# When will Climate Change become dire? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739 "2019-11-21T00:10:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/201 "2019-12-08T18:09:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > IPCC: [Climate Models and Their Evaluation](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-chapter8-1.pdf) > > CSSR: [Climate Models, Scenarios, and Projections](https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/4/) > > CarbonBrief: [Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming?](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-well-have-climate-models-projected-global-warming) > > IPCC: [Summary for Policymakers Climate Change and Land](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/4.-SPM_Approved_Microsite_FINAL.pdf) > > Good summaries of models and their predictive values. I was reading your fist link and found this: > [@](#): > > A specific prediction based on a model can often be demonstrated to be right or wrong, but the model itself should always be viewed critically. This is true for both weather prediction and climate prediction. Weather forecasts are produced on a regular basis, and can be quickly tested against what actually happened. Over time, statistics can be accumulated that give information on the performance of a particular model or forecast system. In climate change simulations, on the other hand, models are used to make projections of possible future changes over time scales of many decades and for which there are no precise past analogues. Confidence in a model can be gained through simulations of the historical record, or of palaeoclimate, but such opportunities are much more limited than are those available through weather prediction. I honestly cannot think of a better way to express where my questions are stemming from than this. This is saying that it is difficult to use test climate models because test cases are limited. I get that and if anyone says I’m using this to claim the models are invalid you are dead wrong. I’m now asking that if previous test cases are limited, what future predictions are being made that we can test to? Maybe Broomstick is right and I’d need to spend hundreds of hours wading through dense scientific papers to get to an answer of what predictions are being made and how can we measure them, but I was seriously hoping there were some people here who could help me distill some of that down. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/202 "2019-12-08T18:25:02Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I never wanted to claim climate models need to be perfect. I’m actually trying to find out just how accurate they are. When I run modeling programs the first thing I do is compare them to known results. If they don’t come up with the same answer as the known results, either the inputs to the model are wrong or the model itself is wrong. > > If I was going to try to convince someone there is something really, really, horrifically bad going to happen in 50 years, I’d first want to demonstrate that whatever means I’m using to base that on have a high accuracy for things that are already known. That seems to have been demonstrated by the information BeepKillBeep is providing. > > Now I’d like to know what they predict in the near future, to once again measure their accuracy. > > Maybe that makes me a denier, I don’t know. Back in 2006 the guys at Grist compiled this list: > **['Climate models are unproven'--Actually, GCM's have many confirmed successes...](https://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-models-are-unproven/)** > > (Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide) Objection: Why should we trust a bunch of contrived computer models that have never had a prediction confirmed? Talk to me in 100 years. Answer: Given the absence of a few duplicate planets... > [@](#): > > The climate is an extremely complex system. Our observations of it are by no means complete — even with regard to what’s going on today. > > This is a shortcoming we need to work hard to correct, but it is also an opportunity for validating model predictions: Find a measurement we’ve never taken, see how the models say it should turn out, and then go take it and compare. > > Still, there are global temperature predictions that have been validated. We can start with one of the pioneers in climate science. Over 100 years ago, in 1896, Svante Arrhenius predicted that human emissions of CO2 would warm the climate. Obviously he used a much simpler model than current Ocean Atmosphere Coupled Global Climate models, which run on super computers. > > Arrhenius overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 by a factor of 2. At the same time, he hugely underestimated the degree of warming, assuming CO2 would rise very slowly (who could have predicted the emissions the future held?). Still, it was a pretty impressive early success for models. > > Running the clock forward: in 1988, James Hansen of NASA GISS fame predicted [PDF] that temperature would climb over the next 12 years, with a possible brief episode of cooling in the event of a large volcanic eruption. He made this prediction in a landmark paper and before a Senate hearing, which marked the official “coming out” to the general public of anthropogenic global warming. Twelve years later, he was proven remarkably correct, requiring adjustment only for the timing difference between the simulated future volcanic eruption and the actual eruption of Mount Pinatubo. > [@](#): > > Putting global surface temperatures aside, there are some other significant model predictions made and confirmed: > > [ul] > [li]models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, [and this has indeed been