We have an opinion piece at the NYT on the need to operationalize some aspects of climate science. 🧪 Thoughts welcome! (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/o... - ThreadSky

climateofgavin.bsky.social • 131 days ago

We have an opinion piece at the NYT on the need to operationalize some aspects of climate science. 🧪

Thoughts welcome!

(Gift link)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/climate-change-heat-planet.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk4.yvzR.bShp3heACRQm

Comments

garethsjones.bsky.social•131 days ago

I agree that getting updated forcing data more quickly would be very helpful. I am less convinced that we can calibrate projections based on recent changes. Over-fitting is a danger that we need to be more aware of. Understanding and measuring internal variability is tricky - as I know you know :-)

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

I’m not that confident that forecasting of internal variability is going to be of much use past seasonal timescales (and even there it’s limited), but having short term forecasts of inputs that are tied to the last year (as opposed to 2014) will be good.

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

Real time observation of the Earth system is crucial now, as the emergent system reaction can only be understood anymore of you go by the monthly numbers-too many feedbacks start now to become substantial. The check sum is here ENSO's declining impact on GMST and OHU (OHU extreme in 2023 for Nino).

ocasapiens.bsky.social•131 days ago

Tks for the article, good luck for the next 4 years and a couple of questions (reply not urgent).

Can faster updates generate urgently needed, short-term, more local projections? Updates of all data or some should be prioritized? In terms of funding as well.

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

Faster updates can feed into both the seasonal and decadal initialized projections, but skill is patchy and not high anywhere. Better updates to the projected scenarios (w/downscaling) are possible but the larger error is probably the scenario itself.

ocasapiens.bsky.social•131 days ago

Tks!

stephenbaines.bsky.social•131 days ago

Thanks for the gift link.

mamacocodrie.bsky.social•130 days ago

📌

leonsimons.bsky.social•130 days ago

Thank you.

What's needed to get CEDS updates faster?

And would more accurate CERES data help? (E.g. ~10 small CERES satellites to obtain more daily measurements and reduce probability of a data gap).

https://bsky.app/profile/leonsimons.bsky.social/post/3lavdcss6h22a

leonsimons.bsky.social•130 days ago

I'll also check the last point with Norman.

They've just published this:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/37/23/JCLI-D-24-0180.1.xml

andre-sobolewski.bsky.social•130 days ago

I wonder how insurance companies deal with these shifts and if they rapidly update their risk calculations and premiums?

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

Fun Fact: Reinsurance firms hire in 2024 data specialist and modelers for risk assessments. I troll Reinsurance firms since a year now on Linkedin that their models are wrong and the increases are now non-linear and their business model won't work anymore - capitalism is dead!

jabradbury.bsky.social•131 days ago

Great idea. To be clear, running models with the new “good enough” data would help us more quickly know “what is going on,” e.g., attribute an exceptionally hot year to one factor or another, by helping to narrow down the range of possible causes (aerosols, El Nino, etc.)?

hairydogproductions.com•131 days ago

When you can’t keep up you could try recruiting help.

This word is full of squints and nerds, surely there’s a way to tap that as an opportunity.

rblourenco.bsky.social•131 days ago

In this sense, it does need to be a coordinated effort, to avoid much overlapping, while certain operational aspects not being entirely covered. Perhaps public agencies can form a consortium (multi national) and establish such structure.

hairydogproductions.com•131 days ago

Interesting idea. The consortium being a database of tappable mini-expertise groups.

My science gig is data. I’ll have to think more about this.

hairydogproductions.com•131 days ago

Also. I’m one of them :)

pjsouza.bsky.social•131 days ago

Some sort of distributed computing project, would be great!

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

@hausfath.bsky.social

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

Now the first study is out that gives SSTs a main role for 2023 temperatures: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01637-8 . In 2023 SSTs made a jump by ∼0.23°C compared to 2022. Source:"New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-024-3378-5

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

We have here a serious SSTA feedback going on pushed by stratification, seasonal mixed layer depth signals (formation of barrier layers also important) and a disturbed global circulation and an amplifying hydrological cycle (intensification of lows and highs). Here some studies on the SST feedback:

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

"Widespread changes in surface temperature persistence under climate change"; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03943-z

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

"The emerging human influence on the seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature"; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01958-8

"Future Amplification of Sea Surface Temperature Seasonality Due To Enhanced Ocean Stratification"; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098607

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

"Understanding the Changing Nature of Marine Cold-Spells"; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL097002

"Human-induced intensified seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature"; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48381-3

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

This study is spot on, as it asks some of the main questions:

Why is ENSOs role declining? What causes the acceleration of OHU and EEI?

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

This paragraph hints at our emergent problem: "Further analysis suggests that this significant increase in EEI may be linked to some recent abnormal climate warming phenomena, seemingly reducing the fluctuations in GMST caused by internal variability of the climate system (e.g., ENSO)."

