Beyond the Worst Case Climate Change Scenario
Moderator: Alyrium Denryle
One would expect the IPCC to take into account feedback forcing in their worst-case scenario, as well. So, claiming that unexpected feedbacks will cause change two orders of magnitude greater than what's expected is rather dismissive of the expert opinion.
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Admiral Valdemar
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That's one of the main critiques of the IPCC though. They didn't accept such positive feedback mechanisms Hansen and the like have discussed and we've already seen the IPCC's predictions become hopelessly optimistic in instances with the Arctic being ice-free likely by 2013, not 2100. If you can't factor in such models that can drastically alter the outcome, then their predictions are far too conservative, which is ironic given how many say they are doomsaying when really the worst possible case is far more unappealing.Surlethe wrote:One would expect the IPCC to take into account feedback forcing in their worst-case scenario, as well. So, claiming that unexpected feedbacks will cause change two orders of magnitude greater than what's expected is rather dismissive of the expert opinion.
To be honest, using the IPCC's projections is disingenuous now. A lot changed since 2006.BBC World News, February 2, 2007: Interview with Sharon Hays, Associate Director/Deputy Director for Science [OSTP] at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, leading the United States delegation, and Rick Piltz, Director, Climate Science Watch. wrote:BBC: And the sea level rise is one of the issues that is most contentious through the week. Many people have said, many people are saying that, what you've agreed is effectively too conservative, it's too low, that sea level is rising quicker than what is reflected in this report.
Hays: Right. What happened with this report is that the model projections we know don't fully take into account the melting of the ice that we are seeing. And I think that the report dealt with this issue in a very a satisfactory way in that it reported the projections that the models have put out, and I should note that those models now have less certainty than they did in the previous report,but it deals with the fact that this ice is melting at a faster rate than we expected and is not accounted for in the models, by simply stating that. And it states it in the report very clearly and makes it clear that the projections are a baseline, so to speak, that we expect the melting to be greater.
Because a city isn't sinking every week right now, no one gives a damn. The human mind is not adept at comprehending such catastrophe so far off when more immediate and pressing matters like driving to work in what you can afford today are at hand.