Research paper referenced in the video that makes Dr. Hossenfelder very worried:
Global warming in the pipeline: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
Abstract
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.
My basic summary (I am NOT a climate scientist so someone tell me if I’m wrong and I HOPE this is wrong for my children), scientists had dismissed hotter climate models due to the fact that we didn’t have historical data to prove them. Now folks are applying hotter models to predicting weather and the hotter models appear to be more accurate. So it looks like we’re going to break 2C BEFORE 2050 and could hit highs of 8C-10C by the end of the century with our CURRENT levels of green house gases, not even including increasing those.
EDIT: Adding more sources:
Use of Short-Range Forecasts to Evaluate Fast Physics Processes Relevant for Climate Sensitivity: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019MS001986
Short-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5
Okay, so, as others have expressed in this thread, I don’t completely trust Sabine as a science communicator. Can someone who knows what they’re talking about about shed some light on this paper and/or Sabine’s video?
I am an environmental geologist, and while I’m not going to debunk or refute the paper or author (someone more up on their game than me can), I will say that the lack of historic data was always a variable that could be reliably solved for eventually. Our fossil evidence and understanding of global tectonics was already allowing it to be unraveled back when I was in college 20 years ago.
So from a modeling standpoint, if you can repeatedly replicate what you know conditions were like in the non-ice/warm periods, you can reliably infer what the CO2 (or just overall greenhouse gas mixtures) had to have been (I won’t get into why we know it was like that, paleontologists will talk your ear off about it any day)! From there you can develop models with very robust and accurate inputs to predict how long it will take to reach those levels at current pace. Every year the trend line gets more and more granular as well because we have so much data.
Idk if/how that impacts this particular study, but it should give OP some background and trust in the modeling that’s based on data we don’t/didn’t have.
The problem I have with data is how do we know it’s not being manipulated?
Are the people doing these studies gathering this data in their own, or is it corrupt before it even gets to them?
I don’t trust anything or anyone at this point. I am not denying climate change one bit because we can all see it. But I just don’t know if I can trust the data.
If they gather their own data, how do you know they are doing so correctly? It’s easy to fuck up data collection in hundreds of small ways.
How do you know the sensors they use are accurate? Maybe they are biased, or the manufacturer explicitly modifies them.
How do you know the computer equipment they use is working as intended? Maybe someone hacked their system to bias their data.
There are thousands of such questions you can ask about any approach. The answer to all of them is simple: we’ll never be 100% sure, but through enough eyes on the process and enough variability in measurements (both the how and the who), you can trust the average results.
Try starting at https://www.ipcc.ch/. Essentially the centre point for all climate change data aggregated in one place using data from 1000s of scientists around the world many working independently. In case you can’t trust something with government association? Then think: why would all the world’s governments lie about the ‘end of the world’? (so to speak) Especially whilst they’re also being lobbied by big oil etc. - it just wouldn’t happen. If you can’t trust ‘pop news’ sources anymore (the most probable source of disinformation) then you’re just going to have to go deep into the science!
Also remember that scientific knowledge is ever evolving and what was understood last week may now have been superceded by more recent studies. This could be a part of the source of your lack of ability to trust the data.
But I just don’t know if I can trust the data.
well damn good thing we’re not leaving decisions up to you.
You don’t trust “the data” but can’t articulate anything on the subject whatsoever indicating you’ve never as much as looked at “the data” that you’re skeptical of. Or narrow down what aspect of “the data” you don’t trust. Or what methodology makes you skeptical of “the data”. Or what research method was used in obtaining “the data”. Or the repeatability of the experiments being used to test “the data.” Or the peer reviewing of “the data”. Or the credibility of the publishers of “the data”.
You sound like someone that doesn’t have the first clue how any of “the data” is generated, so instead of educating yourself or actually digging in to any of it, you blanket disregard it as untrustworthy.
I can’t say much about this paper, but I like Sabine. She can be like judge Judy sometimes but I’d rather hear a hot take than a tepid one.
Friends of mine have complained how she’s strayed away from physics videos towards more general science. She can also be a little condescending towards string theorists’ research interests
Other people might get uncomfortable when it comes down to her videos on free will.
For this paper however, it seems Climate targets in recent years have been under estimating global warming and have to accelerate their models each year. She seems worried this opens up the possibility of 4-6C of warming.