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

Fully agree the system shows now in ever more subsystems non-linear abrupt behavior. A mechanistic approach is needed to be able to understand what is happening in the system as models aren't able to simulate all these mutually interconnected shifts in subsystems - so many critical models errors now

gary.oberbrunner.com•131 days ago

As usual, the NYT added a terrible clickbait headline, but the article is a solid call to action.

gosolar.bsky.social•131 days ago

So they waited til after the election to talk about this

hakonnordhagen.bsky.social•130 days ago

I'm very curious on what a tentative sufficient budget for each of these 30 research groups would entail.
I mean, governments *not* finding the room to finance this utter critical scientific work, seems way beyond stupidity.

oceanrics.bsky.social•130 days ago

This is a good and though provoking piece. Many of the directions of travel suggested are being followed by the WMO G3W initiative which is rapidly gathering speed.

flowinguphill.bsky.social•130 days ago

So desperately needed. We fought so very hard, in part for climate science in the US. I wrote to my colleagues this week about what might be coming with Project 2025.

polcher.bsky.social•131 days ago

Should climate science not take pride in having provided society with very similar results for the last 30 years ? So it might be good enough to propose projections every 10 years, when our understanding has indeed progressed. Earth observation needs to be intensified to inform society and science.

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

Sure. But we should have more ambition than just resting on those laurels.

polcher.bsky.social•131 days ago

Yes produce more high quality knowledge which will not be contradicted by facts down the road 😄

eroston.bsky.social•131 days ago

🏆: "Weather forecasts are generated regularly come rain or come shine."

dortheah.bsky.social•131 days ago

📌

ericdoherty.bsky.social•130 days ago

I have found that climate delayers in government tend to like long reporting delays re GHG emissions. Similarly, there will be resistance to the badly needed improvement in impact reporting. That is a reason to push hard and smart, not to give up.

maxduganknight.bsky.social•131 days ago

How worried should we be about the potential gutting of the exact US government agencies you are calling on for more advanced data collection and processing?

I for one am worried. I use those data sources just about every day.

ericrasmusen.bsky.social•131 days ago

https://www.mitfreespeech.org/fall_2024_debate_is_decarboni.php

marvelousmarks.bsky.social•131 days ago

Communicating why the models were off would be a helpful addition. I'd think this would be part of the process, but expressing those errors to the public will be helpful in the long run, especially because they *under*estimated.

metronautix.bsky.social•131 days ago

Well, that's part of the question, isn't it? We don't understand yet why they were off, as far as I can follow

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

But we don’t know! It could be the models, it could be the inputs, it could be the weather. Without better updates we can’t tell - which is why this has been so frustrating.

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

Models are now out - they are a dead end as way to many simple and most often linear parametrizations and emergent constraints disable models to simulate the increasingly non-linear behavior of the climate system. So many critical model errors now evolving - real time data won't solve it...

marvelousmarks.bsky.social•131 days ago

Also! What does the gray dotted line here represent?

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

Sorry - previous skeet was incorrect. The dotted line is the existing record for that month.

kagejittai.bsky.social•131 days ago

While this might be an academic problem for the field. It's not a problem for the policy. We know what is happening and the consequences for not acting. The only question is if governments are actually going to do what must be done.

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

For mitigation at the broadest scale you are correct. But for adaptation and resilience building purposes we could use better projections that are kept up to date.

drstrawpants.wobbly.earth•131 days ago

This, and by moving towards the operational domain some stakeholders may by incentivized to build post-processing pipelines, with more relevance to them. E.g. What you need for planning coastal defenses may differ from what you need for agriculture, water management, or energy infrastructure.

johnmashey.bsky.social•130 days ago

Agreed, for example, planning for sea level rise under uncertainty is always tough, and quicker calibration of uncertainty really helps. I really liked Kopp, Oppenheimer, et al (2023), Communicating future sea-level rise
uncertainty and ambiguity to assessment users.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01691-8

johnmashey.bsky.social•130 days ago

When I attended 2008 workshop "Planning for Sea level Rise in the Bay Area" I saw how tough uncertainty can be for planners.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081027155155/https://bcdc.ca.gov/planning/climate_change/2008-04-16_forum.shtml
They reviewed science and possible actions, then gave groups of us imaginary town descriptions and said "plan", which got rough very fast.

johnmashey.bsky.social•130 days ago

California govt takes this seriously, but uncertainty is hard. https://www.slc.ca.gov/sea-level-rise/shoreline-adaptation-report/
Planners must decide whether/where to build dikes (people want dikes in front, may not be optimal), coordinating with neighboring towns, handling sewage systems and other near-sea-level infrastructure.

micefearboggis.bsky.social•131 days ago

Grand idea. I think there's a general need to shift from paper-thinking to operational-system-thinking as a way of updating our knowledge.

