I Was Worried about Climate Change. Now I worry about Climate Scientists.
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker discusses climate sensitivity and its critical role in understanding climate change. They highlight concerns about higher climate sensitivity values reported by recent models, which some climate scientists have dismissed. The speaker argues that this issue is underreported and crucial for government plans to combat climate change. They draw parallels to past scientific biases and emphasize the importance of accurate climate predictions. The video also promotes Planet Wild, an environmental initiative focused on restoring ecosystems, and encourages viewers to support their efforts.
Takeaways
- 🌡️ The 'climate sensitivity' is a critical model parameter that indicates how much the global average temperature will change in response to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
- 🔍 The speaker is concerned that the climate sensitivity might be higher than the range suggested by the IPCC, which could have significant implications for climate change mitigation plans.
- 🗣️ There has been a debate among climate scientists about the reliability of models that predict a higher climate sensitivity, with some arguing these 'hot models' should be given less weight in IPCC assessments.
- 🏛️ The speaker argues that the issue of potentially higher climate sensitivity has been underreported and is important for government planning to reach net-zero emissions.
- 🤔 Two common reactions from climate scientists are dismissed: one that climate sensitivity is irrelevant to the need to stop global warming, and another that variability in climate sensitivity predictions is normal.
- 🔎 The speaker criticizes the dismissal of high climate sensitivity models, likening it to a pattern in physics where new, unexpected measurements are initially rejected due to confirmation bias.
- 🧐 The comparison made by some scientists between different climate sensitivity values and the number of riflemen in a firing squad is criticized for being misleading and downplaying the importance of the rate of climate change.
- 🔬 The speaker highlights the importance of not underestimating uncertainties in scientific measurements and the need for scientific communities to be vigilant against confirmation bias.
- 🌳 The speaker introduces Planet Wild, an organization focused on restoring ecosystems and financed by community contributions, as an example of practical and realistic environmental action.
- 📹 Planet Wild is praised for its transparency, providing video reports of its missions to supporters, which is seen as a sign of respect and accountability.
- 💰 The speaker offers an incentive for viewers to join Planet Wild, covering the first month's membership for the first 200 people who sign up using a provided code.
Q & A
What is 'climate sensitivity' as discussed in the video?
-Climate sensitivity refers to a model parameter that indicates how much the global average temperature would change in response to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. It's a key factor in determining the rate at which climate change may worsen.
Why is 'equilibrium climate sensitivity' significant in climate science?
-Equilibrium climate sensitivity is significant because it helps predict the long-term changes in global temperature due to increased carbon dioxide levels. It's crucial for understanding the pace of climate change and for formulating effective mitigation strategies.
What is the 'hot models' problem mentioned in the script?
-The 'hot models' problem refers to a situation where some of the world's best climate models began to produce a much higher climate sensitivity than the average of previous models. This has led to debates among climate scientists about the reliability of these models and their inclusion in IPCC assessments.
What are the two main reactions from climate scientists regarding the underreporting of the 'hot models' issue?
-The first reaction is that the climate sensitivity is a distraction and that we need to address global warming regardless of its exact value. The second reaction is that there are many papers published annually with varying climate sensitivities, suggesting that one should not focus on individual studies.
Why does the speaker argue against the idea that climate sensitivity is just a distraction?
-The speaker argues that climate sensitivity is crucial for government plans to reach net zero emissions. If the climate sensitivity is underestimated, current plans may be inadequate, which could lead to more severe climate change impacts.
What is the issue with the comparison made by Zeke Hausfather and Andrew Dessler in their blog post?
-The issue with the comparison is that it equates climate sensitivity with the size of the problem rather than the rate at which it worsens. The speaker argues that the rate of climate change is more critical for planning and mitigation efforts.
What is the concern raised about the reliability of climate models?
-The concern is that climate scientists may have changed their interpretation methods after some models produced results that didn't fit their previous narratives. This could introduce bias and affect the accuracy of climate projections.
What is the example of the neutron's lifetime used to illustrate in the script?
-The example of the neutron's lifetime is used to illustrate how scientific measurements can suddenly change, indicating that previous uncertainties may have been underestimated. This has implications for how climate scientists should handle new data that doesn't fit with older models.
What is confirmation bias and how does it relate to the handling of scientific data?
-Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that confirms one's preexisting beliefs and to dismiss or scrutinize more closely information that contradicts them. In science, this can lead to a bias towards confirming previous findings, which may affect the objectivity of data analysis.
What is the speaker's stance on the current IPCC projections regarding climate sensitivity?
-The speaker believes that the uncertainty on climate sensitivity is much larger than what the current IPCC projections suggest, indicating a potential underestimation of the risks associated with climate change.
What is Planet Wild and how does it relate to the speaker's environmental concerns?
-Planet Wild is an environmental organization that focuses on restoring ecosystems and biodiversity through community-supported missions. The speaker supports their practical and realistic approach to environmental conservation and encourages others to join the community.
