[ExI] Existential hysteria

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Fri Jul 25 11:59:38 UTC 2014


On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> The effect of climate change on perils is actually quite nontrivial (one
> reason for those meetings: more risk is not a problem to the industry, it is
> uncertain risk that is a problem). If everything gets equally warmer
> hurricane frequency and strengths might not be affected at all since they
> are being powered by a temperature difference. But the sea-stratosphere
> gradient is complex and hard to model reliably. Even without a change in
> hurricanes themselves a different climate may cause changed paths, and that
> is serious business. One discussion I participated in was the issue of
> unlocking faultlines by melting glaciers: most of the time a really
> small-scale slow issue, but even a tiny increase in extreme tail events in
> areas believed to be seismically stable  is a big deal (check out the
> Lapland fault province - huge postglacial quakes in otherwise totally stable
> Scandinavia). Models of changes in precipitation distribution are very
> uncertain, and the flood models they feed into are fairly sensitive to
> changes in land cover, which also clearly and nontrivially gets affected by
> temperature. And most obviously, even small increases in sea level have big
> effect on flooding probabilities: it is not like a one centimetre increase
> makes the flood level one centimetre higher (exceedances are always *way*
> higher than expected), but that they become much more common. But the sea
> rises are unevenly distributed. And so on and on and on...
>
>

And another problem is tipping points.
Risks are gradual until a tipping point is reached, then the effect
becomes unstoppable. All that is left is protection measures.

See:
<http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/anders-levermann-explains-why-nothing-can-be-done-to-halt-the-collapse-of-the-amundsen-sea-s-ice-shelf>
Quote:
Recent satellite observations have confirmed the accuracy of two
independent computer simulations that show that the West Antarctic ice
sheet has now entered a state of unstoppable collapse. The planet has
entered a new era of irreversible consequences from climate change.
The only question now is whether we will do enough to prevent similar
developments elsewhere.
---------
And
<http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148>
West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable

And that is only one example.........


BillK



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