Tag: sensitivity
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Dangerous climate change
It must be about time I wrote something about global warming again. I want to write about a new paper by James Hansen – the world’s best known climate scientist and former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. It’s called Assessing “Dangerous climate change”: required reductions of carbon emissions to protect young people,…
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What does it mean to be skeptical?
Here’s the etymology of the word: skeptic (n.) also sceptic, 1580s, “member of an ancient Greek school that doubted the possibility of real knowledge,” from French sceptique, from Latin scepticus, from Greek skeptikos (plural Skeptikoi “the Skeptics”), literally “inquiring, reflective,” the name taken by the disciples of the Greek philosopher Pyrrho (c.360-c.270 B.C.E.), from skeptesthai “to reflect, look, view” (see scope (n.1)). The extended sense of…
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How hot will it get?
Lately, there’s been much discussion about this thing called climate sensitivity. But what the devil is it? Climate sensitivity refers to the amount by which the temperature is expected to increase with each doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) from pre-industrial levels. It’s important because if it turns out that the climate is very sensitive,…
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