observed](https://www.wunderground.com/resources/climate/strato_cooling.asp);[/li][li] models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree — but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, [this warming has been observed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png);[/li][li] models predict warming of ocean surface waters, [as is now observed](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/275/5302/957.abstract);[/li][li] models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, [which has been detected](https://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2005/story04-28-05.html);[/li][li] models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this; \*[/li][li] models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this [is indeed happening](https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/2005cal_fig3.gif);[/li][li] and finally, to get back to where we started, models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and so far they are correct.[/li][/ul] > > It is only long-term predictions that need the passage of time to prove or disprove them, but we don’t have that time at our disposal. Action is required in the very near term. - > **[Pinatubo 25 Years Later: Eight Ways the Eruption Broke Ground - Eos](https://eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-ways-the-eruption-broke-ground)** > > From the first rapid assessment of a volcano's history to insights on geoengineering, the 15 June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo changed the way we approach and learn from volcanic hazards. > [@](#): > > Pinatubo, in a sense, served as a natural climate experiment to test and calibrate models. Scientists plugged observed volcanic emissions into climate change models with and without anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. In the simulations that included only volcanic eruptions, scientists didn’t see the past 60–70 years of consistent warming, Robock explained. > > This observation helped climate scientists sharpen their models further, confirming that humans—and the unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases they pump into the atmosphere every year—are to blame for the warming climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was able to use these newly sharpened models to further support the attribution of climate change to human activities. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/203 "2019-12-08T21:23:28Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I was reading your fist link and found this: > I honestly cannot think of a better way to express where my questions are stemming from than this. This is saying that it is difficult to use test climate models because test cases are limited. I get that and if anyone says I’m using this to claim the models are invalid you are dead wrong. > > I’m now asking that if previous test cases are limited, what future predictions are being made that we can test to? > > Maybe Broomstick is right and I’d need to spend hundreds of hours wading through dense scientific papers to get to an answer of what predictions are being made and how can we measure them, but I was seriously hoping there were some people here who could help me distill some of that down. The IPCC reports are exactly that distillation. And the summaries are a distillation of the distillation. The IPCC policymaker report is a good meta-summary. Almost everything relevant to what you’re asking is in the IPCC report. You don’t need to read the whole thing. I don’t know anybody who has read the whole thing. I certainly haven’t. I’ve read the summaries, and the sections that are relevant to my work. As you’re kind of stating, one difficulty with testing climate models is that history only happened once. We cannot go back in time and change history and see if the models also reflect the altered history. What is telling is different climate models have been used in a large number of different contexts and found to match the historical record. And in particular, there is good correspondance to the past two decades. Keep in mind that proof is the highest standard for science. Proof is definitive. 99.9% certainty isn’t proof. Proof usually involves lggical reasoning or mathematics. Things that don’t apply so well to climate since it is so (at least seemingly) chaotic. You’re never going to find something that says “Since X, then climate change.” It is always going to be phrased in terms of probability or confidence. The papers I’ve cited are all reporting high confidence, in some cases probablities greater than 90%. To get such high probabilities, over and over and over and over it starts to look like the models are quite accurate. Now, of course, because they all make subtle differences in prediction obviously that cannot **all** be correct. Some will be more correct than others, which is why you should look at the predictions as a range of outcomes. The IPCC reports generally present the findings in exactly such a manner. The low range estimates are a bad outcome, and is more probable that we will experience some more median outcome. We’re rocketing towards a 3C average global increase in temperature. None of the predicted outcomes for that level of increase can be described as anything short of extremely bad. