‘Right now, not as many climate models focus enough attention on middle scenarios. That should change.’
BOULDER, Colo. — There are many studies out there warning people that climate change could lead to the end of our world. Yes, climate change is very real and poses a serious threat to the health of our planet. However, researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder have a simple message for scientists who focus on the most dire effects of global warming: chill out.
In a letter in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors write that many scientists are focusing way too much of the worst-case scenarios of climate change and environmental shifts all around the globe. While the team notes that these problems are real, constantly preaching impending doom is counter-productive and overshadows the more likely outcomes of global warming. These more-likely outcomes fall into the middle of the climate change conversation — not good, but also not extremely bad.
“We shouldn’t overstate or understate our climate future,” says CU Boulder assistant professor Matt Burgess, a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), in a media release. “People need to think in terms of gradations, not absolutes. Yes, we need to be aware of the extremes, like climate solutions that get us to net zero before mid century, or on the flipside, global catastrophes. But it’s what’s in the middle that is more likely. And that deserves more research.”
The letter answers back to a recent study in PNAS called “Climate Endgame.” Led by the University of Cambridge’s Luke Kemp, the report argues that catastrophic climate futures need to be the main focus of climate research — including scenarios that predict human extinction.
Preaching catastrophe ignores what will likely happen
One of these worst-case scenarios is a climate change model called RCP 8.5. However, the CU Boulder team says there are many other models which will likely become reality over the next century. “Right now, not as many climate models focus enough attention on middle scenarios,” Burgess says. “The SSP2-3.4 scenario, which might be one of most plausible emissions scenarios, wasn’t featured at all in the IPCC’s latest impacts and physical science reports. That should probably change.”
Burgess admits that it’s still important to know what more severe climate change models say.
“We want to know what might happen in extreme scenarios, and physical climate cycle feedbacks might make warming worse than emissions would suggest. But for the emissions in that scenario to happen, all the regions in the world in 2100 would need to have over $100k GDP per capita, with no climate policy the whole century, all-in on coal, despite facing unlivable heat in tropical regions with the warming that scenario produces. That’s just not realistic.”
At the same time, the researchers note that models which come in on the low-end of the climate change spectrum are probably going to be incorrect too. These forecasts predict that temperatures will only rise by less than three degrees by 2100.
“That would be a daunting task to keep us that low—we are almost there now,” Burgess explains.
Where will climate change take us in the future?
The new report notes that several experts agree that temperatures will likely rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees by 2100. By focusing on these “middle-ground scenarios,” the team says scientists can focus on how that change will impact local communities and humanity as a whole. This includes the impact of more severe heat waves and the shrinking number of areas seeing snow in the winter.
Researchers also note that “climate catastrophism” has a significant impact on the youth mental health crisis. Over 40 percent of young adults say they dwell on climate change issues, and it negatively affects their daily lives.
“We don’t want to ignore the possibility of catastrophic societal collapse or human extinction, but it shouldn’t be our main focus right now,” Burgess concludes.
Yeah, but if you don’t scare everyone half to death then you don’t get those nice fat juicy grants that fund all of your climate catastrophe research. There’s now growing evidence that the Earth is actually cooling… So we’ll be back to the 1970’s when the prevailing theory was that we were heading for another mini-ice age. It’s nice to see some brevity from someone in climate science though. Maybe, after 30 years of hype and no payoff, more and more people are realizing how little we actually know about our climate. Didn’t Al Gore predict we’d all be swimming in Ocean right now because of sea level rising?
Question asked was:
Didn’t Al Gore predict we’d all be swimming in Ocean right now because of sea level rising?
Answer:
No, he didn’t. Gore made much more realistic predictions, for example, in 2006, stating:
“In the next 50 to 70 years in summertime [the Arctic ice cap] will be completely gone” that would be sometime roughly 2050-2070.
Let me help actually clue you in on some of the falsehoods he was spreading. Yes your quote is accurate….however it does not mean that is the only thing he has said on the subject.
“These figures are fresh,” Gore said on Dec. 14, 2009, during the COP15 climate change conference in Copenhagen (here). He added: “Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.”
