Slashdot Mirror
How Two Scientists Accurately Predicted Global Warming in 1967 (medium.com)
Slashdot reader Layzej shares an article from this spring marking the 50th anniversary of the first accurate climate model:
Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel looks at a climate model (MW67) published in 1967 and finds "50 years after their groundbreaking 1967 paper, the science can be robustly evaluated, and they got almost everything exactly right."
An analysis on the "Climate Graphs" blog shows exactly how close the prediction has proven to be: "The slope of the CO2-vs-temperature regression line in the 50 years of actual observations is 2.57, only slightly higher than MW67's prediction of 2.36" They also note that "This is even more impressive when one considers that at the time MW67 was published, there had been no detectable warming in over two decades. Their predicted warming appeared to mark a radical change with the recent past:"
An analysis on the "Climate Graphs" blog shows exactly how close the prediction has proven to be: "The slope of the CO2-vs-temperature regression line in the 50 years of actual observations is 2.57, only slightly higher than MW67's prediction of 2.36" They also note that "This is even more impressive when one considers that at the time MW67 was published, there had been no detectable warming in over two decades. Their predicted warming appeared to mark a radical change with the recent past:"
_<O__
_(_\_
__X__
8===D
Adopt a penis bird today!
A way to distinguish the one prediction that's going to be right from the millions that aren't.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1st. 2.36 and 2.56 are wayyy off.
2nd. Co2 raises after the warming has occured not before. Correlation is not causation.
3rd. coming out of an ice age it is a safe bet to predict increasing temperature
So they didn't predict sh** they just found the slope (somewhat) of the correlation of warming climate to co2. Congrats.
Nobody accurately predicted the world economy in 1967, so to the extent these guys are accurate, it is a scripted fraud!
This paper is arguably the origin of the modern disinformation campaign against carbon pollution. This is the point where politically powerful interests realized that their core business model was in danger and that they needed to do something to stop it. Now we have an entire political party who's official position is to ignore the blatantly obvious and to be actively hostile to the kind of research that produced this paper.
I read the internet for the articles.
[sarcasm]Clearly there is no way that scientists came up this research with decades ago and that they debated it for decades before consensus. No this was all invented by China recently to cover up their involvement with the Kennedy assassination and the Lindberg kidnapping.[/sarcasm]
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
How Two Scientists Accurately Predicted the End of The Ice Age in 1967.
However, there is no way of knowing now, in 2017, which ones will be correct. Or which ones will be right for the wrong reasons. Neither can we say today which ones look plausible but have missed an important point, could not possibly have foreseen something unimaginable that hasn't happened of just happen to have lucked out and pick the few truly significant causes / relationships / equations out of the mass of conflicting opinions circulating at present.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In the early 1970s, in addition to the population explosion and how the planet would not be able to feed everyone well before the year 2000 (and we starve), there was the scientific forecast/prediction that the earth was entering a global cooling phase and it would be even more difficult to grow crops and feed the every-growing population.
Yeah, that never happened.
So you're saying that we should just sit back and do nothing at all except gaze at our navels?
As a schoolkid in the 60s and 70s I remember every science class telling us if we didn't fix our ways there would be another ice age.
So is this magical paper perfectly accurate before modern scientists "revised" the data or after? Because they sure love proving warming by lowering old temps.
So this global warming thing is not a scam?
The medium.com article is very good by the way. Read it!
These arguments always tend to revolve around whether global warming is real or not. That is not the right question.
Let us assume that global warming is real. The fallacy is when people assume that global warming is BAD.
It should be obvious by now that humans are notoriously bad at predicting large, systemic shifts and trends. Read The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb for a lengthy statistical-mathematic discussion.
To assume we know exactly what global warming would do is the real absurdity. For every bad thing it might do, there is a good thing it might do. More CO2 = more photosynthesis = more food. Rising sea levels can hurt some communities, but provide greater natural resources and water access to other communities. The extinction of some species can yield the preservation of other species which are eaten by the former.