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/204 "2019-12-08T21:32:50Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > The IPCC reports are exactly that distillation. And the summaries are a distillation of the distillation. The IPCC policymaker report is a good meta-summary. Almost everything relevant to what you’re asking is in the IPCC report. You don’t need to read the whole thing. I don’t know anybody who has read the whole thing. I certainly haven’t. I’ve read the summaries, and the sections that are relevant to my work. > > As you’re kind of stating, one difficulty with testing climate models is that history only happened once. We cannot go back in time and change history and see if the models also reflect the altered history. What is telling is different climate models have been used in a large number of different contexts and found to match the historical record. And in particular, there is good correspondance to the past two decades. > > Keep in mind that proof is the highest standard for science. Proof is definitive. 99.9% certainty isn’t proof. Proof usually involves lggical reasoning or mathematics. Things that don’t apply so well to climate since it is so (at least seemingly) chaotic. You’re never going to find something that says “Since X, then climate change.” It is always going to be phrased in terms of probability or confidence. The papers I’ve cited are all reporting high confidence, in some cases probablities greater than 90%. To get such high probabilities, over and over and over and over it starts to look like the models are quite accurate. > > Now, of course, because they all make subtle differences in prediction obviously that cannot **all** be correct. Some will be more correct than others, which is why you should look at the predictions as a range of outcomes. The IPCC reports generally present the findings in exactly such a manner. The low range estimates are a bad outcome, and is more probable that we will experience some more median outcome. > > We’re rocketing towards a 3C average global increase in temperature. None of the predicted outcomes for that level of increase can be described as anything short of extremely bad. I’ll work through the IPCC stuff. Mostly what I see when I read through papers like this is that there are predictions about global warming and just how quickly things are getting warmer. I’m repeating myself, but that isn’t the part I’m not wondering about. I’m pretty sure those models are highly accurate. I’m completely familiar with the concepts of proof and theory and how science works and what those mean in scientific terms, even if GIGObuster wants to claim engineering isn’t science. Thanks for all the discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/205 "2019-12-08T21:57:12Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I know, the nit there was that, as Boston University College of Engineering points out, engineers are not scientists.[I’m just remembering all previous discussions when some past engineers have pontificated before about this issue.](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo)Engineers do have a different set of skills than scientists. And as Peter Hadfield has mentioned many times before, some humbleness needs to be taken into account when someone comes along that call himself a scientist when it is not really an expert on the subject, nor a scientist either. Same is true for different branches of science. Two words - Linus Pauling. Anyhow, engineers should be the last people demanding perfection. I’ve criticized many papers I’ve reviewed for proposing computationally complex algorithms to get insignificant improvements in metrics that don’t need to be optimal. I think it is false credentialism - just like how engineers who know nothing about biology think their degrees mean they can legitimately support creationism. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/206 "2019-12-08T22:09:41Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > I’m completely familiar with the concepts of proof and theory and how science works and what those mean in scientific terms, even if GIGObuster wants to claim engineering isn’t science. > > Thanks for all the discussions. Well, then you will have to discuss that with Boston University, because I was not making the claim, that was the College of Engineering over there. > [@Voyager](#): > > Same is true for different branches of science. Two words - Linus Pauling. > Anyhow, engineers should be the last people demanding perfection. I’ve criticized many papers I’ve reviewed for proposing computationally complex algorithms to get insignificant improvements in metrics that don’t need to be optimal. > > I think it is false credentialism - just like how engineers who know nothing about biology think their degrees mean they can legitimately support creationism. Yep. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/207 "2019-12-08T23:03:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Same is true for different branches of science. Two words - Linus Pauling. > Anyhow, engineers should be the last people demanding perfection. I’ve criticized many papers I’ve reviewed for proposing computationally complex algorithms to get insignificant improvements in metrics that don’t need to be optimal. > I think it is false credentialism - just like how engineers who know nothing about biology think their degrees mean they can legitimately support creationism. Bit of a stretch to say I was calling for perfection, innit? ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/208 "2019-12-09T04:47:36Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > The IPCC reports are exactly that distillation. And the summaries are a distillation of the distillation. The IPCC policymaker report is a good meta-summary. Almost everything relevant to what you’re asking is in the IPCC report. You don’t need to read the whole thing. I don’t know anybody who has read the whole thing. I certainly haven’t. I’ve read the summaries, and the sections that are relevant to my work. > > As you’re kind of stating, one difficulty with testing climate models is that history only happened once. We cannot go back in time and change history and see if the models also reflect the altered history. What is telling is different climate models have been used in a large number of different contexts and found to match the historical record. And in particular, there is good correspondance to the past two decades. > > Keep in mind that proof is the highest standard for science. Proof is definitive. 