So you could argue he was just taking a prediction from a respected scientist to scare people…..except that scientist never said any such thing and Gore misrepresented him.
Here is more examples of what he has said about melting that have turned to be completely incorrect. He focuses on bogus “studies” or makes up his own to spread false information.
In his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (here) he also said: “One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.”
Mike, you are right on target. yes, the majority of these studies are paid by government grants so the climate extremists can spread their fear of doom.
Algore is a flimflam artist. He made over $300,000,000 off his scam. Proof of all this nonsense is Barack Obama who claimed the same nonsense .. then builds a mansion on the Vineyard at sea level!!! You can’t make this stuff up .. pity is gullible Democrats and progressives actually believe these lies. Fools and charlatans. Good combo for flimflam.
You forgot to mention his other mansion in Hawaii at sea level. Fortunately his mansion in DC will be a safe refuge if the others are inundated by the sea level rise, should it actually happen.
Al Gore before he entered politics lived with his family in a home on a beach somewhere on the east coast and that beach had erosion problems so the ocean kept getting closer to his home till it was washed way! Luckily he had government back insurance that covered his home for the coastal collapse, then he entered politics.
“Some of the models suggest to Dr. (Wieslav) Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.” Al Gore Dec. 14, 2009, speech at the Copenhagen Climate Conference,
Explain Al’s Hockey Stick, Dan….
All these models assume a linear progression human caused. What if that assumption is wrong? Could there be other factors that contribute? The sun, maybe? Models are not science! We humans may have far less impact and therefore far less ability to control than some think.
Climate change-global Warming is all a lie. In 2050 the Earth will be at the solar minimum (the Farthest distance from the Sun) and a miniature ICE AGE WILL BEGIN. All people need to do is turn off their Brain washing TV …get their head out of their Butt and do a little RESEARCH …I do not even own a TV myself! In 1984 a N.Y. State Physiologist designated me at 140+ IQ…Genius. I do not need anyone’s opinion since its documented that over 99% of the people on this planet are IQ retarded next to me!
Computer modeling has ruined climatology and virology. It seems many of these scientists are as glued to their computer screens as kids are to their smartphones.
They all need to realize the real world is quite different than what their lcd screens are presenting to them.
The volcanos in Iceland and the Ring OF Fire are calling the shots of the great Puppet Master. Some can call her Mother Nature some will know it our creator . With the decaying morals in the universe I’ll go with the latter..
No. He specifically said by 2015 the Arctic would be ice free during Summer. Stop the revisionist history . The NY Times also quoted scientists predicting only children along the Canadian border would know what snow was by 2017. Gore also predicted polar bear extinction when in reality they are at a record high population
https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/2893/nope-earth-isnt-cooling/
Hahahahahahaaaa
You believe that bull? Sucker
Are you unaware the temperatures are ‘adjusted’ by a computer program that just happens to coincide with the biases of the scientists?
Read what happens when people look at the unadjusted temperatures.
The reality in all this is that political slappers will turn people against each other to the point of violence just so they can win an office and inside information and the money making opportunities effecting from it. In the end they couldn’t care less if all of you scratched each others eyes out.
What Scientists are doing around the world from Gender studies to Climate Change is convincing billions of people that Universities have gone off the rails.
Funny how “follow the science” can be easily mutated into “follow the money”. Science is only valid if it’s following the woke globalist whining agenda.
Nothing was more absurd than Al Gore’s movie showing him standing in front of a growing (calving) glacier telling us it was melting. (Most fourth graders knew far more than he about how severe cold causes calving glaciers and icebergs.
Unfortunately for Climate Deniers modern satellites with their daily updates on the Planet show that we are in a crisis ! Primarily in the Arctic and Antarctic including the “Doomsday Glacier” which now gives us 4% of our sea level rise and is expected to give us 2/4 ft of sea level rise within 5/10 years according to NOA .
So the earth was much warmer for most of it’s history it’s also in a carbon deficit. The pols want to tax the air you breath and you are gullible enough to believe them. Think if all the high priests that stole the sun during an eclipse. This is no different.
