Uncertainties re climate change make situation scarier

[Martin W]

Commentary in Financial Times should be food for thought. Includes:

Quote:

if our understanding of climate systems is flawed, our best guess about the dangers we face may be less pessimistic, but extreme outcomes are more likely.
…
While the central predictions of climate change models are arguably not so much worse than many other difficult problems the world faces, the worst possibilities are far, far nastier.
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Serious scientists worry that feedback effects such as release of methane from the Siberian permafrost (or those underwater clathrates), or reductions in the earth’s reflectivity due to polar ice loss, could cause runaway greenhouse warming, with unforeseeable outcomes that would look like bad science fiction from today’s perspective.

The continuing scientific uncertainty about the pace of climate change should make us more concerned, not less. And it is those who doubt the climatologists’ models who should be the most frightened.

If climate sceptics are right, it is time to worry

[Author]

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