Outlines
🌡️ Climate Sensitivity Concerns and Misreporting
The speaker expresses concern over the potential underestimation of climate sensitivity, a critical model parameter indicating how much global temperatures could rise due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. They mention a recent shift in some top climate models predicting higher sensitivity than the IPCC's range suggests, which could mean current mitigation plans are inadequate. The speaker criticizes climate scientists for dismissing the importance of climate sensitivity in planning, arguing that it is crucial for governments' strategies to combat global warming. They also address the 'hot models' problem, where certain models predicting higher sensitivity were deemed unreliable, and suggest this issue has been underreported.
🔍 Confirmation Bias in Climate Science
This paragraph delves into the concept of confirmation bias, explaining that it leads individuals to scrutinize findings that contradict their beliefs while accepting those that align without question. In the context of climate science, the speaker suggests that this bias may have influenced the handling of new model results that conflict with established narratives on climate sensitivity. They argue that climate scientists have not adopted the rigorous methods used in physics to mitigate such bias, leading to a potentially skewed interpretation of climate models. The speaker emphasizes their belief in the significant uncertainty surrounding climate sensitivity and expresses concern that the climate science community may not be immune to the pitfalls of confirmation bias. They conclude by advocating for collective action to address environmental issues and promoting Planet Wild, an organization that actively works on ecosystem restoration.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Climate Sensitivity
💡Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
💡IPCC
💡Hot Models
💡Confirmation Bias
💡Neutron Lifetime
💡Systematic Underestimation
💡Planet Wild
💡Biodiversity
💡Mitigation Plans
💡Community Contributions
Highlights
Climate sensitivity is a model parameter that indicates how much the global average temperature changes in response to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Equilibrium climate sensitivity is crucial for determining the speed at which climate change will worsen.
There is a concern that climate sensitivity might be higher than the IPCC's uncertainty range suggests.
The 'hot models' problem refers to some of the world's best models predicting a higher climate sensitivity than the average.
Climate scientists have argued that these 'hot models' are unreliable and should be given lower weight in IPCC assessments.
The underreporting of the potential for higher climate sensitivity is a significant issue.
Some climate scientists dismiss the importance of climate sensitivity, arguing that action is needed regardless.
Government plans to reach net zero are based on expectations of climate sensitivity, making it a critical factor.
The comparison of climate sensitivity to the number of riflemen in a firing squad is criticized as misleading.
The issue with 'hot models' is that they were included in IPCC predictions until their results became undesirable.
Confirmation bias in science can lead to underestimating uncertainties and reinforcing prior beliefs.
Physicists have learned to avoid confirmation bias by deciding on analysis methods before looking at data.
Climate scientists have been criticized for changing their interpretation methods after undesirable model results.
The speaker believes the uncertainty on climate sensitivity is larger than current IPCC projections suggest.
The speaker, though not a climate scientist, has observed scientific communities reinforcing incorrect conclusions in other fields.
Planet Wild is an environmental initiative focused on restoring ecosystems through community contributions.
Planet Wild documents their missions with video reports, ensuring transparency and respect for supporters.
The speaker offers to cover the first month for the first 200 people signing up with the code SABINE.
Transcripts
A few weeks ago, I made a video on climate sensitivity,
explaining why I am worried about it. There have now been a few reactions by climate scientists.
I’d like to briefly comment on that, and add something which I took out of the first video.
Just a brief recap of what we’re talking about. The “climate sensitivity” is a
model parameter that tells you how much the global average temperature changes
in response to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. It’s the most important
number to determine how quickly climate change will get worse.
I should more precisely say that this parameter is called the “equilibrium climate sensitivity”
because there are several sensitivities in climate science, and not all of them are model parameters.
The issue I was talking about in my previous video is that this climate
sensitivity might be much higher than the IPCC uncertainty range suggests,
and therefore also higher than most plans to mitigate climate change assume. And
I feel that given the relevance of this possibility, it’s been very underreported.
What’s happened is that a few years ago, some of the world’s best models began to produce a much
higher climate sensitivity than the average of the previous models. After that, climate scientists
argued that these models are unreliable, and their predictions should be given a lower
weight in the IPCC assessments. They dubbed it the “hot models” problem and I’ve found it
both funny and concerning that the double meaning didn’t occur to me until a friend pointed it out.
Now the reactions of climate scientists to me saying the problem has been underreported have
basically been two. First: Doesn’t matter what the climate sensitivity is, that’s just distraction,
we need to stop global warming anyway. And second: Well, there are a lot of papers every year coming
out with different climate sensitivities, and one shouldn’t pick one here or there.
About the first point: Doesn’t really matter, it’s bad either way.
I think that climate scientists who say this have totally lost touch with reality.
Governments make plans for reaching net zero based on expectation for how fast the situation
will get worse. The climate sensitivity is super important for those plans. If you,
and I’m talking to you climate scientists, get this number wrong, then all current plans will
be grossly off. I really don’t understand how you can just go and say it doesn’t matter. You
might as well go and say it doesn’t matter what climate models predict in general.
