in my own understanding of genetics. Pretty sure I learned it in one of the books Dawkins wrote some years back, but I read it fairly recently. DNA is not like a blueprint or tiny homunculus. Rather it's closer to a book of recipes that may contain enough information to construct an actua
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This is exactly what some people say about other races, or of those practicing different religions. You can twist things however you want to define your own morals.
I'm pro abortion because the world has limited resources. We don't need more people for the sake of capitalism and military prowess. It's also wrong to me to force a woman to go through the irreversible bodily changes and become a mother if she simply isn't ready. Calling a fetus inhuman or not living is almost laughable to me though.
What is inexplicable to me is that in a world where there are so many methods to not become pregnant, that abortion is used as birth control.
Why there are condoms, there are IUD's, there are birth control pills.
I am pro choice, but make no mistake, it's a goddamned minefield. While a man has to be involved, he has absolutely no choice in this matter. The role of the father is reduced to nothing other than his wallet. Recently a woman in Germany was arrested for sexual assault for spermjacking, havin
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[Citations needed]
For fucks sake, abortions are medical procedures that are quite inconvenient. People don't do that for fun because birth control pills are such a pain.
Also, sometimes abortion isn't much of a choice as it can become a life and death situation for the pregnant person, making the procedure a life saving medical intervention.
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No, I didn't actually know such a guy, I just made it up. And if you extend me the same leeway that you're asking from me, you could never prove otherwise.
Come up with some data that backs up that this is some kind of widespread issue, like GP claims, otherwise you're saying nothing. At best it's nutpicking, which in itself is seen as a fallacy.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4)
It is not hard to find plenty of well written studies which show why many women do not use birth control. Relatively recent studies show that ~48% of women who receive an abortion were not using birth control in the month leading up to conception, but the why of it is important. Birth control is not free (and the Right keeps fighting to KEEP it not free), it is not always convenient (reliable contraceptives require medical visits AND the right keeps fighting to keep it less convenience and accessible), it is not always comfortable (male contraceptive pills have failed trials because their side effects were deemed "intolerable" despite being largely more tolerable than female contraceptive pills), it is not always safe (there are numerous contraindications to female contraceptive pills (see the "ACHES" acronym for example), and it's not always embraced by the other partner (plenty of men are in a position of power in their relationships and simply don't want to use condoms).
In summary, if it's inexplicable to you why many women don't use birth control, it's only because you haven't done any basic research to understand why many women aren't on birth control.
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Abortion is almost always in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, usually before the embryo had not yet even become a fetus (much less a baby).
When an abortion does happen later, it is almost always because something has gone terribly wrong, and it's not going to be a live baby.
But-- this is well off topic.
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source [Re:Yet stil] (Score:3)
Abortion is almost always in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, usually before the embryo had not yet even become a fetus (much less a baby).
Stats for that?
many sources e.g., https://www.bmj.com/company/ne... [bmj.com]
or, if you prefer Fox for your facts: https://www.foxnews.com/story/... [foxnews.com]
I will also point out that, confusingly, "weeks" of gestation count from the last period: conception occurs at week two.
So "week twelve of pregnancy" is actually ten weeks after conception.)
When an abortion does happen later, it is almost always because something has gone terribly wrong, and it's not going to be a live baby. But-- this is well off topic.
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Actually it is about 75% of fertilized eggs that at some point get aborted by the body or are never even accepted for the initial steps. According to the fanatics, every fertilized egg is a human and every human only gets one chance at life. So basically they are saying that fertilizing that egg removes one person's chance with 75% probability. That would mean that unprotected sex resulting in a fertilized egg is 75% of a murder. Of course that is nonsense and so is the rest of their argument.
Isn't it amazi
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Congratulations. You have reached 100% of your entire life as a LIE.
Every call for a national healthcare system? How about sex ed in schools? Ease of access to birth control?
Nope.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4, Informative)
That's bunk. Cloth masks significantly reduce the spread of COVID.
https://www.bmj.com/content/37... [bmj.com]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/arti... [cdc.gov]
While less effective than N95 masks, cloth masks do make a significant difference. Particularly multi-layer cloth masks with a fine weave, which are the most common type being sold.
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When it comes to COVID, the deniers will shoot down anything that isn't 100 percent effective as "not effective at all"
Indeed. The level of sheer non-understanding in these people is impressive. Yet they think they are smarter than everybody else including all the experts. Dunning-Kruger effect at its most extreme: Utterly dumb and disconnected people thinking they are highly qualified experts and extremely smart.
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People need to have a better understanding of statistics. In modernity, if you don't understand statistics, the world is a very confusing place.
