5 ms·

Overall the expectations are an increase in intensity and inability to predict. There is no expectation around consistency. That is why climate change is going

Overall the expectations are an increase in intensity and inability to predict. There is no expectation around consistency. That is why climate change is going to be such a disaster, it's not acutely predictable and it's death by a thousand cuts for us. The floods in Nepal etc are a good example. Very hard to predict, extremely distructive.

gwerbin 5d ago
The Nepal incident is also messy because it's a extremely specific local/regional phenomenon, which was always a threat (and has happened before in other, less-populated areas around the Himalayas), but without consistent warming leading to glacier loss, it would be a random rare tragedy. Now that we know what happened and what causes it, we can pretty well expect that it will happen again... but there are so many similar hanging glacers high above steep V-shaped river valleys that we can't easily monitor or predict, not to mention alert locals and evacuate people in time. How many other similar local phenomena will appear? Impossible to say.
- deleted 4d ago
  [deleted]
tito 4d ago
Well said. Generally speaking, most people I speak to about climate have a mental model for "climate change" as a dimmer switch. The planet gets a little warmer, littler warmer, littler warmer, and we get a bit more uncomfortable each time. But this mental model loses the most important feature of the climate system. It's not a dimmer switch. It's more like an ON / OFF switch. We live in a stable climate today. Things are getting a little warmer. And we see some weird things. But still, even at a little warmer, we are in the same stable climate system, just a little warmer or cooler. However, if we flip to "OFF" on a stable climate by getting a lot warmer, our climate system moves to a chaotic state unlike anything we've ever known in human history.

5 ms·

Overall the expectations are an increase in intensity and inability to predict. There is no expectation around consistency. That is why climate change is going

by yanslookup 5d ago

gwerbin 5d ago
The Nepal incident is also messy because it's a extremely specific local/regional phenomenon, which was always a threat (and has happened before in other, less-populated areas around the Himalayas), but without consistent warming leading to glacier loss, it would be a random rare tragedy. Now that we know what happened and what causes it, we can pretty well expect that it will happen again... but there are so many similar hanging glacers high above steep V-shaped river valleys that we can't easily monitor or predict, not to mention alert locals and evacuate people in time. How many other similar local phenomena will appear? Impossible to say.
- deleted 4d ago
  [deleted]
tito 4d ago
Well said. Generally speaking, most people I speak to about climate have a mental model for "climate change" as a dimmer switch. The planet gets a little warmer, littler warmer, littler warmer, and we get a bit more uncomfortable each time. But this mental model loses the most important feature of the climate system. It's not a dimmer switch. It's more like an ON / OFF switch. We live in a stable climate today. Things are getting a little warmer. And we see some weird things. But still, even at a little warmer, we are in the same stable climate system, just a little warmer or cooler. However, if we flip to "OFF" on a stable climate by getting a lot warmer, our climate system moves to a chaotic state unlike anything we've ever known in human history.