For those (like me) who don't know the authors, apparently they are well-published authors in the field of climate science whose work is very highly cited:
Setting aside the names of the authors, this is a very bad paper. They take temperature data sets, "adjust" [1] them by attempting to remove the biggest recent factors (volcanism, solar and el nino cycles) affecting temperatures, then do a piece-wise regression analysis to look at trends in 10-year chunks. This is just bad methodology, akin to what a junior graduate student with a failing thesis might do to find signal in a dataset that isn't being cooperative to their hypothesis.
Climate data is inherently noisy, and there are multiple interconnected cyclic signals, ranging from the "adjusted" factors to cycles that span decades, which we don't understand at all. "Adjusting" for a few of these, then doing a regression over the subset of the data is classic cherry-picking in search of a pre-determined conclusion. The overall dubious nature of the conclusion is called out in the final paragraph of the text:
> Although the world may not continue warming at such a fast pace, it could likewise continue accelerating to even faster rates.
They're literally just extrapolating from an unknown point value that they synthesized from data massage, and telling you that's a coin toss as to whether the extrapolation will be valid.
I am not a climate scientist so you can ignore me if you like, but I am "a scientist" who believes the earth is warming, and that we are the primary cause. Nonetheless, if I saw this kind of thing in a paper in my own field, it would be immediately tossed in the trash.
[1] You can't actually adjust for these things, which the authors admit in the text. They just dance around it so that lay-readers won't understand:
> Our method of removing El Niño, volcanism, and solar variations is approximate but not perfect, so it is possible that e.g. the effect of El Niño on the 2023 and 2024 temperature is not completely eliminated.
As an observation, global warming has completely disappeared as social concern in the last few years. Great that someone is still publishing research, but it seems like being a climate scientist has gone from hottest field to nobody cares.
Basically the oceans are way way way too hot which is melting even the most ancient ice and that can never be undone in our lifetimes (well maybe from a nuclear winter)
USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be scorching from overheating oceans
But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart
Tomorrow: trillions invested in new technology for simulating human torture accurately at the molecular level, requiring twice the level of all consumer electricity use on the planet. Advocates claim "all use is valid".
The content of the paper is summed up as “everyone felt like the climate changed after 2015, the data up to 2023 was inconclusive; we finally have enough to prove it with 95% confidence.”
EDIT: The title is weird because it’s generic to the point of being unsearchable. I’m not disputing the facts of the paper.
Was anybody really expecting anything else? The only factor that would matter is if oil producing nations STOP producing oil entirely. Not reduce, not limit, stop. Same with coal and other small contributions. Note: limiting exports, CO2 limits in oil customer states, ... all of that just doesn't matter.
And, obviously, this is just not on the table. There is no way these nations will make such a decision because what it would mean for their economy. Plus it wouldn't matter unless they all make that decision.
What a surprise with all the wars going on, and AI depleting Earth resources, what a change from about the pandemic era when everyone was into paper straws and cups and promising to be a better person, because that is what was going to change anything.
I don't see the US doing anything about global warming regardless of who's in charge. China has won on manufacturing cheap wind/solar energy and is scaling up their cheap EV manufacturing right now. Trump is definitely accelerating China's future dominance by completely forgoing anything related to developing or manufacturing green tech in favor of fossil fuels, but I think both parties would rather get into a conflict with China than cooperate with them and purchase their energy tech to deploy domestically. Solar and wind power are already far cheaper than coal or natural gas, and are much quicker to deploy, but the US government would much rather prop up the domestic fossil fuel industry than cooperate with China on renewables because fossil fuel is where all the incumbent money is.
The issue with any significant steps to curbing the climate or environmental impacts with laws or treaties is always: But the economy. It creates an incentive where someone doesn't follow the laws, burn everything they can to accelerate their economy, and take industry from other countries.
My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is) that can inspect and fine companies in member organizations. Then any treaty members agree with the following conditions: The EPA can enter their nation freely, inspect, and are able to fine companies that break rules. Members send delegates to a session to create new rules democratically. And most importantly all members act as a cartel, imposing large tariffs on any country outside of the organization. So if US was in and Mexico was out, you couldn't just pollute in Mexico, without some massive tariff. This creates an economic incentive to be in and clean.