99.9% certainty isn’t proof. Proof usually involves lggical reasoning or mathematics. Things that don’t apply so well to climate since it is so (at least seemingly) chaotic. You’re never going to find something that says “Since X, then climate change.” It is always going to be phrased in terms of probability or confidence. The papers I’ve cited are all reporting high confidence, in some cases probablities greater than 90%. To get such high probabilities, over and over and over and over it starts to look like the models are quite accurate. > > Now, of course, because they all make subtle differences in prediction obviously that cannot **all** be correct. Some will be more correct than others, which is why you should look at the predictions as a range of outcomes. The IPCC reports generally present the findings in exactly such a manner. The low range estimates are a bad outcome, and is more probable that we will experience some more median outcome. > > We’re rocketing towards a 3C average global increase in temperature. None of the predicted outcomes for that level of increase can be described as anything short of extremely bad. Do the IPCC models indicate that there will be “flooding here” “severe drought” there, etc.? Do they tend to give rough timelines for when these things will be measurably different than what we see today? ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/209 "2019-12-09T05:05:10Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Do the IPCC models indicate that there will be “flooding here” “severe drought” there, etc.? Do they tend to give rough timelines for when these things will be measurably different than what we see today? [https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/) has a summary (note this is for 1.5C change, which is basically not going to happen, so this should be considered the absolute best-case scenario if a miracle happens). And chapter 4 has more details. [https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap4\_FINAL-1.pdf](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap4_FINAL-1.pdf) They cite the following papers. There may be some duplicates below due to the way they list references in the IPCC report in case you want to look some up on Google Scholar. Keep in mind, that I’ve not read the entire IPCC report either. I’ve read some of the summaries, and a few sections that are important as motivation for my current work (I hope to hear about a new job next week). So, I’m certainly not an expert on what is or isn’t in the IPCC reports at a detailed level. This is not me saying don’t ask, I don’t mind using my Google Fu to help find something for you within reason. 🙂 Jiménez Cisneros, B.E. et al., 2014: Freshwater Resources. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA Arnell, N.W. and B. Lloyd-Hughes, 2014: The global-scale impacts of climate change on water resources and flooding under new climate and socio-economic scenarios. Climatic Change, 122(1–2), 127–140, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0948-4. Winsemius, H.C. et al., 2016: Global drivers of future river flood risk. Nature Climate Change, 6(4), 381–385, doi:10.1038/nclimate2893. Alfieri, L. et al., 2017: Global projections of river flood risk in a warmer world. Earth’s Future, 5(2), 171–182, doi:10.1002/2016ef000485. Arnell, N.W., J.A. Lowe, B. Lloyd-Hughes, and T.J. Osborn, 2018: The impacts avoided with a 1.5°C climate target: a global and regional assessment. Climatic Change, 147(1–2), 61–76, doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2115-9. Kinoshita, Y., M. Tanoue, S. Watanabe, and Y. Hirabayashi, 2018: Quantifying the effect of autonomous adaptation to global river flood projections: Application to future flood risk assessments. Environmental Research Letters, 13(1), 014006, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa9401. ↩ Alfieri, L. et al., 2017: Global projections of river flood risk in a warmer world. Earth’s Future, 5(2), 171–182, doi:10.1002/2016ef000485. ↩ Alfieri, L., F. Dottori, R. Betts, P. Salamon, and L. Feyen, 2018: Multi-Model Projections of River Flood Risk in Europe under Global Warming. Climate, 6(1), 6, doi:10.3390/cli6010006. ↩ Arnell, N.W., J.A. Lowe, B. Lloyd-Hughes, and T.J. Osborn, 2018: The impacts avoided with a 1.5°C climate target: a global and regional assessment. Climatic Change, 147(1–2), 61–76, doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2115-9. ↩ Arnell, N.W. and B. Lloyd-Hughes, 2014: The global-scale impacts of climate change on water resources and flooding under new climate and socio-economic scenarios. Climatic Change, 122(1–2), 127–140, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0948-4. ↩ Kinoshita, Y., M. Tanoue, S. Watanabe, and Y. Hirabayashi, 2018: Quantifying the effect of autonomous adaptation to global river flood projections: Application to future flood risk assessments. Environmental Research Letters, 13(1), 014006, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa9401. ---
**Author:** ![cmosdes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cmosdes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmosdes)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/210 "2019-12-09T16:36:12Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > [https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-3/) has a summary (note this is for 1.5C change, which is basically not going to happen, so this should be considered the absolute best-case scenario if a miracle happens). > > And chapter 4 has more details. [https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap4\_FINAL-1.pdf](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap4_FINAL-1.pdf) > > They cite the following papers. There may be some duplicates below due to the way they list references in the IPCC report in case you want to look some up on Google Scholar. > > Keep in mind, that I’ve not read the entire IPCC report either. I’ve read some of the summaries, and a few sections that are important as motivation for my current work (I hope to hear about a new job next week). So, I’m certainly not an expert on what is or isn’t in the IPCC reports at a detailed level. This is not me saying don’t ask, I don’t mind using my Google Fu to help find something for you within reason. 