A study predicts decades of it ahead.
Cold is much more deadly than heat, by an order of magnitude.
I have no more confidence in this prediction than I do of predictions for warming (and particularly predictions of catastrophic climate change). The lesson is a) the climate can always be counted on to change, b) we don’t really know what the future holds for climate, c) we need to be prepared for anything, which means maximizing economic growth and d) (related) we need to stop fantasizing that carbon dioxide is a magical climate-control knob.
I rate the studies projecting a cooling period based on solar cycles as far more credible than claims on warming based on CO2. But you’re right in not accepting any of it as “settled science”.
Yes, the notion that we can predict the climate decades out with any useful level of certainty is hubris of the highest order.
“I have no more confidence in this prediction than I do of predictions for warming” Indeed. Tired of hyped studies. We’ll see. I think the smart money is on things getting warmer, but a lot more slowly than expected.
Well, we are technically still in an ice age, although interglacial. The ice sheets could come back at any time. When there are no more glaciers, then we will be safely out of the ice age and into a more natural state for Earth.
I was up on Eagle Peak the other day looking out east toward the rolling hills of the Rocky Mountains on horizon. I tried to imagine a giant wall of water sweeping over the hills and mountains and scouring the soil off the very peak I was standing on, repeatedly. It was too hard to comprehend.
When people get worried about flooding due to climate change, they need to read up on the great floods at the end of the last glacial period about 14,000 years ago. Exiting the ice age we are currently in could be a good thing. We might like the ice we have now but having more of it wouldn’t be all that awesome.
I still contend that the correct answer to “Are we going to die from heat or cold?” is “Build nuclear plants.”
If your obsession is CO2, well, they handle that.
If, however, you’re wrong … it still isn’t a bad plan.
And, if the reverse (or worse, read SMOD etc) happens, well, nuclear plants and submarines are closest to surviving a Fimbulwinter.
I agree with Rand that the language indicating that long-term climate modeling is useful is, at best, obnoxious. However, it seems good to me that a published paper in a major journal, in the present political climate has to include that. After all, belief in computer models is what “climate science” is selling the political community in return for their paychecks.
To *not* kowtow to modeling would mean they were striking directly at the paychecks of the peers reviewing their paper. It’s enough that they can raise doubts about the validity of warming. Modeling monsters must be slain later.