And why would countries adopt this? So that other countries can use this cartel to push their own agenda? If anything it seems like it would be in every country's best interests to make sure such an organization doesn't exist.
In my opinion one of the reasons why European economies have been struggling for a long time is because energy has been much more expensive than elsewhere. Part of it is the excise tax on gasoline because it drives up the price of everything.
Even to this day EU countries where people earn less than a third of what Americans earn still pay more for gasoline.
"The economy is a wholly owner subsidiary of the environment"
Many people use the 'but the economy' argument (including my mother in law, maddeningly) without seeming to have any remote clue as to the truth of the quote above.
You are correct because it's happening already (massive wildfires burning down cities, 100 year floods every year, mass migration out of hot, dry climates) and the news will state something like "scientists are 85% certain this fire was accelerated by climate change" and then will move onto the next story. Climate change is all around us, but we refuse to see it.
This ship has sailed, warming is irreversible. Developing nations mainly in Asia (China, India etc) are, well, developing and burn like there is no tomorrow. But they are not to blame. It is their turn to live nicely, like the US and Europe did for decades. Nobody can remove this right from them.
Well here's hoping they don't decide to take the US approach to 'living nicely': an absolute sense of entitlement to other people's resources all so they can have bigger vehicles and airconditioned forecourts to refuel them in. It's honestly disgusting - especially when you consider how they go about obtaining those resources. War. Fuck war and those that push for it all so that they can 'live big'.
We don't want your disgusting lifestyle. We want you to stop being so bloody infantile and greedy.
Apologies for the strong words but the current state of things has me pissed off.
It's also closely correlated with this not very happy decision put in place in 2020 [1]:
> On 1 January 2020, a new limit on the sulphur content in the fuel oil used on board ships came into force, marking a significant milestone to improve air quality, preserve the environment and protect human health.
Wasn't this attributed pretty much directly to cleaning of the shipping lanes? With more direct sunlight on the ocean, we are getting warmer oceans. With warmer oceans, we get everything that goes along with that.
I didn't see it mentioned in the article, though I did do a very brief read through. And it has been a while since I looked at the shipping lanes thing.
I hasten to add this is not to claim we should not have cleaned the shipping lanes. I don't know enough to say on that front. My gut would be that it was still the correct move.
Coordinating shared sacrifice between 7 billion people was always unlikely to achieve much. There are good workarounds though. I think this is what will/should happen:
1. For now, we can cool Earth artificially. 1 gram of SO₂ in the stratosphere offsets the warming effect of 1 ton of CO₂. It's known to be safe and effective. This company is already doing it: https://makesunsets.com
2. Fossil fuels will be phased out over the next few decades, but CO₂ stays in the atmosphere for several centuries. The practical solution will probably have to be "carbon sequestration", where you capture CO₂ from the air and pump it underground where it stays forever. Such storage is mature tech in the natural gas industry, but the capturing CO₂ tech needs a lot of work.
World is plagued by consumerism and gaslighted into over focusing on relatively smaller energy savings instead of overall habits.
I have friends shoving sausages and burgers into them while ordering countless things on Amazon every day, yet they think they help by buying a hybrid car, couldn't even be bothered by using public transport even though it's faster and cheaper where they live, because "too many people, dirty".
All my friends drive pick up trucks to the office and drink all their water from 12 oz single use plastic bottles. The hybrids were too complicated or something.
129 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 74.5 ms ] threadHere's the original: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6079807/v1
Your personal website has an expired certificate.
Seems like it expired end of Feb.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C39&q=gra...
Not a perfect measure of whether this is a reputable article but at least readers should know this isn't from some randos in a basement somewhere.
Climate data is inherently noisy, and there are multiple interconnected cyclic signals, ranging from the "adjusted" factors to cycles that span decades, which we don't understand at all. "Adjusting" for a few of these, then doing a regression over the subset of the data is classic cherry-picking in search of a pre-determined conclusion. The overall dubious nature of the conclusion is called out in the final paragraph of the text:
> Although the world may not continue warming at such a fast pace, it could likewise continue accelerating to even faster rates.
They're literally just extrapolating from an unknown point value that they synthesized from data massage, and telling you that's a coin toss as to whether the extrapolation will be valid.
