I see that John Baez (Joan's cousin) has gotten interested in the problems of climate
change and sustainability:
http://www.math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week319.html
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/balsillie/
http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/
Brent
On 3/29/2014 4:44 PM, LizR wrote:
Yes, exactly, if we assume that there will be no bad consequences if continue to pump
out pollution, we are indeed betting out lives - and those of our children and their
children on that assumption. If we try to keep CO2 levels down to somewhere around where
they have been between, say, 1960 and 1999 (a period during which they increased by
around 20%, I think), then we at least know roughly what to expect - a similar climate
to what we had during that period, which isn't perfect but it's better than any runaway
feedback situation (ice age or overheated greenhouse). That will give us time to control
this damn planet better than we have managed so far, and my children (and preferably me)
will go to the stars rather than relapsing into a medieval world.
On 30 March 2014 06:31, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com <mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>>
wrote:
In the current issue of Science News is a article about clouds and it
confirms that
clouds are the single biggest unknown in climate models. Everybody agrees
that
clouds warm things through the greenhouse effect at night and cool things by
reflecting sunlight during the day, and everybody agrees that the cooling
effect is
larger than the heating effect, but they disagree about just how much
larger and on
if we will have more clouds in the future or less. And a recently
discovered fact
complicates things further, clouds made of ice crystals and water droplets
reflect
light about equally but the ice crystal clouds have a stronger greenhouse
effect
than water clouds. As a result of all this confusion and uncertainty are
rampant.
Back in 2007 the United Nations issued a report on climate change, it said
that by
2100 things would be between 2 and 4.5 degrees warmer than now, a rather
large
amount of uncertainty; but after spending millions of dollars and 7 years
of hard
work they just issued a new report, and their uncertainty has actually INCREASED.
Now they say between 1.5 and 4.5. The article also notes somewhat apologetically
(Science News is a honest magazine but always leans toward the
environmentalist
view) that after 3 decades of increasing temperatures since 1998 the
worldwide
temperature has been roughly constant, and no climate model in 1998
predicted this.
They conclude by saying "scientists say they need at least 20 to 30 years to
determine if clouds respond to global warming the way simulations predict".
I have to say all this doesn't exactly give me confidence that I should bet
my life
on the fact that although they make lousy 17 year predictions climate
models make
wonderful 100 year predictions.
John K Clark
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