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You are obviously functionally illiterate. Because "mostly ineffective" is pretty far from the truth. You probably also do not understand statistics and how infection works in a pandemic. Yet you are shooting your mouth off. What is wrong with you?
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...because obviously the whole medical field is clueless
A not-so-subtle - and certainly not very honest - attempt to project an illusion of consensus in the medical community...
Congrats; for you I'm sure this represents an achievement.
Ah, no. On this level there _is_ consensus, except for a very small number of fuckups that somehow managed to get a medical qualification by accident. You always have those but they do not matter. If 1 on 1000 plumbers says water is not wet, then you still have consensus that it is, because there is obviously something fundamentally wrong with that one. Probably just a liar that wants attention. Hence I am not trying anything here. I am pointing out a fact that somehow you are too mentally defective to be a
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I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.
They don't want to be woken up.
They're too busy watching youtube videos about how to add enough turbos to get their giant SUVs to do a quarter mile as fast as an exotic sports car.
Re: Yet stil (Score:2)
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Properly sourced ethanol such as sugar cane or hydrogen with get you a lower carbon footprint than a battery based electric car ever will.
Hydrogen is mostly supplied today from steam-reformation of natural gas that then needs to go through more processes to create ethanol. I can't see how this is lower carbon than using batteries with energy sourced from renewables. Even if the hydrogen came from hydrolysis using power from wind turbines, then formed the ethanol from further processes, that's unlikely to be more efficient than taking the energy from the turbines and putting it in a battery.
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I've noticed the prevalent contemporary goal post being "we're coming out of an ice age".
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Climate change is definitely happening and man-based activity is definitely a strong contributor, but we need to be honest about the total picture as well.
Which half of that sentence do you think the average person will hear if we use it as The Climate Message?
Is it the half that we can actually do something about?
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It doesn't mean they're not right. You can have a point on both sides of the argument.
People like eating fish and fish are in the ocean. QED the sinking of the Titanic wasn't all bad because it brought people closer to the fish.
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Re: Yet stil (Score:2)
I'm really not sure what itll take to wake these people up.
Start by providing predictions which are phrased better than "flip a coin to find out if we're right!" I know that's not how the scientists intended their "50-50 chance" to be interpreted but that's how many will take it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Yet stil (Score:5, Insightful)
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Its like a coulomb barrier in quantum physics. The closer like charges get to each other the more repulsive force is exerted, until you cross that barrier when the their mass attracts more than their charge repels.
That's an interesting hypothesis, but it's not really supported by the evidence.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4)
Maybe they should go learn about ice ages and whether we're in one or not and whether we're in an interglacial period or not.
Good news, understanding the cycle of ice ages has been one of the major focuses of climate study for the last hundred years.
Perhaps then they could understand the glaciation cycle.
Good news. Thirty years ago this was indeed an unknown. Thanks to a lot of work on understanding climate, though, we now have a pretty good pictureof how the cycle of Milankovitch variations triggers the glaciation advances and retreats during ice ages, and what the amplification mechanisms are.
You're full of shit (Score:2)
Refer to the end of the graph and tell me that is a normal rate of change. Odd how it coincides with the burning of fossil fuels...
https://xkcd.com/1732/ [xkcd.com]
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"Climate change is real because the planet itself causes it. "
Yes, however the large current RATE of CHANGE is not being caused by the planet.
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No one has to warmonger for metals to make batteries. That's just profitable for certain people, so that's what's happened. That is the only reason.
Re:Yet stil (Score:4)
There is no doubt that much of the human world is as awakened as it can manage. What is probably the case is that humanity is functionally designed by evolution to be incapable of anything but rapid self destruction as soon as their technological cleverness gives them the power to eliminate themselves so that evolution can proceed to experiment in other more entertaining directions. Once humanity is out of the way, evolution can continue to explore other ways to experiment with life potentials. There is plenty of time before the planet is gobbled up by the Sun.
No, climate change will awaken far more when it really gets going. Right now we are only seeing the warning signs. When more of Siberia starts burning down and the CCP looks out at the desert surrounding Beijing and the Mid-East countries realize their climate does not support life and the West half the U.S. is a barren, waterless expanse, then many more will awaken.
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When more of Siberia starts burning down and the CCP looks out at the desert surrounding Beijing and the Mid-East countries realize their climate does not support life and the West half the U.S. is a barren, waterless expanse, then many more will awaken.
You're far too optimistic. I say they'll whine that "nobody could have foreseen this!" while they demand that someone do something.
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anything that deals with facts that certain people don't want to hear.
Luckily for us, orange man gave them a neat little soundbite to use when they don't want to hear something.
