
New study blaming warming on disrupted Atlantic flow has scientists “grumpy” - okket
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/new-study-blaming-warming-on-disrupted-atlantic-flow-has-scientists-grumpy/
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throwawayjava
The RealClimate.org piece is a very nice piece of scientific prose; I enjoyed
the historical preface. The scientific discussion was clear enough that I
could get an overall sense of the field but specific enough that I know where
to look if I want to make a deep dive into any one of the various related
claims:
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/07/does-a...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/07/does-
a-slow-amoc-increase-the-rate-of-global-warming/)

More generally, though, climate science makes me queasy. I'm more than happy
to accept the dominant theories and sort of understand that there's a lot of
people who understand enough of the related science to have an informed
opinion, but I feel like it would take at least a Ph.D. and a postdoc before I
could really get to that point. There are just _so many_ complex systems in
play.

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aoner
If you want to take a deep dive, the IPCC is the place to be :
[https://www.ipcc.ch](https://www.ipcc.ch)

> The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific and
> intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations, set up at
> the request of member governments, dedicated to the task of providing the
> world with an objective, scientific view of climate change and its political
> and economic impacts. It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations
> organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United
> Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).... The IPCC produces reports that
> support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
> which is the main international treaty on climate change. IPCC reports cover
> "the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to
> understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change,
> its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation." The IPCC
> does not carry out its own original research, nor does it do the work of
> monitoring climate or related phenomena itself. The IPCC bases its
> assessment on the published literature, which includes peer-reviewed and
> non-peer-reviewed sources. Thousands of scientists and other experts
> contribute (on a voluntary basis, without payment from the IPCC) to writing
> and reviewing reports, which are then reviewed by governments. IPCC reports
> contain a "Summary for Policymakers", which is subject to line-by-line
> approval by delegates from all participating governments. Typically this
> involves the governments of more than 120 countries.

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lawlessone
The tl;dr of the article. If the oceans conveyor belt currents stop it could
lead to an even warmer Earth rather than an Ice age as is often predicted.

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ballenf
Is the grumpiness related to the reduced impact of human activity on global
temperatures in this model?

Or maybe more a response to the press's general tendency to report new studies
as significant before there's consensus or even a chance for others in the
field to fully evaluate the claims.

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pulisse
It's not a model. It's a correlational study.

> Most of Chen and Tung's evidence for this comes from laying Atlantic
> circulation data next to global temperature data and noting that it looks
> like temperatures rose more quickly during periods when circulation slowed.

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drallison
Correlation does not imply causation.

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pulisse
That was, indeed, my point.