The point is: think about the ECONOMICS. Global warming may be real, but the fallacy is assuming that it is bad. It may be a great thing.
Yes. Better do nothing than something stupid.
And monkeys and you'll eventually get Shakespeare
Wow, in 1967 scientists predicted global warming, with a study that half a century later has proven to be largely accurate...
BUT, did that 1967 take into account all the dramatic changes that have been under-taken since 1967 to shrink the world's carbon footprint? Probably not, they got lucky.
Also, in 1974 scientists reversed course and predicted an impending ice age - which points out that climatologists are guessing and publishing all kinds of studies putting forth all manner of possibilities, hoping there will come a time when their particular findings will be proven true, before the unpredictable climate changes again, earning them their 15 minutes of climate prediction fame.
Ken
No. You do not do nothing. You adapt. Rather than accept the hubris that says the entire energy distribution of the planet is under complete human control, and even if it were there is no way you can control enough humans to a fine enough degree to steer it, you accept that change for whatever reason is happening and adapt. If you cannot adapt, you die. Now there's a fine old idea with only a few radical right wing non-thinkers disputing it. Adapt or die.
(although there were some ads on buses in our city with the catch phrase "Adaptation is not the answer." in regards to climate change/global warming/whatever we call it this week. :-)
This is a model for global warming; in particular the effects of CO_2 on global warming. It makes NO other predictions, in particular it makes NO predictions about CLIMATE. The controversy about "climate change" among rational people has to do with predictions about CLIMATE, not warming, such as the predicted frequencies of severe storms.
I'd like to see Slashdot open the books so we can see who is paying them to publish this crap day in and day out.
There is no global warming. End of story.
https://science.slashdot.org/s...
Rick B.
Hey! Someone who we'll now qualify as a SCIENTIST said something nebulous about global warming decades ago.
However, because it fits The Narrative (All Hail The Narrative, Long Live The Narrative), we'll call it an accurate prediction!
How did they predict CO2 output? They had an accompanying industrial growth model?
Seems like they just got lucky.
These arguments always tend to revolve around whether global warming is real or not. That is not the right question.
Let us assume that global warming is real. The fallacy is when people assume that global warming is BAD.
Yes, but that is a different question.
The relentless assault on climate science and on climate scientists-- using words like "hoax" "scam" and "fraud" in referring both to the science and the scientists-- is still continuing. But now the attack has forked, with attacks on the scientists continuing, but now another branch of the attack saying "well, but maybe warming is good."
I'd pay more attention to them if they weren't pretty much the same people (and funded by the same oil companies) who were saying "climate science is a hoax and climate scientists should be put in jail."
I notice you don't sign your name, Mr. Anonymous Coward. So, to be clear: do you accept the evidence that global warming is real, and anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are the major contributor? Or are you just doing a new attack on a new front?
If you collect every predictive scientific paper published this year and fast-forward 50 years, a proportion of them will turn out to be correct, simply due to sheer dumb luck.
This just happens to be the first one, and the one in all of the textbooks (even the textbooks not about global warming-- textbooks about atmospheric light scattering, for example), and the one that all the climate scientists acknowledge as the beginning of accurate climate models.
This is not a paper that was picked up in retrospect, because it happened to be right-- this is the paper the started the field.
However, there is no way of knowing now, in 2017, which ones will be correct.
Bullshit. That's not how science is done. Scientists show their work and lay out their calculations and the reasons, and other scientists replicate their work (well, physical scientists do. I don't know about social scientists). "Scientists make random predictions and some of them are right" is not how science is done
I hate to break this to you liberal climate change alarmists, the problem isn't climate change deniers. The problem is you present a problem but you don't present a way to fix the problem. Essentially, you're just complaining about something "wah wah wah, someone should do something about it!" The combustion engine is the backbone of the entire global economic system that we have. We can't just simply said "Oh man, climate change. Ok everyone no one can drive a car anymore!" You need a solution to the problem and you need a transition plan. I've never seen such a thing and until such time that someone comes up with that, it's going to continue to be a problem and if you guys are right it will be a fatal one. But that outcome won't be the result of people not acknowledging the problem, it will be the result of not finding a solution to the problem.