Repeat after me: "Fake News".
It's now as easy as to make it all go away so you can get on with your life. He might have lost an election but his little contributions to the world will be with us for decades.
The human race is aiming higher (Score:2)
Just like the over-achievers they are. 1.5C? Pathetic! We can do much better and all it takes is continuing as we are. Which we are doing.
Re:I read at +1 (Score:2)
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The only questions are how fast we're going to reach any given point, and how high the peak will be. Yet even here on news for supposed nerds there are people arguing that AGW is fake.
Sometimes I think this place is a trap for smart people with good ideas. Just get them wasting their time arguing so they don't do anything.
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Well, yes. But if you are driving towards a wall in the distance and you are unsure you can break before hitting it, is it a smart move to accelerate instead or not to try breaking at all?
Personally, I will be very interested to see what tipping points really are there and what accelerating and decelerating factors we will see. It can go both ways, after all. The Fermi Paradox does not make me very hopeful though.
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Right, that's why those are still questions.
I presume the answers are going to be "too hot to handle" and "sooner than you think", in the opposite order of course, because as you say we are doing roughly nothing to address the problem.
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The only questions are how fast we're going to reach any given point, and how high the peak will be. Yet even here on news for supposed nerds there are people arguing that AGW is fake.
Indeed. The level of mental dysfunctionality some people can reach is astounding.
Sometimes I think this place is a trap for smart people with good ideas. Just get them wasting their time arguing so they don't do anything.
In some sense yes. I am still reading and posting here for two reasons: a) Sometimes there are actually smart comments and answers and b) to remind myself that educated and reasonably IQ-equipped people can still be as dumb as bread with regards to actually seeing and understanding reality. Nicely demonstrates that Intelligence is a tool you actually have to be willing to use non-selectively to reap its benefits.
Item b) is admi
On the bright side... (Score:3)
Re:On the bright side... (Score:4, Funny)
Never going to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.
If we can't even grab that climate change gift horse with two hands, then let's stop kidding ourselves that anything is going to change. I seriously believe our best hope is (a) climate models are somehow wrong, (b) we heavily research nuclear and climate engineering technology to deploy if (a) turns out to not be the case.
Otherwise we are on a rather inevitable trajectory now and we're too collectively stupid to do anything about it.
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You forgot "geoengineering".
My take is that every politician has heard of it and is relying on it as an excuse not to do anything that might rock the boat.
Ironically: The exact same climate experts who are being told they're wrong today will suddenly be called upon as "experts" to do the geoengineering.
Even more ironically: They'll be the ones that get blamed if the geoengineering doesn't magically work out.
So it goes.
Re: Never going to happen (Score:3)
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We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.
Well, that's a rather cute way of explaining the massive corruption behind the commercial real estate market, which is actually the cause of massive pollution. Not to mention an incredible amount of wasted time. ONE employee with an hour-long commute to work, equates to an entire workweek of time lost commuting every month. 12 weeks a year. An entire fiscal quarter, lost sitting behind a steering wheel, ironically making employees sicker, which leads to more lost productivity and worse.
Go ahead CxOs.
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> We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.
That is not what I saw...
I saw massive govt support to people who's factory/shop wasn't critical infrastructure and was subsequently closed.
Massive increase in consumption of random entertainment things. (people stuck at home)
Massive d
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We found that we can keep large parts of our economy running without millions of people having to mindlessly shuffle from their homes to an office everyday. But now that is being unwound because it is apparently imperative that we bump into each other at the water cooler.
Heh. My employer has taken a soft touch approach to this question, allowing many employees who want to go fully remote to do so, and for the rest going to a "hybrid" model, where people are only in the office 2-3 days per week -- and managers are explicitly directed not to enforce even that. But it turns out that most people actually like going into the office from time to time.
You might think that this would at least provide a partial reduction, right? If people only drive to work two or three times per
Re:Never going to happen (Score:4, Funny)
How can you hate working from home ? What's not to like?
Spouse. Kids.
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Then they should get divorced and stop pretending.
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Does that get rid of the kids?
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Sure, just pretend you want them and the spouse will do anything they can to get them.
Re:Never going to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I love spending time with my spouse and kids, but I hate having to work when my spouse and kids are distracting me.
The spouse is old and mature enough to not bother me when I need to work, but the kids naturally aren't. It makes getting work done when they're home a frustrating challenge. Not their fault, but it's a reality.
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Hedging? (Score:2, Troll)
50/50 chance eh? That's not a lot of confidence in their climate models. It's really just a coin toss!
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50/50 chance eh? That's not a lot of confidence in their climate models. It's really just a coin toss!