The climate has always changed over time. The ending of the last major ice age appears to have caused temps to rise 15 to 20 degrees in as many years. We’re experiencing nothing like that.
The beginning and end of the little ice age had climate change within people’s lifetimes. When people were young farming was possible in surrounding lands. By the time they were old it was too cold to farm. Then a few centuries later the situation reversed. We’re experiencing nothing like that.
What is the proper temp of the earth? A few degrees colder, like it was during the little ice age? Ten degrees colder, like it was during the last major ice age and ice covered most of the planet? Much warmer, like it was 64 million years ago when there was no ice on the planet? Which is the right temp and why?
Point to somewhere on the planet the growing seasons have changed in your lifetime.
And if the choice is a warmer of colder planet, I prefer warmer. You can grow food in a desert, but not on a tundra.
Spot on!
Why haven’t these climate change “experts” explained what was behind the massive fluctuations in Temps dating back over the past 2,500 years when oil hadn’t yet seen the light of day? “Moving the goalposts” personified. Quakery. Charlatans. Snake oil salesman, all of them
That’s the devil in the details, but try even mentioning that in passing conversation and get labeled a climate denier – for simply pointing out a fact that has zero controversy within the scientific community. I helped start a recycling program at my university but later on got called names because I told extremists the truth about so much recycled material – into the furnaces at steel plants, etc… They didn’t like hearing so they said that I was trying to get them to stop recycling – after they knew I started a program at my school.
Dang it….and I bought beachfront property in Nevada in anticipation of that sea level rise forecast.
You and Lex Luthor!
When advocating for change, often ethics are discarded in favor of positions deemed most likely to obtain the desired outcome. This is true regardless of political affiliation or philosophy. It is a human failing that has always been with us.
Those who go to extremes to eliminate Co2 emissions are obviously anti-tree nazis.
When the US landed on the moon, they left a mirror pointing at Earth. They can measure distance of moon and Earth, and also temperature… Funny how all the Global Warmest Alarmist can’t explain why the moon Temp is rising too? Answer is pretty simple, when Politics gets into Science, it isn’t science, but propaganda… Here’s an idea, lets get back to pure Science!
Before Gore found his hockey stick, Bush I, was warning about poor nations turning to terrorism, and developing nations need to support these areas in the world to reduce terrorism, the Carbon Tax was born, New World Order…
The Truth is out there, getting harder and harder finding it…
Funny how StudyFinds is allowing all the latest crop of climate-denialist idjits to spew their complete nonsense over and over here. Your commentary bespeaks of a profound ignorance bordering on stupidity and denial. Before you post again – you should read the actual science instead of the pseudo-connedspiracy garbage you just posted.
Would that “actual” science be the stuff that exists only inside a computer program?
Or how about you go find the studies that are cited by both for and against and look at methodologies and math. Fact is there are times in the past where we know based upon science that the earth was warmer. Fact there were times where we had more co2 in the air than now. Fact the last 30 years or so we have had less hurricanes than the previous 30 years. Facts are independently verifiable points of information. The so called climate alarmists have precious little fact on their side.
Actual “science” such as men can become women? Or actual “science” such as pre-born babies are just clumps of cells?
Try reading about the Greenland ice core samples that show warmer average Temps than now. The cores are from the 1400’s, 1500’s &1600’s. Try doing some real research before you are bordering on ignorance and sound like a cult member. Your denial of reality is very humorous to me.
A study was done 5 – 10 years ago about who was more knowledgeable about the climate science. Initially the report came out showing that Democrats were more informed. Then a few months later, they looked at the numbers and realized they fudged up and it was really Republicans that knew more.
And, of course they did. Why? Because of stupid statements like yours that cause Republicans to go back, look at their facts and studies and numbers and … science. Thus causing them to be more intelligent about the subject than Democrats who, at the time, like you are now, throwing insults and banality.
JR,
Everything I posted can be researched and proven one way or another. I noticed you didn’t disapprove anything, and that in-itself bespeaks of profound denial…
Yes, because science is all about suppressing contrary facts. /s
You sound like the Catholic Church against Galileo.