A particularly crude example comes from Zeke Hausfather and Andrew Dessler. Hausfather was
one of the authors of the article in Nature magazine which coined the term “hot models”.
In the blog post they write: “Arguments over the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
are distractions. Whether it’s 3 or 5 degrees is
a bit like whether a firing squad has 6 rifleman or 10.”
Someone’s got to say it, so I will. That’s a really bad comparison. Because the climate
sensitivity does not tell you how big the problem is, it tells you how fast it will
become worse. Do you have to deal with six riflemen next year, or do you have
a century to think about how to deal with them, that’s the question we’re looking at.
Now about the second point: there are always many papers. Yes, but this wasn’t my point.
The reason that Hausfather et al were going on about this is that the problem appeared,
not in any paper, but in some of the best climate models in the world. Models that are so good that
climate scientists had previously decided to include them for the IPCC predictions.
It was only after some models produced values that they didn’t want to believe
that they looked for a way to do get rid of them. This is the problem I am highlighting.
It worries me because the same thing has happened many times in physics. A particularly stunning
example is the lifetime of the neutron. The neutron is one of the constituents of
the atomic nucleus. It’s stable so long as it’s inside the nucleus but take it out and it decays
in about 10 minutes. That’s interesting in and of itself, but well this is not a video about
nuclear physics. The thing is that physicists have been measuring the lifetime of the neutron
many times and updated the value. You can see the progression of their measurement results here.
What you see is that the measurement seems be comfortably sitting at some particular value. Then
they suddenly make a jump. It’s not like the error bars just gets smaller. They jump to outside the
previous uncertainty region. Often this happens with new measurement methods, and it means that
physicists have systematically underestimated the uncertainty on their measurements.
Even more amazing this didn’t happen for only one quantity,
it happened for dozens of them. What is going on? Well, it’s difficult to say exactly what happened
there but the explanation that sociologists have come up with is confirmation bias.
A lot of people think confirmation bias means you only look at information that “confirms”
your prior beliefs. But this isn’t how it works, because you get information thrown at you whether
you like that or not. The way that confirmation bias works is that if a finding doesn’t agree with
your prior believes, you think about it very hard and try to find something wrong with it.
Whereas when it fits, you just accept it because it’s what you said anyway, so why think about it.
In science this shows up as follows. If you get a measurement result that
doesn’t fit with the previous ones, you are much more likely to look for a mistake than
if it would fit. And this introduces a bias to confirm the previous finding.
Physicists have learned from their past mistakes and now try to avoid this issue
by deciding on a method of analysis before they even look at the data. Then they apply
the analysis to the data blindly, crunch the numbers, and only then do they “unblind” the
result and look at it. This result then gets published without further changes.
But this is not what climate scientists have done have they. They’ve changed their way of
how they interpret the prediction of the models after some of them produced results
that didn’t fit their previous narrative. Clearly the collaborations who work on the
models with the high climate sensitivity think that they are the ones who got the physics right,
so any such argument will have to weigh one type of evidence over another. It’s a subjective
assessment that masquerades as objective. The bottom line is that I believe the uncertainty
on the climate sensitivity is much larger than the current IPCC projections make it look.
And yes, I’m not a climate scientist. So you can try to dismiss my concerns
by saying that I have a PhD in the wrong field. But I have seen how even
large scientific communities reinforce their prior beliefs and arrive at wrong conclusions,
like the idea that the large hadron collider would see supersymmetric particles. And I
don’t think that the community of climate scientists is immune to such problems.
Humans are part of nature and if nature isn’t doing well, we aren’t doing well either. At
least that’s what I believe. I also believe in the power of the people and that if we work
together we can turn the boat around. This is why I am so fond of my friends at Planet Wild.
Planet Wild is not your average environmental gig. It's a family of nature enthusiasts who've
got their hands in the dirt and their hearts in the right place. Their big
goal is to bring ecosystems back from the brink of collapse with missions financed by
community contributions. You support them, they do it. I joined Planet Wild earlier last year,
and I’ve been really impressed by their work. It’s practical, it’s useful, and it’s realistic.
What I particularly like about Planet Wild is that they respect their supporters. They don’t
just take the money and disappear with a “Thank you.” No, They document all their
missions with video reports that you can find right here on YouTube. For example,
in their latest mission they're reviving a once-diverse Caledonian woodland from its
monoculture plantation state, restoring the natural biodiversity and balance it once had
by doing the opposite of tree planting. The approach is surprising and kind of genius!
If you want to join a growing community that makes a real difference, go check out Planet
Wild through the link in the description or by scanning the QR code. You can help
them help nature for as little as $6 a month. And don't worry that you get stuck with them,
you can cancel your membership every month. If you’re among the first 200 people signing
up with the code SABINE, I’ll cover the first month, so don’t hesitate, go and have a look.
Thanks for watching, see you tomorrow.
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