I read it as "It's just as likely to not happen as happen".
Thank God for experts, I wouldn't want to have to rely on my Magic 8-Ball
Its the end if the world as we know it (Score:3)
Its the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
Six oclock. TV hour
Don't get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return
Listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform and book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a votive
Step down, step down
Watch a heel crush, crush
Uh oh, this means no fear; cavalier
Renegade and steer clear!
A tournament, a tournament
A tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
And I decline
Uncertainty provided ... a first!? (Score:2, Interesting)
This seems to be the first time that climate model uncertainty is actually hinted at in a public release. Naturally an interesting spin is put on it to reinforce the desired message because really if you approach people with a 50-50 chance on most things the expectation is pretty much that it's a bad bet. But tack on "climate alarm" and perhaps the expectation is different.
All climate projections are based on models. All predictive models have a degree of uncertainty, one that gets quite large the furthe
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"Just curious why that is." Because your reading comprehension is poor.
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You should read one of the reports. Most have a specific percentage definition of "likely" "probable" etc, and these words are dispersed throughout the text, precisely stating the degree of uncertainty of said models.
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But the uncertainty is never mentioned. You never hear "By 2050 the global average temperature will have risen 2 degrees ... plus or minus xx degrees". Just curious why that is.
The uncertainty is always mentioned. I think you haven't noticed it. Here, do a google image search for ipcc. On the very first page of results, the first row is solely logos, and the second row starts with a graph that shows uncertainty (shaded confidence intervals)
https://ccimgs-2021.s3.amazona... [amazonaws.com]
I see the same on many BBC news reports of IPCC work, for instance https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]
I think almost all the IPCC graphs I've seen have shown either a range of scenarios, or confidence intervals, or
too late (Score:4, Interesting)
At this point, if America was to drop ours to zero, it would STILL grow. Why? Because America is now around 11-12% of the CO2.
That is just 2-3 years worth of Chinese and Indian growth, ALONE, not including the rest of the undeveloped nations.
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Time for an infertility virus that reduces human reproduction by 50%, then? Growth will quickly transform into "shrinkth."
Nonsense, for many reasons, but I'll point out just one: That "shrinkth" would have small effect for many decades. You're not considering the long lags created by the length of human lifespans (lags that are, BTW, the only reason our population is growing today). Adding 70M fewer people every year would reduce the rate of population growth (though it would continue growing for a while), move the date of peak population forward 10 years or so, and reduce the peak population to maybe 8.5B, but you wouldn't s
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Poor clickbait/space filler (Score:2)
As usual.
Ho hum (Score:2)
Stating odds for something for which there have been no trials, i.e. no previous actual occurrences, is just plain BS.
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The models are, as you can see from the spaghetti graphs, running very hot when compared to observations.
That's odd. My impression is that we've always gotten more warming than the models predicted.
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https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.... [wiley.com]
Christy is of course a controversial figure among those alarmed by climate change. But the problem has been known for a long time, the Nature piece cited is one of many, and proposes a solution.
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The nature article is talking about "uncertainty in global temperatures 50 or 100 years from now", whereas the topic under discussion is the 2026 timeframe. John Christy is basically a denialist fraud, nothing he says can be trusted.
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No, Christy is a peer reviewed tenured scientist. You may disagree with his work and publications, but he is not a fraud.
Is he a denialist? Who knows, its just a silly generic term of abuse for someone you disagree with.
If you just use Google however you will find that the problem of the models running hotter than observations is well known, has been for some time. And this is what prompted the Nature piece I linked to.
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He's been lying about global warming for decades;
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
"Christy and Spencer's estimates of the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere have consistently underestimated global warming. In the 1990s, they initially claimed the lower atmosphere was cooling, and had to make several warming adjustments when other groups identified errors and biases in their data set."
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John Christy is basically a denialist fraud, nothing he says can be trusted.
You're not going to find a better scientist that John Christy. He seeks truth, and he's not afraid to admit when he's wrong. He puts massive effort into collecting data, as opposed to spreading propaganda.
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In your second paper, I love that the "plain language summary" is just as incomprehensible as the technical abstract.
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"There is no reason to expect this to be a catastrophe, or even particularly bad news", who told you that? We are already experiencing a significant upswing in extreme weather events can can be directly attributed to global warming.
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"is admitted to be impossible", that's an outright lie. The increase in incidents of extreme weather has been well documented and the attribution as well.
https://news.climate.columbia.... [columbia.edu]
"the present very small amount of global warming", also a lie.
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Abortion should be compulsory if you lack the means to support your child without government subsidies.
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Shit.
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