"How nuclear weapons research revealed new climate threats" Topic

After atmospheric scientist Ivana Cvijanovic began pushing a computerized climate simulation to its limits, she noticed a disturbing result: as Arctic sea ice nearly disappeared, massive high-pressure systems built up thousands of miles away, off the west coast of the United States.

The atmospheric ridge blocked major storms bound for California, cutting off rainfall. Cvijanovic's model shows that as the North Pole's summer sea ice vanishes, as expected in the next few decades, it could turn down the tap for Central Valley farmers, Sierra Nevada ski resorts, and cities throughout the nation's most populous state (see ).

The results, published in Nature Communications in December, also suggest that shrinking sea ice may have played a role in the extreme, costly drought that plagued California for most of this decade. That was driven by a "ridiculously resilient ridge" closely resembling the one that Cvijanovic's simulation predicts.

Climate models are often derided as unreliable approximations of Earth's complex systems, particularly among climate change deniers. But thanks to advances in computational power, the inclusion of more components, and other technical strides, these simulations are becoming incredibly powerful.

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Really interesting piece on the advances of computer simulation and climate models.

Cheers,
Martin from Canada.

The cruises will be amazing!

Dan

Lost me at Computer Climate Models since those are going to be programed to do what the programmer wants them to do.

as the North Pole's summer sea ice vanishes, as expected in the next few decades

weren't we supposed to be ice free by 2013?

weren't we supposed to be ice free by 2013?

That's Wiesław Masłowski's prediction a few years back, and as a worst case scenario -everything breaking against humanity. That is to say, even worse rolling than Bowman trying to pass armour rolls at En Guarde!.

IPCC consensus is approx. 2030-latter half of this century.

If people miss the ice sheets of old that much, then I think a nice nuclear winter is what we need. :)

Dan

That is to say, even worse rolling than Bowman trying to pass armour rolls at En Guarde!.

Hey, I resemble that remark!

Lost me at Computer Climate Models since those are going to be programed to do what the programmer wants them to do.

Actually climate models created in the past have proven to be fairly accurate, and they are getting better.

This is from the CarbonBrief website:

Climate models published since 1973 have generally been quite skillful in projecting future warming. While some were too low and some too high, they all show outcomes reasonably close to what has actually occurred, especially when discrepancies between predicted and actual CO2 concentrations and other climate forcings are taken into account.

It's a very interesting article which you can find here:

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Quite accurate except for the results. Wasn't NYC supposed to be underwater by now?

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

Wasn't NYC supposed to be underwater by now?

No, it wasn't. Only in the most extreme projections (and, obviously, those didn't happen).

Oh, and the minds of bad scifi writers.