If it’s science you espouse, your option is to counter argue rather than silence. If you can’t do that your arguments are not strong, if they exist at all.
It really doesn’t matter who says what about Climate Change and the concern over CO2 ; their minds are made up and no facts and truths will change their minds. I’ve given up trying to point out the fact that CO2 is good and that we’ve gone through three Ice ages with Global warming between followed by Global Cooling and the Fossil Fuels nor man as we know him was around!
We’ve given up on the people who claim that C02 is “good” and will not harm life on this only habitable planet. It’s wrong, it’s always been wrong and you’re simply embracing a total lack of knowledge and awareness what C02 and other greenhouse gasses are actually doing to cause the planet to warm up. Nor do you realize that even this middle-scenario is deadly for most of our food crops, or even understand what that might mean for humanity.
Each of the following facts completely dispels the nonsense of global warming. Let’s see you try to explain JUST ONE OF THEM:
-Glaciers were Already Retreating Before 1900
-Ice ages have been coming and going for eons.
-The last 20 years have shown zero warming (hence the switch to ‘climate change’).
-Man produces less than 1/2 of 1 percent of C02 on the planet.
-It was warmer in the 15th century than it is now.
-The greatest warming in the 20th century was between 1935 and 1950.
-NASA confirms: Sea levels FALLING across the planet in 2016 and 2017.
-NASA Data: Earth Cooled by Half a Degree Celsius From ’16-’18
-In 1995 Al Gore said by 2005 Miami will be underwater “due to Global warming”. Miami is NOT underwater.
-In 2004, the Department of Defense released a report assuring the world Climate Change would destroy all of us by the year 2020. Nope!
-The highest record temperature ever reported was 136 degrees Fahrenheit in Libya in 1922. The record high temperature for the United States was 134 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California in 1913.
-Excavations in the Antarctic have shown vegetation use to cover the continent. In the Eocene epoch, palm trees grew in Alaska!
-US had its coldest February (2021) in more than 30 years, NOAA reports.
-Until about 215 million years ago, the Triassic period had experienced extremely high CO2 levels,at around 4,000 parts per million about 10 times higher than today.
-2021 Arctic ice levels are the highest they’ve been in nine years, according to satellite imagery.
-Glacier National Park has removed “glaciers will be gone by 2020” signs because the “global warming” prediction never came true.
-31,072 Americans with college degrees in science including 9,021 with PhD’s, signed a petition rejecting climate change.
I’m sorry, but if you believe in global warming, you’re an unmitigated imbecile.
Spot on. I’ve been following solar weather since the late 1970s, and you’re absolutely correct. Not that you need my affirmation. I remember all to well the doomsayers in the late 70s stating authoritatively that an new ice age was coming, in Scientific American, when they were a science journal, not a propaganda arm of the DNC.
What do plants need to survive? Water, sunlight, nutrients and CO2. Your denial is laughable.
Don’t forget Brawndo…. it’s got what plants crave.
If it’s warmer the growing seasons will increase. There will be more land to grow on. It’s mind boggling how completely manipulated and illogical the average scaremonger is.
You’re just regurgitating bad propaganda.
There have been times in the past when co2 levels were higher and temps were lower. And there were times in the past when co2 levels were lower and temps were higher.
Nearly none of the predictions have come true. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, super fires and droughts are not more frequent. Climate refugees don’t exist. Snow still exists in Britain. The ice caps are still there. Polar bear numbers are greater not smaller. These are all things you can look up yourself.
Us sane people already know this and don’t listen to the people who are screaming.
even a fair to middling scenario could seemingly involve lots of migrating masses ?
Yes, it most certainly does. It also involves a lot of starvation as world food crops fail, something they conveniently failed to mention while being well known. The “middling” scenario is still a fast-track to extinction.
Plant trees! Just plant more trees. That is natures way of eating carbon.
Warmer temps will bring more farming not less. Growing seasons will lengthen, places that were too cold will be able to start farming. Some areas will expand from one growing season to two.
Think about it. You can grow food in a desert, but not on a tundra. You can grow crops in southern Britain but not northern Scotland.