🙂 > > Jiménez Cisneros, B.E. et al., 2014: Freshwater Resources. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA > > Arnell, N.W. and B. Lloyd-Hughes, 2014: The global-scale impacts of climate change on water resources and flooding under new climate and socio-economic scenarios. Climatic Change, 122(1–2), 127–140, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0948-4. > > Winsemius, H.C. et al., 2016: Global drivers of future river flood risk. Nature Climate Change, 6(4), 381–385, doi:10.1038/nclimate2893. > > Alfieri, L. et al., 2017: Global projections of river flood risk in a warmer world. Earth’s Future, 5(2), 171–182, doi:10.1002/2016ef000485. > > Arnell, N.W., J.A. Lowe, B. Lloyd-Hughes, and T.J. Osborn, 2018: The impacts avoided with a 1.5°C climate target: a global and regional assessment. Climatic Change, 147(1–2), 61–76, doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2115-9. > > Kinoshita, Y., M. Tanoue, S. Watanabe, and Y. Hirabayashi, 2018: Quantifying the effect of autonomous adaptation to global river flood projections: Application to future flood risk assessments. Environmental Research Letters, 13(1), 014006, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa9401. ↩ > > Alfieri, L. et al., 2017: Global projections of river flood risk in a warmer world. Earth’s Future, 5(2), 171–182, doi:10.1002/2016ef000485. ↩ > > Alfieri, L., F. Dottori, R. Betts, P. Salamon, and L. Feyen, 2018: Multi-Model Projections of River Flood Risk in Europe under Global Warming. Climate, 6(1), 6, doi:10.3390/cli6010006. ↩ > > Arnell, N.W., J.A. Lowe, B. Lloyd-Hughes, and T.J. Osborn, 2018: The impacts avoided with a 1.5°C climate target: a global and regional assessment. Climatic Change, 147(1–2), 61–76, doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2115-9. ↩ > > Arnell, N.W. and B. Lloyd-Hughes, 2014: The global-scale impacts of climate change on water resources and flooding under new climate and socio-economic scenarios. Climatic Change, 122(1–2), 127–140, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0948-4. ↩ > > Kinoshita, Y., M. Tanoue, S. Watanabe, and Y. Hirabayashi, 2018: Quantifying the effect of autonomous adaptation to global river flood projections: Application to future flood risk assessments. Environmental Research Letters, 13(1), 014006, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa9401. Thanks again for all the info. I’m reading through chapter 3 and trying to get a feel for what projections are being made and how those can be measured. For example, in one section they talk about a region in China that is highly susceptible to intrusion of salt water into the farming and how they are dealing with it. They say it will be more costly at at 2C rise than at 1.5C rise, which seems obvious and not something I could possibly dispute. What I don’t see is the concept that the farming in that region will be impacted to the point that mass starvation will occur. So the idea is to keep an eye on this region and see how they are impacted and try to deal with the oncoming issues global warming will have. I feel like I’m looking up at the night sky and the person next to me points to one of the lights and says, “That is a huge meteor on a direct course to Earth. If we don’t do anything, really, really bad things will happen.” I look up at the light and knowing that a meteor hitting the Earth is bad, I try to figure out just how bad this can be. Why did he say it is bad? Is it the size of the Chicxulub meteor or is this Tunguska? I try to get some facts. I ask around. Lots of people are saying this is really bad. Lots of really smart, highly intelligent and extremely well educated people are saying this is bad. I’m sure they are right, but I’m the curious type, so I want to find out more. So I ask. As soon as I ask how they measured the size of the meteor and determined the path, someone jumps at me and says, “You are meteor denier! I can tell! Maybe you don’t realize someone was whispering in your ear, but someone was!! Who was it! I demand to know!” I said, “Well, I read in a scientific paper about how the meteor came from the Kuiper belt and I wondered if perhaps it was possible it could be deflected by Jupiter or some other body.” “Aha! You are a denier!! Yes, your scientific cite is exactly in alignment with prevailing thought, but it isn’t KNOWN yet. Also, many deniers have said they think it will be deflected, so clearly you are a denier!” Then someone else chimes in. “If that meteor hits the moon and deflects the moon into us, it would mean the end of the Earth!” “Is anyone projecting that?” “No, but just think about how bad it would be if it did happen! If the meteor is traveling at 1000 mph we are all doomed!” (highest estimates for speed are 1300kph, but that apparently doesn’t matter). When I say, “Well, highest estimates for speed are only 1300 kilometers/hour”, someone else says, “Aha! 1300 kilometers/hour is over 900 mph (it isn’t, they can’t do math, apparently) so that 1000mph isn’t that far off!” A few people point me to some useful websites that I