Category Archives: Climate sensitivity

Considering Catastrophe

Posted on August 9, 2022 by ...and Then There's Physics

There’s been quite a lot of recent coverage of a paper suggesting that climate endgames, such as global societal collapse or human extinction, have been dangerously unexplored. For those who recall the contentious RCP8.5 debate, this may seem a surprising … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Gavin Schmidt, Policy, Research, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 90 Comments

No, it probably isn’t mostly due to changes in clouds!

Posted on November 27, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

I haven’t done a paper debunk for a while, but a reader got in touch to ask about a recent paper by Hans Rolf-Dübal and Fritz Vahrenholt, so I thought I would have a quick look. The paper is Radiative … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Greenhouse effect | Tagged , , , , , | 34 Comments

The effect of permafrost on the ZEC

Posted on September 15, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’ve written a number of posts about warming commitments, in particular the zero emission commitment (ZEC). In other words, how much additional warming will there be after emissions get to zero. The answer is that on multi-decadal timescales [the ZEC] … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 36 Comments

A chat with Mallen Baker

Posted on August 19, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

Mallen Baker is a commentator who runs a youtube channel called Dangerously Reasonable. He tackles contentious issues and tries to assess the various lines of evidence that may, or may not, support what someone is promoting. For example, Mallen did … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Policy, The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , | 175 Comments

IPCC AR6 WG1

Posted on August 9, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

The site has been a little quiet, but since this blog has been going long enough to have commented on the release of the IPCC AR5 WG1 report, it only seems right to comment on the release of the IPCC’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, IPCC | Tagged , , , | 85 Comments

Speaking out

Posted on July 22, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

Bill McGuire, who is Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at UCL, has written a post suggesting that climate scientists should speak out more and that they should Come down off the fence and choose the path you know, … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Scientists | Tagged , , , , | 85 Comments

The Last Glacial Maximum

Posted on May 16, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

There’s an interesting paper by Seltzer et al. called [w]idespread six degrees Celsius cooling on land during the Last Glacial Maximum, which I became aware of through a Twitter thread by Werner Aeschbach. The reason it’s interesting is that it … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Warming commitments

Posted on January 8, 2021 by ...and Then There's Physics

There’s been quite a lot of recent discussion about warming commitments. It started with an article by Bob Berwyn called Net Zero Emissions Would Stabilize Climate Quickly Says UK Scientist, followed soon after by one saying [w]arming already baked in … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research | Tagged , , , , , , | 42 Comments

Climate sensitivity – narrowing the range

Posted on July 22, 2020 by ...and Then There's Physics

Since I’ve discussed climate sensitivity on a number of occasions, it seems worth highlighting the new paper that assesses climate sensitivity using multiple lines of evidence. The authors include many who will be familiar to my regular readers. The key … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 98 Comments

Can climate sensitivity be really high?

Posted on June 13, 2020 by ...and Then There's Physics

The answer to the question in my post title is – unfortunately – yes. The generally accepted likely range for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is 2oC – 4.5oC. This doesn’t mean that it has to fall within this range, it … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science, The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , | 36 Comments