Stop repeating bad propaganda and think for yourself. A warmer planet with more co2 (plant food) will mean crops grow faster and bigger. Look up co2 use in greenhouses.
I love how climate “history” graphs have erased the Little Ice Age in the 14th and 19th centuries
Critical thinking is a good thing.
But I thought the doomsday scenario’s were “settled science”? Seems to me we’re seeing what happens in the White House on a daily basis… the walk back. “No, no, what we REALLY meant was….”.
Seems to me what we’re seeing is you interjecting your personal politics into a non-political issue. Why is that? Haven’t learned to engage with other people? Unable to think clearly? Momma drop you on your head when you were little? You’re pathetic.
In the 70s it was global cooling and the man-made ice age, then I to the 80s it became global warming, then when average temperatures went flat or down in the mid 90s it became climate change. Typical scam operation.
It’s easier for you young people to fall for the global warming crap because you’ve seen so little of history. Other exposed to the outside know growing seasons and areas haven’t changed. If global warming was as bad as you say we’d have seen those changes already.
You seem to be better at name calling than pressing facts. You might want to change your approach if you want to persuade people.
The climate alarmists tried phony science is it didn’t sell. Switched to exploiting the scowling Swedish half-wit to lecture us. “How Dare You!!!”
Your snide comments reveal your lack of awareness and intelligence – why bother posting at all? We’re all just laughing at your ignorance.
Do you have a pet squirrel in your pocket? Who is this we? You shouldn’t lecture about snide comments when you asserted a poster on this board was dropped on their head as a baby. You are a Cry-Bully. I am laughing at you.
You have no intelligence on this, or at least memory. Nearly all the alarmist predictions have failed. Growing seasons and seasons in general have not changed. What is happening on the planet is bad data, where background noise of temperature adjustments are greater than the claimed minuscule temp changes.
You should be smart enough to be aware of this.
Think of it this way. How much money does an auto mechanic make if he tells you your car is completely safe and maintained properly? Now apply that to government funded global alarmists.
Wrong on all points. Seasonal variability HAS changed, in some areas quite significantly. Pollination is also a problem with the changes being experienced.
I am no longer shocked at the appalling lack of knowledge and awareness exhibited here by most denialist who espouse a non-fact based world view on climate change and how this will impact human civilization.
As for the “bad data” claim, this is bogus too. Whatever errors and or mistakes have been made in the past were acknowledged, they have been widely corrected as additional data became available. Moreover, the overall trajectory of what the data actually means has only worsened the predictions for planetary habitability (in most cases).
The only ‘alarmists’ here are the idiotic climate denialists who have not bothered to actually read the actual science, nor understand the significance of what is being presented. They’ve taken the opposite position and cried their pathetic ‘not true’ claims while events unfolding in the real world portray the actual unfolding reality.
The two positions don’t even remotely line up anymore, which means denialists live in a fabrication that exists only between their ears and supported only by their recycled and tiresome lies.
There is a reason the actual experts continue to portray a very different climate future for mankind then the falsehoods being claimed by climate denialists, and it is not because of some bogus connedspiracy or ‘global alarmists’.
The fact that many here cannot even perceive the difference is beyond shocking – it’s nearly criminal because you idiots truly intend to wreck planetary habitability while stupidly clinging to your lies, misconceptions and falsehoods. You care about nothing other then yourselves, committing your own children to utter disaster. I have nothing but complete loathing for such morons and idiots.
And the comments here point out exactly the problem. This article didn’t discount global warming is occurring ….but most here use it to deny man made warming even exists, regurgitating the same tired hackneyed criticism of Al Gore and “the planet is actually cooling”non sense.
And this same skeptics no doubt believe Trump never cheated on his pregnant wife and the election was” stolen”. Right dolts?
The evidence clearly shows global warming doesn’t exist if you’re actually informed on how the data is obtained, how the data is adjusted, and how the ‘proof’ exists almost entirely on hard drives and servers.
Meanwhile in the real world UK still sees snow, ice caps are still there, cities haven’t flooded due to rising oceans, polar bear populations are rising not falling, and hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, and super fires are not increasing in severity or number. Nor are growing seasons changing.