I am not a climate scientist so you can ignore me if you like, but I am "a scientist" who believes the earth is warming, and that we are the primary cause. Nonetheless, if I saw this kind of thing in a paper in my own field, it would be immediately tossed in the trash.
[1] You can't actually adjust for these things, which the authors admit in the text. They just dance around it so that lay-readers won't understand:
> Our method of removing El Niño, volcanism, and solar variations is approximate but not perfect, so it is possible that e.g. the effect of El Niño on the 2023 and 2024 temperature is not completely eliminated.
> Here we account for the influence of three main natural variability factors: El Niño, volcanism, and solar variation.
Whoops! Whoopsies! Oopsy doodles!
USA is about to have another El Nino summer which will be scorching from overheating oceans
But don't worry, USA is solving the problem by Biden banning cheap electric cars and Trump ending electric subsidies entirely, forcing coal plants to restart
Tomorrow: trillions invested in new technology for simulating human torture accurately at the molecular level, requiring twice the level of all consumer electricity use on the planet. Advocates claim "all use is valid".
The content of the paper is summed up as “everyone felt like the climate changed after 2015, the data up to 2023 was inconclusive; we finally have enough to prove it with 95% confidence.”
EDIT: The title is weird because it’s generic to the point of being unsearchable. I’m not disputing the facts of the paper.
My proposal is thus: create a supranational treaty organization with a EPA like authority(or whatever the European equivalent is) that can inspect and fine companies in member organizations. Then any treaty members agree with the following conditions: The EPA can enter their nation freely, inspect, and are able to fine companies that break rules. Members send delegates to a session to create new rules democratically. And most importantly all members act as a cartel, imposing large tariffs on any country outside of the organization. So if US was in and Mexico was out, you couldn't just pollute in Mexico, without some massive tariff. This creates an economic incentive to be in and clean.
In my opinion one of the reasons why European economies have been struggling for a long time is because energy has been much more expensive than elsewhere. Part of it is the excise tax on gasoline because it drives up the price of everything.
Even to this day EU countries where people earn less than a third of what Americans earn still pay more for gasoline.
"The economy is a wholly owner subsidiary of the environment"
Many people use the 'but the economy' argument (including my mother in law, maddeningly) without seeming to have any remote clue as to the truth of the quote above.
And I don't think it's going to hurt enough in 10 or 20 years.
The pain will come slowly, people won't see it.
It's like going back to the middle age so slowly, that the population don't realize or feel it.
And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.
You are correct because it's happening already (massive wildfires burning down cities, 100 year floods every year, mass migration out of hot, dry climates) and the news will state something like "scientists are 85% certain this fire was accelerated by climate change" and then will move onto the next story. Climate change is all around us, but we refuse to see it.
They do not have to repeat our mistakes. We can help them build out renewable energy instead.
We don't want your disgusting lifestyle. We want you to stop being so bloody infantile and greedy.
Apologies for the strong words but the current state of things has me pissed off.
> On 1 January 2020, a new limit on the sulphur content in the fuel oil used on board ships came into force, marking a significant milestone to improve air quality, preserve the environment and protect human health.
I didn't see it mentioned in the article, though I did do a very brief read through. And it has been a while since I looked at the shipping lanes thing.
I hasten to add this is not to claim we should not have cleaned the shipping lanes. I don't know enough to say on that front. My gut would be that it was still the correct move.
1. For now, we can cool Earth artificially. 1 gram of SO₂ in the stratosphere offsets the warming effect of 1 ton of CO₂. It's known to be safe and effective. This company is already doing it: https://makesunsets.com
2. Fossil fuels will be phased out over the next few decades, but CO₂ stays in the atmosphere for several centuries. The practical solution will probably have to be "carbon sequestration", where you capture CO₂ from the air and pump it underground where it stays forever. Such storage is mature tech in the natural gas industry, but the capturing CO₂ tech needs a lot of work.
I have friends shoving sausages and burgers into them while ordering countless things on Amazon every day, yet they think they help by buying a hybrid car, couldn't even be bothered by using public transport even though it's faster and cheaper where they live, because "too many people, dirty".
Go figure.