Research paper referenced in the video that makes Dr. Hossenfelder very worried:
Global warming in the pipeline: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
Abstract
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2σ) per W/m2, which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO2. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO2 was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.
My basic summary (I am NOT a climate scientist so someone tell me if I’m wrong and I HOPE this is wrong for my children), scientists had dismissed hotter climate models due to the fact that we didn’t have historical data to prove them. Now folks are applying hotter models to predicting weather and the hotter models appear to be more accurate. So it looks like we’re going to break 2C BEFORE 2050 and could hit highs of 8C-10C by the end of the century with our CURRENT levels of green house gases, not even including increasing those.
EDIT: Adding more sources:
Use of Short-Range Forecasts to Evaluate Fast Physics Processes Relevant for Climate Sensitivity: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019MS001986
Short-term tests validate long-term estimates of climate change: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01484-5
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I’ve watched Sabine for awhile, she’s a really great science reporter who keeps things simple and pretty brief. Just a note though, I feel like she sometimes takes very skeptical and conservative views on some subjects where she doesn’t really have any expertise. It also makes me kind of uncomfortable how she seems to be obsessed with Elon Musk, she mentions him in basically every video.
Despite all that, she’s pretty great, check her out, just keep in mind she talks about a lot of things she isn’t an expert in.
I followed her for a few months but eventually stopped because I found her too inconsistent and sensationalized in many of the videos. Generally I’ve liked her physics coverage, but most other topics I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice listening to her. A lot of her material seems like Facebook meme quality content with a physics professor aesthetic
Agreed.
Even with the physics stuff if it’s something I am familiar with, she just shits all over it. She acts like the general public / media understanding of a topic is what the people doing the work actually think. No, we are REQUIRED to write a blurb for the media department. The media department runs with it and publishes press releases which are 50% BS to start with. Then the general media picks it up (if they pick it up, mostly nobody cares) and the BS factor gets pushed to 11.
Like it’s good to set the record straight and educate people what a topic is really about, but it can be done in a respectful and non-condescending / non-confrontational way. She just likes to shit on everything for no reason and usually doesn’t even go into the details, just surface level. It’s like an armchair quarterback but for science nerds.
Usually I don’t watch any of her non physics content, it’s way too cringe for me (especially the non funny jokes, like is the joke meant to be not funny and that’s the joke or?) and the whole Elon Musk thing feels like an obsession mixed with algorithm feeding mixed with hello fellow kids. The face filters she uses is also very weird and uncanny valley. When I do sometimes see something non-physics and it’s a topic I know, I get the same vibes, like very surface level, Facebook meme quality (great description @zynlyn ). And a lot of the times she gets stuff wrong and almost never goes back to correct any of it or take videos down where it’s proven to be total BS. Like the video she did on trans people which was panned by basically everybody and debunked by many people knowledgeable on the subject from different angles. That’s still up and it most definitely should not be, or have big disclaimer.
Okay, so, as others have expressed in this thread, I don’t completely trust Sabine as a science communicator. Can someone who knows what they’re talking about about shed some light on this paper and/or Sabine’s video?
I am an environmental geologist, and while I’m not going to debunk or refute the paper or author (someone more up on their game than me can), I will say that the lack of historic data was always a variable that could be reliably solved for eventually. Our fossil evidence and understanding of global tectonics was already allowing it to be unraveled back when I was in college 20 years ago.
So from a modeling standpoint, if you can repeatedly replicate what you know conditions were like in the non-ice/warm periods, you can reliably infer what the CO2 (or just overall greenhouse gas mixtures) had to have been (I won’t get into why we know it was like that, paleontologists will talk your ear off about it any day)! From there you can develop models with very robust and accurate inputs to predict how long it will take to reach those levels at current pace. Every year the trend line gets more and more granular as well because we have so much data.
Idk if/how that impacts this particular study, but it should give OP some background and trust in the modeling that’s based on data we don’t/didn’t have.
I no longer trust Sabine when it comes to anything but physics.
She has proven time and again to oversimplify and assume her correctness in topics she has on expertise on.
Her video on nuclear reactors was awful. She just neglected facts, that didn’t fit her narrative.
Her videos that touch on some psychology/sociology topics are even worse. As a psychologist I disagree with everything she says whenever she is not talking about her very narrow niche of expertise.
She had a terrible video about trans healthcare as well.
About capitalism and economics too
Yeah. Just because she’s capable of interpreting large data models, that doesn’t make her an expert on every field that uses data. And her pretending she is makes her a worse scientist even in her own field of study.
Edit;
ALSO how is she a scientist AND ‘not worried’ about climate change until she saw these numbers? How hard is it to accept that there is a field of thousands of researchers who are all screaming about climate change?
Personal theory: she is a conservative scientists. They exist. She has a hard time reconciling her world view with her professional career. Thus the weird videos over sensitive topics that are apologetic about the conservative worldview. Hence why I don’t trust her whenever she is talking about anything but neutron interactions in nuclear physics.
I think that theory makes a lot of sense.
This lady is fantastically entertaining, thank you for the discovery!
Shame about the climate, hopefully whatever takes over after humans can live in harmony with its environment ✌️
She’s fine, as long as you don’t take what she says at face value. Or automatically accept it. She has felt compelled to make videos on topics she really had no standing or need to. Packed with misinformation and false premise. When it comes to physics related things. Like climate change, she’s probably fine. But if you want to see something so bad and wrong it’s beyond cringe. Go check out her videos on trans issues and capitalism at least. I used to enjoy watching her and her schtick. But since then I have not watched a single new video of hers. Because she’s not that Entertaining. And if she doesn’t bother to make sure the information she’s presenting is correct and just talks from her fee fees. What the point.
I’ll check those out!
Summary of the posts in this thread:
“I don’t like women who think they’re smarter than me, or just plain smart. Elon is based, she’s cringe. I’m stupid.”
Got it.
