[hendler]

The question is not if the commenter is an expert, but if they are correct.

The claim that some models didn't take larger systems into account is also because an expert in the arctic wasn't an expert in oceans. And the expert in biodiversity isn't an expert in food supply chains. Expertise isn't the question. Instead it is - do all of us who are non experts (all of us) have enough expert data to have a systemic understanding of an accelerating trend?

[pinkmuffinere]

Ya, I agree, but I am not familiar with the intimate details of present climate models, nor am I planning to be. I can't/won't directly evaluate whether the argument they present is correct. But if _they_ are familiar with the intimate details of present climate models (ie, if they are an expert), I will tend to trust them more.

[sulam]

I’m not a modeler but I have directly asked modelers if clathrates, permafrost melting, wildfire incidence and ocean drawdown responses to warming was incorporated in the major models. 5 years ago the answer was no. Today the answer might be yes, but this is not really the point I’m trying to make. It’s really that we should expect to see acceleration in warming as the natural environment responds to anthropogenic (“forced”) climate change.

[mlyle]

The models don't consider these because there's considerable uncertainty as to the size of these effects and potential countervailing forces of similar magnitudes.

The fact is, for all of these other secondary effects etc... we just don't know. It's too complicated of a system.

So as a result, we've got a prediction of something between "somewhat bad" and "catastrophically-is-an-understatement bad" with a maximum likelihood estimate of "really really bad."

[crystal_revenge]

> ... we just don't know. It's too complicated of a system.

I wish this comment was higher up.

The big thing under-discussed about climate change is that the deeper we get into it, the harder it is to predict and understand.

I recall Dr. Richard Alley discussing how Thwaites Glacier collapsing wasn't factored into any IPCC reports; but ultimately pointed out it was for good reason because it's simply not possible to model these things and their consequences accurately.

I don't do any climate modeling, but I do a lot of other modeling and forecasting: the biggest assumption we make in all statistical models is that the system itself more or less stays statistically similar to what it currently is and what we have seen in past. As soon as you drop that assumption you're increasingly in the world of wild guessing. If you wanted me to build you a RAM price prediction model 2 years ago, I could have done a pretty good job. Ask for one today and your better off asking someone with industry but no modeling experience what they think might happen.

This is the hidden threat of climate change most people are completely unaware of: we can know it will be bad when certain things happen, we know they will happen in the nearish future, but we can't really say exactly how and when they'll unfold with any meaningful confidence.

[sulam]

And yet we can still say something simple that is true: warming will accelerate due to non-human greenhouse gas emissions as the planet continues to warm, due to feedback loops and tipping points in the natural carbon cycle. This is an unassailable statement.

[mlyle]

> This is an unassailable statement.

No. I believe what you're saying is very likely to be true, but we know there's both positive and negative feedback and we don't really know how they really will interplay and where all the tipping points are.

There may even be significant phase delay in these mechanisms and so we could even get oscillation.

[sulam]

Over time periods in excess of 10K years this is a reasonable caveat. For more human-oriented timelines, there's no negative feedback mechanism I'm aware of that would do anything close to producing an actual oscillation.

Edit: I'd be happy for you to educate me how I'm wrong btw, since that would mean I've missed something significant, which would make me happy! So please do tell me if you know of such a mechanism.

[cyanydeez]

On the internet the default pisition is not true/untrue; its, why should I acknowledge you?

If you are still trying to gauge truth before this, you are poisoning your mental heuristics. Thats why propaganda are ao effecfive: you can be told something is either, and it can still be effective.

Humans and LLMs are similar: the separation between input and commands is not a hard barrier.

So, back to GP: CLIMATE CHANGE is reversible. It just depends on whether we are talking about socipecnomics or physical processes.