start to look through. It raises some question, but at this point it seem worthless to ask. Any questions are going to be shouted down. When I point out I have a science background, the math geek says, “You studied engineering! You can’t possibly understand science at all with just an engineering degree!” I ask simply, “If this is coming at Earth in the way predicted, what will it look like in a few weeks so we can be sure it really is headed this way?” Someone else then says, “You expect us to know down to the inch where this thing will be in exactly 57.345 days? That is absurd!” The facts remain. This meteor is headed to the Earth and the great minds of our time are all in agreement. There are those, like me, who are curious as to how this conclusion came to be and would really, dearly, love to learn more about it. For now, I see a bright spot in the night sky and am familiar enough with scientific principles to understand how vectors and projections work, but aren’t even remotely qualified to be able to judge the determination of the prediction of a guaranteed collision. The question then becomes, “Okay, assuming all this muck and mayhem are going to rain down on us, what will we see in the interim?” But any time any questions are ask, out of ignorance rather than a questioning of the conclusions, more time is spent defending the motivation for wanting to know than getting any useful answers. This used to be a great site where people could come and ask questions and people like BeepKillBeep, Exapno Mapcase and squidfood would help provide information and explanations. The approach used to be that people asking questions had a genuine ignorance of the situation and were curious. But enough trolls have come through that this site is no longer that. If someone doesn’t immediately follow along the prevailing consensus they are immediately attacked. I’m not a troll. I’ve been here since 2002. I’m not a denier. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/211 "2019-12-09T17:04:57Z")
> [@cmosdes](#): > > Thanks again for all the info. I’m reading through chapter 3 and trying to get a feel for what projections are being made and how those can be measured. For example, in one section they talk about a region in China that is highly susceptible to intrusion of salt water into the farming and how they are dealing with it. They say it will be more costly at at 2C rise than at 1.5C rise, which seems obvious and not something I could possibly dispute. What I don’t see is the concept that the farming in that region will be impacted to the point that mass starvation will occur. So the idea is to keep an eye on this region and see how they are impacted and try to deal with the oncoming issues global warming will have. > > I feel like I’m looking up at the night sky and the person next to me points to one of the lights and says, “That is a huge meteor on a direct course to Earth. If we don’t do anything, really, really bad things will happen.” I look up at the light and knowing that a meteor hitting the Earth is bad, I try to figure out just how bad this can be. Why did he say it is bad? Is it the size of the Chicxulub meteor or is this Tunguska? I try to get some facts. I ask around. Lots of people are saying this is really bad. Lots of really smart, highly intelligent and extremely well educated people are saying this is bad. I’m sure they are right, but I’m the curious type, so I want to find out more. So I ask. > > As soon as I ask how they measured the size of the meteor and determined the path, someone jumps at me and says, “You are meteor denier! I can tell! Maybe you don’t realize someone was whispering in your ear, but someone was!! Who was it! I demand to know!” I said, “Well, I read in a scientific paper about how the meteor came from the Kuiper belt and I wondered if perhaps it was possible it could be deflected by Jupiter or some other body.” “Aha! You are a denier!! Yes, your scientific cite is exactly in alignment with prevailing thought, but it isn’t KNOWN yet. Also, many deniers have said they think it will be deflected, so clearly you are a denier!” > > Then someone else chimes in. “If that meteor hits the moon and deflects the moon into us, it would mean the end of the Earth!” “Is anyone projecting that?” “No, but just think about how bad it would be if it did happen! If the meteor is traveling at 1000 mph we are all doomed!” (highest estimates for speed are 1300kph, but that apparently doesn’t matter). When I say, “Well, highest estimates for speed are only 1300 kilometers/hour”, someone else says, “Aha! 1300 kilometers/hour is over 900 mph (it isn’t, they can’t do math, apparently) so that 1000mph isn’t that far off!” > > A few people point me to some useful websites that I start to look through. It raises some question, but at this point it seem worthless to ask. Any questions are going to be shouted down. When I point out I have a science background, the math geek says, “You studied engineering! You can’t possibly understand science at all with just an engineering degree!” > > I ask simply, “If this is coming at Earth in the way predicted, what will it look like in a few weeks so we can be sure it really is headed this way?” > > Someone else then says, “You expect us to know down to the inch where this thing will be in exactly 57.345 days? That is absurd!” > > The facts remain. This meteor is headed to the Earth and the great minds of our time are all in agreement. There are those, like me, who are curious as to how this conclusion came to be and would really, dearly, love to learn more about it. For now, I see a bright spot in the night sky and am familiar enough with scientific principles to understand how vectors and projections work, but aren’t even remotely qualified to be able to judge the determination of