Climate change 3 - future scenarios

This video was produced for the module ‘Tree phenology analysis with R’, which is offered to MSc students in agricultural programs at the University of Bonn in Germany. The materials are also accessible to anyone not taking this class. The module revolves around functions of the ‘chillR’ package for R, with the ambition that students of this course will be able to conduct analyses of climate change impacts on deciduous trees during their dormancy season.

This specific video is one of four contributions on climate change. This is video 3, which discusses future climate scenarios.

[rapauli]

Thanks for this important lecture. Useful for anyone wanting a better understanding of models and predictions. Clear, simple, academic language. Nice graphs and charts.

[evadd]

It's now fairly certain we will see 1.5 sometime between 2025 and 2027. That means the 2030 concern index dates are already too late. We need actual decision makers; not the sellouts that showed up in Glasgow.

[Rnankn]

This just seems to be missing the point. The burden is not on anyone’s ability to precisely predict the future. Rather, there seems to be a fundamental structural change in planetary regulation. This seems like it would undoubtedly have material consequences for life. It is a moral question with a clear response. This should not be allowed to occur because it is unnatural, and it will impede all organisms in all ecosystems. But my sense is that scientists got this wrong: GHG are produced from economic activity, The effects of an unstable climate is disruption and destruction of human communities. So why doesn’t anyone model social organization and economic systems which do not cause GHG, and is reduced from changing climate.

[alienoverlordsnow]

The models are a joke. The fact is that the current levels of co2, methane and nitrous oxide have locked in a 5c temperature rise, and probably by 2040. That 5c rise automatically catalyzes dozens of feedbacks to rapidly generate more and more heating, as albido is lost and methane is released from permafrost, and as the hotter air holds more and more water vapor. Reducing emissions does not reduce atmospheric concentrations, because ghg's are recalcitrant. These models dont account for the dozens of feedbacks that have been triggered and that will continue to drive runaway greenhouse. Yes, we are in runaway greenhouse. Climate science has become the most dishonest science on the planet, and it seems to now be designed to deny that we are doomed and that only removing over one trillion tons of ghg's from the skies, while stopping all human emissions can stop total climate collapse, extreme global overheating, biological anihilation and NTHE.

[tyronekim]

"We don't entirely how things work, and this is why we have models, and this is why none of the models are really completely perfect, so far."

This is euphemism for: we don't don't know much about climate, so we let the computers decide what's going on with the climate.