We'll make great pets
Yeah, that never happened.
"Yeah, that never happened" is correct! Anonymous Coward says something accurate for a change.
There was no scientific consensus nor prediction by scientists that the Earth was "entering a global cooling phase."
Citations: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.8199/full/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-global-cooling-story-came-to-be/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/"
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/03/cruz-on-the-global-cooling-myth-and-galileo/
Wow, in 1967 scientists predicted global warming, with a study that half a century later has proven to be largely accurate...
BUT, did that 1967 take into account all the dramatic changes that have been under-taken since 1967 to shrink the world's carbon footprint?
No. If you'd read the article, not just the summary, you'd see that the paper did not try to predict how much carbon dioxide would be produced. It predicted if this much carbon dioxide is produced, then this much warming would occur.
The comparison of prediction to experiment-- if you'd read the article you'd know this-- was to look at how much carbon dioxide actually was put in the atmosphere, and compare the warming to the amount predicted for that amount of carbon dioxide.
The theory turns out to be a remarkably good match to the data. Good work, Manabe and Wetherald.
If you read any of the literature, you'd know that this is the reference-- the Manabe and Wetherald paper was the first to fully model the co-effect of carbon dioxide and humidity in a convective atmosphere, and is the one pretty much everybody references.
Here https://www.carbonbrief.org/pr... for example, or here https://www.skepticalscience.c...
Manabe was the grandfather of global circulation models-- pretty much all the models that exist today can be traced back to his work. This wasn't a "random" paper-- this was the paper.
... The fallacy is when people assume that global warming is BAD.
The point is: think about the ECONOMICS. Global warming may be real, but the fallacy is assuming that it is bad. It may be a great thing.
Never play games with reality, you get burned
The only fallacy is assuming that more deserts = more food
First off, calling yourself by a moniker on a website is no better than posting anonymously.
Second, facts are facts, regardless of who presents them. If you really believe in science and reason, then you need to apply that standard to the economics and the epistemology; instead, you are skewing the argument to conspiratorial thinking about who is claiming what. How is that any better than the people you are critiquing?
Check out this talk by David Friedman on the economics of global warming. Friedman affirms that global warming is probably real, but that the economics of what it will actually do are vague.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-yJ3K9fNos
Like how you just adapted yourself into a straw man!
Give us an update if its your ass that's dying for reasons outside your control, due to the actions of self-centered denialists.
Svante Arrhenius predicted it during the late 19th century.
Now we just have to pick the correct prediction before it happens.
Facts:
* Venus has an atmospheric pressure 90 times that of earth, the gasses at the planets surface are adiabatically compressed by effect of gravity on the gasses above.
* A diesel engine with a compression ratio of 16:1 is hot enough to ignite diesel (this is adiabatic compression, a constant entropy process).
* Venus' upper atmosphere is colder at the poles than anywhere on Earth: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/04/20/a-frigid-surprise-at-venus-poles/
* If we added large amounts of any gas that resulted in 90 atmospheres of pressure, it will result in high temperatures similar to Venus' surface (influenced by the specific heat capacity of gasses).
This is the kind of "scientific" drivel that Slashdot finds suitable to support Anthropic global warming.
Since the mid-60s many people have predicted almost every possible future climate scenario. Let's not forget the little ice age predicted around 1970, for example. It's not surprising that one of these guys came close.
The only quantitative _predictive_ statement in the Medium article is that a doubling of CO2 concentration will cause a 2degreesC increase is temperature (at fixed relative humidity). This is a strictly log-linear prediction. Let's submit it to a real _prospective_ experiment:
We are currently at ~400 ppm CO2. According to the IPCC, the prediction of CO2 concentration in 2100 is about 600 ppm. So, according to the cited model, we will have about another 1degreeC in global mean temperature by 2100. (This, by the way, is well below the 2-5degreesC range predicted in the last IPCC assessment report (AR5). At the very high end of the CO2 predictions above, we have 800 ppm, meaning 2degreesC warming according to the model.
