2024 marks the first time since record keeping began that all of the 10 hottest years have fallen within the most recent decade.
  • fake_meows@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Scientists at NASA\GISS calculate that a reduction in albedo of just -1% produces a warming effect equal to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.

    Uh-oh.

    This really is a pretty wild article. Its scary all the big moving pieces of the climate system that we still didn’t understand. The story about how much SO2 was dimming the atmosphere is so weird. As he says, nobody actually directly measured anything, they kind of started from the perspective of how politically unthinkable it would be if there was a lot of dimming and just bet on the idea that discounted the effect. This is all too human and not evidence based.

    And now we are in very big trouble. Nature bats last.

    Just as an aside… https://printablelistipecacs.z13.web.core.windows.net/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-printable-handout.html

    It is interesting to think about how, in Maslow’s hierarchy, “acceptance of the facts” is at the top of the pyramid, above fitting in socially, having social esteem, having a job etc. It makes you wonder if a lot of scientists are doing what allows them to succeed in society, rather than just to face truth.

    When I was starting off in science, I remember one of the first university chemistry labs I did and we had this simple exothermic reaction and we were supposed to take temperature of some test tube over time intervals and get a curve of the cooling.

    Well, in the real world you dont get an ideal smooth curve. Its actually bumpy and it goes up and down.

    I faithfully did my measurements and drew my line and submitted it and got a really low mark because although my data was real it didn’t agree with the theory of steady consistent cooling.

    This was an early scientists’ lesson that you are expected to fabricate the data to support the human theory and totally hide it. You have to be successful in navigating this system of lying about the data to actually get somewhere with your career.