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

Indeed

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

Just one recent example of why Earth system thinking is now so important as otherwise it can't understood what is currently happening - the Amazon-SSTA-vicious cycle that is just emerging:

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

North Atlantic warming supports via trade wind weakening and mixed layer depth changes across the tropics higher SSTs across the tropical Atlantic: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024GL110057

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

Next nail in the coffin is that the North/South temperature difference across the Atlantic favors a drying out Amazon. Further, higher SST tend to support dryer continents. In case of the Amazon this caused the exceptional drought since ~2 years across this biome.

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

And a drying out Amazon reduces the convection over South America which in turn backfires on the trade winds across the tropical Atlantic that weaken and support higher SSTs over the tropical Atlantic: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-024-07400-1

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

This is a fully new vicious cycle emerging in the Earth system via altogether new (way stronger) teleconnections in the system causing this important biome likely to burn big time decades earlier then predicted. And we have now a dozen or so of such recent interconnected changes in the Earth system

umsonst.bsky.social•131 days ago

You folks need an overview on Earth system changes and how they are discussed but favoring the likely position till its proven otherwise. You need positions in all these Earth system changes to be able to understand how the whole is changing: e.g.MHWs are a non-linear feedback, in-itself reinforcing

micefearboggis.bsky.social•126 days ago

A slightly extended riff on that thought:

https://diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2024/02/27/a-perspective-is-just-like-your-point-of-view/

democracydefender1.bsky.social•131 days ago

Of course!
We knew the foreboding in the 1980s! And still!
Now trump/GOP!
(sighing)

andrewross.net•131 days ago

It’s difficult to grasp from this piece all the obstacles that must exist to operationalizing the modeling process.

For example, you mention data for GHG levels & solar energy are available “within weeks” of observation. What prevents it being available within minutes?

climateofgavin.bsky.social•131 days ago

Quality control, bias correction, physical shipping of samples, economic data collection (for pollutants) etc. some of this can be sped up though.

davidho.bsky.social•131 days ago

Yes! Sustained funding for these efforts is key. Also, sustained funding for community-led initiatives like SOCAT, GLODAP, the Global Carbon Project, etc.

oceanrics.bsky.social•130 days ago

This is particularly important given the persistent offset between ocean c uptake estimated from operational products and models present in the Global C Budget reported yesterday

mightyjoeyoung.bsky.social•131 days ago

Yes we should do this with an unfortunate but. The U.S. federal government under Trump will at the very least underfund climate science and more likely dismantle federal programs. Who can step in to provide leadership and funding?

lifelearner47.bsky.social•131 days ago

thank you for the link.

lindseytaillie.bsky.social•131 days ago

Also, in my field (public health), some of the best, most important, foundational data is the least sexy. Ongoing data collection efforts may not win innovation prizes but they're critical for understanding what's happening in real time and taking action based on evidence.

lindseytaillie.bsky.social•131 days ago

I'm not a climate scientist, but I couldn't agree more that federal funding models could do more to support better data collection. Fragmented and short-term funding cycles mean scientists are spending too much time trying to sell ideas vs. doing the work.

jwlongthelast.bsky.social•130 days ago

Only one question: how do we block any mention of or links to the NYT?

thomas-boettcher.bsky.social•131 days ago

There is a typo in sentence 3: "...goal set by the Paris climate agreement..."
1.5°C is no goal.
1.5°C is the limit for GIS, WAIS, AMOC... more floods, droughts, heat, disease, storms.
0.5°C is the safe corridor of life.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/climate-change-heat-planet.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Zk4.yvzR.bShp3heACRQm

https://bsky.app/profile/thomas-boettcher.bsky.social/post/3lato222pgc2a

thomas-boettcher.bsky.social•131 days ago

I just get tired...Tired of hearing that 1.5°C is a "target" or "goal". IT IS NOT. It is a limit. The only real goal is 0°C. And not bad 1.5°C, when we LIKELY tip GIS, WAIS, Tropical Coral Reefs and Abrupt Boreal Permafrost, and more floods, droughts, heat, disease, storms.

https://x.com/jrockstrom/status/1584811163329523712

umsonst.bsky.social•130 days ago

Johan Rockström is one of the few who talks straight.

jotatx.bsky.social•130 days ago

This is an extraordinary article.
Lots to process here.

barbie4science.bsky.social•131 days ago

Thank you 🙏
big challenge to keep staff & resources when govts wanna deny reality (Oz govt slashed our BoMet)
Coms are critical but who is inside the tent?
May be time to reach out - farmers need info, oil&gas have big data & models...
we're all in this together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkw7gl0cWYo

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