Slashdot Mirror
1981 Paper's Predictions for Global Temperatures Spot-On
Layzej writes "The Register reports on a paper published in Science in 1981 projecting global mean temperatures up to the year 2100. 'When the 1981 paper was written, temperatures in the northern hemispheres were declining, and global mean temperatures were below their 1940 levels. Despite those facts, the paper's authors confidently predicted a rise in temperature due to increasing CO2 emissions.' The prediction turns out to be remarkably accurate — even a bit optimistic. The article concludes that the 1981 paper is 'a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test.'"
I'm not commenting on the climate one way or the other, but when you have dozens of different predictions over the years is it really surprising that a couple of them happened to hit the mark? Don't forget the Global Cooling sentiment which was around just a couple of years before this article came out...
Care to cite one? Since it sounds like you're so well-informed.
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The eighties was 30 years ago?
Shit I'm old.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Tells you about the rigor of climate science, that's for certain.
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I am very far from being a specialist in this topic. The The Register article seems to imply that global warming must be true, given that there was ONE paper in 80s already anticipating it. That is not necessarily true. The prediction can be result of pure chance in a possibly erratic research study (I have no clue if that is the case or not). One could perhaps make an stronger statement in that direction if MANY papers anticipated global warming (possibly using different models).
So, in yesterday's story about predicting the collapse of civilization, multiple posters snarked about how convenient it is to make predictions about what will happen 30 years from now, 'cause no one will remember you made those predictions--so you'll never be called to account for your oh-so-incorrect doomsday predictions.
I now calmly await for yesterday's posters to issue "I can see now that I was wrong" statements.
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
I wish coversation around this topic would shift from debate about whether or not the climate is changing and may in fact change dramatically over the course of several decades, and whether or not humans activities have an impact on the climate to a productive conversation about how to best react to changing climate and use it productively. It is obvious to me that where I live (Minnesota), the mean temperatures are rising and the growing seasons are getting longer. Shit, I had my vegetable seeds sprouting and even had them outdoors some days, early in March, in Minnesota! I am also growing a dwarf bananna tree that has made it through two winters here. I guess my point is, I think it would be great if people would quit arguing about empirical facts (such as there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than ever before during modern human civilization); and start wondering about how to react to the changes that might be brought about in this altered environment.
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
From the Hansen study:
"Political and economic forces affecting energy use and fuel choice make it unlikely that the CO2 issue will have a major impact on energy policies until convincing observations of the global warming are in hand."
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"a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test."
Just wait till we finally reach a double of atmospheric CO2 values, at which point we'll get to see if the predictions Svante Arrhenius made in the late 19th / early 20th century pan out.
If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4 degrees; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8 degrees. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4 degrees; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8 degrees.
Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries.
So about 8 years ago I moved from Minnesota to Northern Virginia for work. And one of the aspects of culture shock was that I was now living with, befriending and enjoying my time with folks from all over the country who had moved to the DC area for work. Many friends from Texas and Pennsylvania specifically. I even roomed with several of them and one thing really bothered me: they did not recycle. So I kept doing my own recycling and trying to help them out to no avail. This was quite different from Minnesota where it was stressed when we were young that it was important. You might call it common sense or indoctrination or nanny state or whatever your political views tell you to but that's just the way it was largely. And the reason was that the Earth is a precious resource.
So, being an avid Slashdotter, I was fairly in tune with the Global Warming debate and would often talk to my new friends about it. Every single one of them either didn't want to hear it or thought I was an idiot. They seemed to only listen when I would bring up news items lending credibility to the absence of climate change. Then they asserted there was climate change but it is natural and so on and so forth. To this day, my friend from Texas does not recycle in his home. His Korean wife has asked me not to discuss global warming around her and continually asserts it was proven wrong years ago. My friend from Texas, being quite a bit smarter now likes to talk about what we can do about it without him having to alter his lifestyle at all. The reason for it is unimportant to him, now he just accepts that it's happening for some reason and how can we put something in space that can block the sun partially while maintaining a synchronous orbit around the sun between it and Earth. It's not that that is a simpler solution than reducing your personal carbon footprint but instead it's one that doesn't require government intervention (which he views as the ultimate evil) and doesn't require him to change.
So what do you do when you read news about this, do you whip out your biggest "I told you so" font and e-mail it out to your friends until they get tired of it? I mean, I can't even politely offer to collect the cans and bottles from one of my friend's parties and take them to the local recycling center. He's almost proud of his freedom to be able to send it to the dump. So I have two options. One is silence and apathy and the other is not having any friends in this area. Silence and apathy it is.
My work here is dung.
I would also be interested in knowing about other predictions, in particular predictions with specific numbers backed by plausible theoretical models
Here's one from the same researcher, from 7 years later, after spending half a decade of super-computer time simulating the warming.
.3 degrees Celsius.
To understand the graph, the red line (Hansen A) was calculated assuming and annual increase of atmospheric CO2 of 1.5% per year. The orange line (Hansen B) was calculated assuming that the annual increase of atmospheric CO2 would be constant, and the yellow line (Hansen C) was calculated assuming CO2 output would decrease so much after 1990 that by 2000 it would cease to increase. He was optimistic in the scenario.
You can also look at the first IPCC report from 1990 which predicted a rise of
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."