the prediction of a guaranteed collision. The question then becomes, “Okay, assuming all this muck and mayhem are going to rain down on us, what will we see in the interim?” But any time any questions are ask, out of ignorance rather than a questioning of the conclusions, more time is spent defending the motivation for wanting to know than getting any useful answers. > > This used to be a great site where people could come and ask questions and people like BeepKillBeep, Exapno Mapcase and squidfood would help provide information and explanations. The approach used to be that people asking questions had a genuine ignorance of the situation and were curious. > > But enough trolls have come through that this site is no longer that. If someone doesn’t immediately follow along the prevailing consensus they are immediately attacked. I’m not a troll. I’ve been here since 2002. I’m not a denier. I wouldn’t worry about it. You know what’s in your heart. It certainly isn’t relevant to me if you’re a climate change denier or not. I used to be, but my mind was changed in the early 2000s as the science became clearer. So what matters to me is whether you’re open to looking at information. You seem to be at least to me. Here’s some crop yield material. The rough takeaway is we need to be producing more food; however, in many areas, we’re producing less already, and further decline is expected. By the way, I wouldn’t necessarily read the dense sections on methodology unless that interests you. I’d focus on the introduction, results and conclusions sections to get an overview of what is being said. Lesk, C., Rowhani, P., & Ramankutty, N. (2016). Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production. Nature, 529(7584), 84. \<— this is a very good paper Basche, A. D., Archontoulis, S. V., Kaspar, T. C., Jaynes, D. B., Parkin, T. B., & Miguez, F. E. (2016). Simulating long-term impacts of cover crops and climate change on crop production and environmental outcomes in the Midwestern United States. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 218, 95-106. \<---- a more American perspective Ramírez Villegas, J., & Thornton, P. K. (2015). Climate change impacts on African crop production. \<— An African perspective. Godfray, H. C. J., Beddington, J. R., Crute, I. R., Haddad, L., Lawrence, D., Muir, J. F., … & Toulmin, C. (2010). Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. science, 327(5967), 812-818. \<— also a very good paper although it is more about food security than climate change Some other papers Ray, D. K., Gerber, J. S., MacDonald, G. K., & West, P. C. (2015). Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability. Nature communications, 6, 5989. Challinor, A. J., Watson, J., Lobell, D. B., Howden, S. M., Smith, D. R., & Chhetri, N. (2014). A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 4(4), 287. Kang, Y., Khan, S., & Ma, X. (2009). Climate change impacts on crop yield, crop water productivity and food security–A review. Progress in Natural Science, 19(12), 1665-1674. Hertel, T. W., Burke, M. B., & Lobell, D. B. (2010). The poverty implications of climate-induced crop yield changes by 2030. Global Environmental Change, 20(4), 577-585. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/212 "2019-12-09T19:03:09Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > I wouldn’t worry about it. You know what’s in your heart. It certainly isn’t relevant to me if you’re a climate change denier or not. I used to be, but my mind was changed in the early 2000s as the science became clearer. So what matters to me is whether you’re open to looking at information. You seem to be at least to me. Thanks for all that **BeepKillBeep** , we really need more former skeptics to come forward with their input and expertise. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/213 "2019-12-09T21:08:01Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Thanks for all that **BeepKillBeep** , we really need more former skeptics to come forward with their input and expertise. Denier might be a bit strong. I was probably more like where **Sam Stone** is now. I’ve always been pro-environment, but back then I felt it needed to be very balanced to economic needs. Of course, I don’t think we need to “dismantle capitalism” or take on “draconian social reengineering” to combat climate change. I think the best way to explain my current point-of-view is I think humanity needs to switch to a culture of sustainability. I can understand how to somebody pre-1900 (even pre-1950ish), the world must have seemed so vast. It’s resources so endless. But we know now, that’s not true. The resources are not endless, and we have a profound effect on our world. If we want to continue to thrive, then we need to change how act and not be so wasteful. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/214 "2019-12-09T21:32:37Z")
> **[High mountain ‘water towers’ are in trouble](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/water-towers-high-mountains-are-in-trouble-perpetual)** > > These high "water towers" provide a huge percentage of global fresh water, but climate change and geopolitical stresses endanger their existence. > [@](#): > > The snow and icy glaciers that drape the high mountains play a crucial role for over 1.6 billion people—over 20 percent of Earth’s human population today—whether or not they know it. The water you’re drinking may in fact have come from a high-mountain source. > [@](#): > > or decades scientists have recognized that climate change will affect the amount of water stored in the high mountain water towers and the paths it takes as it flows out. The high mountains are warming faster than the world’s average; temperatures in the high Himalaya, for example, have crept up nearly 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) since the beginning of the century, compared to a planetary average of just about 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). > > Small changes in the amount of water coming out or the timing could, they predicted, add great stress to communities already struggling to use water prudently. That would be true, they thought, for small communities, like the potato farmers of the upper reaches of the Indus, as well as major desert cities that rely on water tower water, like Lima, as well as for entire countries who were already in conflict over water rights, like India and Pakistan. This is relevant to the earlier discussion on Eugene, OR as one of those papers was showing how snow at higher elevations is going to be greatly impacted by about 60-70%. Losing that upper elevation snow can be very impactful. