Links tagged “models”

Justine Lejoly, a soil scientist with the University of Alberta in Edmonton researching the effects of earthworms on soil carbon dynamics, says the earthworms' voracious appetite has serious implications for the boreal forest's capacity to store carbon. 

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Scientists say some earthworm species are potentially speeding up climate change by feeding on leaves, then pooping out a mix that's fodder to tiny microbes and fungi that spew carbon into the atmosphere. By contrast, other worms are helping lock carbon in soil.

The UN IPCC's “Optimal Fingerprinting” methodology on which they have long relied for attributing climate change to greenhouse gases is seriously flawed and its results are unreliable and largely meaningless.

That hopeful pathway, in which dangerous changes to the world's climate eventually stop, is the product of giant computer simulations of the world economy. They're called integrated assessment models. There are half a dozen major versions of them: four developed in Europe, one in Japan, and one in the U.S., at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. ... "The models tell us that there are, first of all, alternative pathways possible; that there are choices available to the decision-maker," he says. Different models, using different assumptions, arrive at contrasting visions of the future world. But they're all dramatically different from the situation today. ... 

Some models show people responding to higher energy prices or government regulations by changing their lifestyle. They move to more energy-saving houses, and give up their cars in favor of a new and better kind of public transit. In addition to traditional bus lines, autonomous vehicles respond like Uber — taking people where they need to go. Riahi likes this version best. "I'm convinced that a fundamental demand-side restructuring would also lead to a better quality of life," he says. (Keywan Riahi, at the International Institute for Applied Systems, in Austria, they found multiple paths to zero carbon.)

Bill Penky is a former meteorologist with the U.S. Navy Weather Research Facility who flew with the famous Hurricane Hunters into the eye of storms.

Meteorologist & Hurricane Expert Bill Penky: "Climate is a long-term, large area, or global, an average of variable warming and cooling events. We’ve had 100,000-year-long ice ages interspersed with 12,000-year-long interglacial warm periods. Yet, ever-present in our minds, media, and politics for at least the last 22 years have been model-based predictions of catastrophic global warming. And, before that, back in the 1970s, the “scare-of-the-day” was—yep, you guessed it—catastrophic global cooling. But, Earth isn’t a block of ice or a flaming orb. Where’s the scientific evidence of a supposed climate doomsday? There is none!" 

"BILL PEKNY holds physics M.S. and B.S. degrees from Georgia Tech and DePaul University, plus graduate study in physical meteorology and numerical analysis at Florida State University and the University of Utah, and a visiting scholar appointment at the Ginzton Laboratory of Applied Physics at Stanford University. Bill’s career in science spans over 50 years in the U.S. Armed Forces and the aerospace industry.  His career highlights include: Project Stormfury with the U.S. Navy Hurricane Hunters; applied atmospheric physics and meteorology research."

Financial Times: Moody’s announced on August 5 the acquisition of RMS, a cat model house now described as the “leader in climate and natural disaster risk”. Moody’s agreed to pay $2bn when the deal closes. The press release disclosed the previously private recent results of RMS, which has projected revenues of $320m for the year ending September 30, with $55m in operating income. RMS had long been a bit more “climatey” than its fellow cat riskers, seeking more business from those, such as governments, looking further out at the risk horizon.

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels: The report and its conclusions were "mired in the atmosphere of unreality." "The U.N. has been pushing the climate story since 1988 – that’s a long time ago – when it established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, that panel was established specifically to provide what they call the basis for a possible treaty on climate. Any committee that is assigned such a specific assignment will do exactly as it was told. And, therefore, the composition of the [IPCC] – the authors – are selectively chosen because they know the results they are going to get," he said.

Climatologist Dr. David Legates: "They have a vested interest in not the science – whatever that may be – but in stating that carbon dioxide is sort of an evil gas and therefore has to be regulated and has to be controlled."

Statistician Dr. Matt Briggs on IPCC report: "You can never be fired for being wrong in the right direction. The Experts making statements about how dire the climate is have been wrong for decades, and they are still wrong in their sparkling new IPCC Climate Assessment Report 6 released Monday. Now, as then, they warn that “extremes” are on their way. They haven’t got here yet, but they’re coming. They’re always coming." ... Or they have got here, but you need to have the kind of specialized training mentioned above to recognize them.

The difference between AR6, and ARs 1-5, is not so much in the kind of errors made, for these haven’t changed at all, but in the certainty expressed in them. It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that somebody did a “Find & Replace” of every instance of “very likely” in AR5 and changed them to “virtually certain.” Because they are always wrong in the direction our rulers want them to be.

Experts said every animal that is cute, photogenic, or delicious was going to die; whereas every beast or plant that bit, stung, or poisoned was going to flourish. Mountains of “research” was done to “prove” that everything we loved was going to be destroyed, where everything we hated was going to increase. Because of a tenth or so of a degree increase in global mean temperature.