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bolido_sentimental  2yr ago (text post)   3866 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 25, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

Posted because I didn't see Zorba post one today. Feel free to delete if that's an issue.

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I've been DIYing this for some years; I don't have the links handy but the CMIP5 model results and the HADCRUT global temperatures are publically available.

There is indeed significant divergence; https://imgur.com/a/krYXyKu.

IIRC RCP4.5 was a better match -- but if you look at the modelling assumptions actual emissions have been more in line with the RCP8.5 assumptions. Which makes me think that we don't actually have a great idea of what we are modelling.

This doesn't prevent climate activists from using the RCP8.5 assumptions as a bailey ("we are on track for +4 degrees C by 2100") while still retreating to the motte ("nonono, you can't just pick the worst-case scenario just because gross carbon emissions keep going up") when presented with graphs like the above.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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