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/215 "2019-12-09T21:42:32Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Thanks for all that **BeepKillBeep** , we really need more former skeptics to come forward with their input and expertise. Sorry for the spam, I want to clarify my previous previous post. I know you didn’t use the term denier, you said skeptic (which is probably more accurate). I did to describe myself. I was being critical of my own post and not yours, but replying to your post to clarify where I had been. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/216 "2019-12-09T23:35:54Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Thanks for all that **BeepKillBeep** , we really need more former skeptics to come forward with their input and expertise. ::shrugs:: I didn’t take the claims even a little bit seriously, since I only ever saw unfalsifiable ones getting made about it. After a heck of a lot of time and effort, I finally got a prediction — from **GIGObuster** , as it happens — that _is_ falsifiable, and so I’ve taken the stuff seriously ever since. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/217 "2019-12-10T02:35:46Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Sorry for the spam, I want to clarify my previous previous post. I know you didn’t use the term denier, you said skeptic (which is probably more accurate). I did to describe myself. I was being critical of my own post and not yours, but replying to your post to clarify where I had been. Thanks for that, I was wondering if I needed to nitpick more. 🙂 > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > ::shrugs:: > > I didn’t take the claims even a little bit seriously, since I only ever saw unfalsifiable ones getting made about it. After a heck of a lot of time and effort, I finally got a prediction — from **GIGObuster** , as it happens — that _is_ falsifiable, and so I’ve taken the stuff seriously ever since. Well, not for lack of effort. 🙂 Just to clarify though, more than once I pointed at sources years before that mentioned falsifiable items coming from serious research, and more than once I pointed out that just depending on a guy on the internet like me was not a good idea. 😛 the cites and the researchers linked or cited were/are the key. As I pointed before, cites like [this](https://skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html)and post #202 in this thread were linked many times in the past and pointed at fulfilled predictions or research that got confirmation; and as usual, even when fulfilled, someone can come and still find ways to falsify them. And there had been attempts indeed, [and at the same time skeptical researchers and even deniers had failures with their predictions.](https://skepticalscience.com/comparing-global-temperature-predictions.html) All that should be taken as many reasons why this issue is a very serious one, rather than only depending on a prediction from a social studies guy with history background combined with IT work. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2023, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/218 "2023-05-26T15:52:31Z")
Updating this thread James Hansen is very pessimistic in a new article: **James Hansen Warns of a Short-Term Climate Shock Bringing 2 Degrees of Warming by 2050** The famed researcher publicly released a preliminary version of a paper-in-progress with grim predictions of short- and long-term warming, but not all climate scientists agree with its conclusions. > **[James Hansen Warns of a Short-Term Climate Shock Bringing 2 Degrees of...](https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26052023/james-hansen-climate-change-2-degrees-2050/)** > > A team of scientists led by former NASA climate researcher James Hansen, who formally raised the alarm about climate change to U.S. government leaders in his 1988 testimony to Congress, is working on a new study that warns of a possible short-term... Here is the technical paper: > **[2212.04474.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2212/2212.04474.pdf)** > > 3.02 MB ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2023, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/219 "2023-05-26T18:51:07Z")
Well that’s ironic. He if I understand it correctly he lays the blame at the lack of sulfate particles in the atmosphere as a result of the decline in burning coal. It’s really a damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario. (Disclaimer: Please don’t take this post to in any way discourage efforts to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions) ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739/220 "2023-05-29T19:37:23Z")
> [@cjackson](#): > > How long until even the billionaires are suffering its effects? Anyone with beach front property in FL trying to buy insurance is suffering the effects. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-climate-change-become-dire/843739.md?page=12)