
Climate models miss most of the coarse dust in the atmosphere - bookofjoe
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/15/eaaz9507
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zdragnar
The entire premise of the conclusion is that larger dust particles absorb
light and warm the atmosphere, and yet the cited paper [16] I believe, does
not appear to reach that conclusion at all. If anything, the contribution to
cloud formation may offset the absorbed energy.

Models are little more than extrapolations made from assumptions, but I am
having a hard time understanding the basis for the assumptions made here.

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pdonis
_> The entire premise of the conclusion is that larger dust particles absorb
light and warm the atmosphere_

Which is a questionable premise given that we already know large volcanic
eruptions cool the planet (the latest was Mt. Pintanubo in 1992). And how do
they do that? By putting lots of coarse dust into the atmosphere.

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mturmon
That’s part of the story. From Pinatubo, there is believed to also be a
warming effect due to the stratospheric SO2 absorbing heat from below (related
to the claims of the article), and in a secondary effect, potentially changing
atmospheric circulation.

See point 6 in [https://eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-
ways-...](https://eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-ways-the-
eruption-broke-ground)

As with a lot of Earth science: it’s complicated.

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poma88
No surprise here. Climate models do a job on the details that matter most.
They might improve as suggested in this paper.

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chrisco255
Given that they are modeling a chaotic system it is extremely important that
they get even the tiniest details correct, or they are no better than a random
guess.

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IngoBlechschmid
Climate is much less chaotic than weather, as it is about long-term and long-
range averages; the quality of climate models can be judged by feeding them
historic inputs (such as the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions) and
comparing their outputs for the years until 2020 with the actual record. Even
simple climate models are substantially better than random guesses.