Look at the real world, not some government funded climate expert who reads computer modeling printouts to you.
Computer mod,eing has ruined climatology and virology. The real world is what’s important, not the virtual world.
Let’s get back to reality and start to hold these so called experts responsible for their claims. Sure you can make all the predictions you like but back it up with some money and put some of YOUR personal skin in the game. For far too long these so called experts have gotten away with making false claims that have cost people far too much money over something we will never control. As is some of their so called solution have created new and even more difficult problems to solve. All one has to do is look at the amazon forest and how these windmill materials are devastating the area and people. And we have all these additional children in Africa more or less reduced to slave labor to obtain the raw materials in EV batteries and it must be stopped.
Dirty Joe’s Climate Hoax speeches are more fuzzy talk…
more Red China/India getting a pass…the same democrats with huge homes & 3-5 gas vehicles, a boat (& maybe a jet) are AGAIN chewing us out.👀
A tax and guilt tripping our bu$inesses is not going to lower or raise global temperatures.🦨
It’s the sun son! No MMGW.
Dirty Joe & Obama had 8 years so why is this Climate Hoax still so serious an i$$ue?
America has thousands of EPA laws now and we are in the top of clean industrialized nations.
Good grief. Apparently these scientists do not understand that humans cannot survive the “3.6 to 5.4 degrees” temperature increases. Our food crops will fail in critical regions around the world.
It’s been obvious for years that science institutions are woefully under-informed on critical issues. This refusal to speak to the obvious is tantamount to genocide.
You failed to consider that this may be counteracted by crops growing in places that are currently too cold, like Canada and Siberia.
You failed to consider that that has been extensively studied and found to be near impossible to perform. Higher lattitudes received signficantly lower sunlight and the poor soils in the northern regions will not permit significant levels of food crops to be grown. The assumption that we can just move our harvests someplace else is factually false.
I hope this is sarcasm. People move from Florida to the Carolina’s all the time and survive the temperature change. Their pets survive too. Some go to Florida and experience even bigger temperature changes. And survive.
Speaking of NY and FL, which has a better crop growing climate? If the choices are colder planet or warmer planet, always choose warmer.
One would think that a “settled science” is represented by one model. Not a few dozen, that disagree with one another.
The sheer level of stupidity, nonsense, conjecture, falsehoods and dishonesty being spread here on StudyFinds by commentators, and even the poorly conducted “studies” demonstrate an abandonment of ethics and principles by this website. I gave up on StudyFinds for this reason and only found my way here today because I followed a link. Failure to moderate the fools, morons, denialists and complete idiots here is causing their ignorant poisons to spread. Why would StudyFinds engage in this behavior? Why would StudyFinds permit this activity? These clowns are polluting any informative discourse with complete nonsense and childish behavior.
There are HUGE problems with this article too. Models do not tell the whole story and are only representations, not real life. These middle-scenarios are very dangerous to human life and habitation of the planet – but no mention was even made of this fact. Wet-bulb temperature increases at these levels will wipe out many food crops and cause massive levels of migration and starvation around the planet. No mention of this either.
Even worse however, is the fact that the world is still exceeding the RMCP8.5 worst case scenarios. No mention of that either. This article is therefore extremely misleading and factually useless, yet StudyFinds allows all the denialism and ignorance to run rampant. Shame on you.
Hey JR,
You sound like you are the authority on climate science. Do you realize that today, as we speak, scientist can’t agree on what the average global temperature is?
As for the models, they cannot reproduce known outcomes when tested. So we are really just guessing aren’t we.
Some studies even suggest that warmer temperatures will create more arable land for growing crops. Can you say Canadian breadbasket?
Quit trying to scare people
Go to the deserts of California and see all the cropland. Warm temps and higher co2 are actually good for most crops.
Warmer is better. CA has an all year growing season, Alaska has about two months. Warmer is better.
there was a graph recently published in a Nation Geographic article ( i think it was in an article about Madagascar)which shows we are currently at or near the historic low point in parts per million of Co2 in the atmosphere- can someone please explain how that translates to a world crisis