So, they're predicting 1-2degreesC increase with business as usual! I can live with that. Let's see if it's right.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
In Geography class (1967) we had it written in our books that the deserts were getting bigger. Hmm.. Let's connect the dots. And if you are one of those "climate deniers" what did you loose if we implement cleaner devices and laws? Cleaner air, water, land, sea?? Gee. Sounds like a big loss (Sarcasm). Oh, I get it! $$$ Its the money $$$
Can someone explain the problem?
I live in Utah. It looks like the temperature will go up 1 or 2 degrees by 2100. So my kids will be dead before this is a concern.
But that doesn't take into account the fact that we are already switching to solar and electric cars. One discovery could change all this. Heck, a large astral body could pass between us an the sun and shade us for two days, which would nearly freeze the world and then maybe global warming is a good thing.
So what is the problem? Are we going to die? No. Are we going to starve? No. Are we facing the end of the species? No. We are looking at a rise of 1 to 2 degrees by 2100.
The rising oceans isn't really a problem. It actually means that the seas will go inland further, the air will have more moisture, there will be more precipitation.
No to mention, the oceans rising a few feet over about 80 years is not nearly as dramatic as the ocean rising a few feet in one day. Will there be homes and business affected? Yes. But they will have time to move or be torn down, except in hurricane areas.
I dislike pollution. That is a problem. It causes asthma in kids. It causes could. Inversions actually hurt lungs, kill old people. So I am all for cleaner air.
But Global Warming beyond 1 or 2 degrees is only a possibility. Solar panel roofs and roads and electric cars and so many other changes will happen by 2100. What if we run out of warming CO2 and start cooling?
So I am not denying global warming. I asking, what is the problem?
Global Warming deniers are funny. Global Warming doomsdayer's are just as funny. Both seem to be fanatics.
I agree that global warming exists, but I deny that global warming is a problem now or that it will be much of a problem in the future.
I also deny that we have to take active part in global warming prevention. The market will take care of itself. We will get electric cars. Continued efficiencies in light bulbs. We will discover more energy sources. We will begin to desalinate the ocean at a very rapid rate. We haven't even really begun that. What if we start pumping water to Utah's Great Salt Lake from California, which makes sense, because water pumped to Utah flows back to California, so everyone benefits. We fill up the Great Salt Lake, which causes increased precipitation in the Rockie Mountains, rebuilds the snow packs, etc.
By 2100, if scorching of the earth looks likely I feel it will be solvable. What if we build a paper thin shield and deploy it to space and shade portions of the earth to prevent it from scorching? What would be the effect of shading 1 square mile of earth from the sun? What if that becomes an industries and we start shading thousands of square miles of earth from the sun? What if the cost to do that is nothing by 2100, as we have a new thriving community on Mars by then?
Or what if we put a large asteroid between the earth and the sun?
What if we start mining asteroids and bring air back to earth?
What if we just pump desalinzed water into the Sahara or Ghobi deserts and turn it back into a tropical forest and the increased plants absorb our extra C02?
Don't spend billions solving a problem that first, is not even for sure a problem, and second is likely to solve itself, and third we are likely to have way better technology to solve well before it actually becomes a problem.
Why don't we just stick cleaning up pollution. That is for sure a problem. That also would possibly result in hindering global warming.
Pollution is a problem, "Global Warming" or going up a degree or two or the next century is not.
Actually, the literal discovery of various gasses included the discovery that C02 was created by burning materials, reducing O2, and the predictions then indicated that the use of coal and other fossil fuels would have this impact.
We've known the lifespans of various gasses such as the NOx SOx COx variants for a long time. We even figured out how long they remained in the atmosphere. Which is why climate change is settled science.
Try reading a basic chemistry book sometime.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Some counter points:
Climate Change 1958: The Bell Telephone Science Hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY
And "Soylent Green" from the 1970s is about global warming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xo7yZ9kG9A