When I used AI in my 1969 master's thesis, "AI" meant computational techniques that would solve problems that are difficult or impossible for a human. It still does. For your information, this is how "AI" itself answers the question I posed to Professor Pielke, the question being "what are applications of ai in climate science" see: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-applications-B61XpWSHS3usMWIOEQgoCQ My concern was, how much of this is hype and how much can we expect the new computational techniques and associated hardware used in "AI" to impact the field of climate science. The problem seems to require an "Honest Broker" since the general public has no idea how climate models work. If you are concerned about bias, this is a general issue when it comes to climate models, which include a tremendous amount of guesswork and arbitrary decisions.
The risk of AI is replacing climate change for the chicken littles of the world. Do you have any thoughts about this matter? For example, many "experts" are predicting that "Artificial General Intelligence" is right around the corner, as it has been since I entered the field in 1969. Many are saying that AI will somehow help to address the climate change problem. Is it possible that the ridiculous amount of money and computer power devoted to AI could give us climate models that can at least model a planet with hurricanes?
FYI - the following is an AI-Generated answer to the general question of AI in Climate Science. But almost nobody reading this would be able to drill down to what is real progress, what is just proposed and what is basically boiler plate from a proposal.
It's unfortunate you feel obligated to bend a knee to the leftists by STARTING your article by stating..... "First, climate change is real and poses significant risks for our collective futures". If you think this will assuage radicals to accept your positions.... It won't.
It’s a good thing New York is planning based on RCP8.5, because that means they have factored in replacing their remaining clean electricity generation (what’s left after they cancelled the offshore wind and closed Indian Point) with lots of new coal generation, which is what RCP8.5 assumes; although it may be bad for New Jersey and Connecticut because they will have to deal with the effects, although they may be planning based on the same scenario.
"It’s a good thing New York is planning based on RCP8.5, because that means they have factored in replacing their remaining clean electricity generation (what’s left after they cancelled the offshore wind and closed Indian Point) with lots of new coal generation, which is what RCP8.5 assumes...."
If the entire U.S. converted *everything* to coal tomorrow (i.e., magically converted all electricity to coal-fired, converted all cars to battery electric vehicles supplied by coal, converted all heating systems powered by oil or natural gas to coal, etc.), and continued to fire every single exajoule of energy by coal for the rest of this century, the world would not come even close to burning as much coal as in the RCP 8.5 scenario.
From Table 1 of that posting, in the year 2100, RCP 8.5 assumes that there will be 795 exajoules (EJ) of coal usage. The *total energy* used annually in the U.S. at present is a little under 100 exajoules.
RCP 8.5 is insane pseudoscience (nonsense pretending to be science). It was pseudoscience even the day it was first published.
Historically I have been politically left of center. In the last couple years, my views have changed, and now I am right of center. My friends, and all but one member of my family, are politically liberal. As you might expect, they trust more liberal news sources. They will however engage with me. I see that Wayne Brown is suggesting that you move off the RPC 8.5 conversation. He’s probably right for this group. It would however be very handy for me to have a one or two page lightly technical PDF document that I can share with friends and family that talks about why RPC 8.5 is not a credible scenario and what the implications of that are. They don’t subscribe to your Substack, so I can’t forward links to them. Would you be willing to write something shareable and mildly technical that we could use with friends to talk about RPC 8.5? I think the key to any conversation is to present material that is consumable and factual but doesn’t imply that they are idiots or morally wrong. I have been able to use some material from Robert Bryce’s Substack to talk with friends about energy topics.
If you go to Table 1 of that post, you'll see that RCP 8.5 assumes that global coal use increases throughout the 21st century, going from 3,218 MMT (million metric tons) in the year 2000, to 27,140 MMT in the year 2100. That's a factor of 8.43 increase. Right now, we're at about 8,500 MMT per year. I don't know of a single energy analyst who thinks the globe will ever consume even 12,000 MMT per year...i.e., not one single energy analyst I know of thinks the world will even get to half of the value assumed by RCP 8.5 in 2100. And that's half of the value assumed for the year 2100 at any time in the future...let alone increasing constantly to reach 12,000 MT in 2100. Let alone reaching 27,140 MMT in 2100.
It is currently not that clear if we are on rcp 4.5 or 8.5: see figure 2.3 and table 2.1 https://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_futurechanges.php shows that 4.5 mean very little by year 2100. Positive feedback > negative feedback is disproved by past cycles and levels.
To be on RCP 8.5, we'd have to be on track to globally burn 27,140 million metric tons (MMT) of coal in the year 2100. We're not on track for that at all. In 2023, we're at about 8,500 MMT of coal burned annually. So the amount of coal burned annually would have to *increase* by a factor of 3.2 from 2023 to 2100. But there is no region in the world that is likely to increase coal usage by a factor of 3.2 from 2023 to 2100. In fact coal usage in North America and Europe *declined* from 2000 to 2021, per Table 2 referenced above.
So it's clear we not only aren't on track to RCP 8.5, but we never were, even when the scenario was first published. RCP 8.5 was never plausible.
Could this ramping up of government mitigation policies for over-projected climate change be the equivalent of having enough nuclear weapons to bomb the earth 10 times over or having a military complex large enough to fight a dozen wars at the same time? My data on military capacity is obviously unresearched, but hopefully you catch my drift. Believe me, I don't like the crazy climate cult either, but to ignore the fact that all government agencies over project their threats and necessary risk mitigation is hypocrisy.
Oh boy. Deja vu all over again ... i.e., the GWP misuse story all over again. Although I disagree, I can
see some sliver of logic underlying use of RCP8.5. But policymakers should also consider lower (lower than RCP4.5) scenarios ... specifically ones consistent with the Paris Agreement (PA). In this regard, I note that RCP4.5 gives a long-term warming (for ECS = 3C) of 2C ... which some would say is consistent with the PA (a bit of a stretch really). For the 1.5C PA goal, my 2018 Climatic Change article
gives sea level rise estimates consistent (based on the 1.5C warming case) with the PA. But it also discusses some more extreme cases.
It is embarassing to be from New York. Get a load of this quote from the regulatory impact statement
Amendments to Part 490, Projected Sea Level Rise Regulatory Impact Statement
Thus, the question for decision makers is not if a critical sea level will be reached, but when. Strauss (201338) calculated that historic emissions have already committed the globe to a mean sea level rise of 6.2 feet. Levermann et al. (2013) estimated that the current international target of 2°C warming will result in an eventual mean global sea level rise of more than 15 feet after 2000 years. Thus, a full range of projections in Part 490 that includes higher values is appropriate to allow for consideration of a level of sea level rise that will likely occur at some point, even if the timing of such occurrence is uncertain.
The timing is 2,000 years but they think this should be considered. Nuts is too kind.
Those of us in private industry have long understood that in order to optimize the utilization of limited capital in the presence of a variety of opportunities of variable risk those risks MUST BE quantified. Governments have to choose between many priorities. They could direct funds towards improved public safety through enhanced policing, reduced driving fatalities through more effective interchanges, or they could reinforce seawalls and raise piers to account for increasing sea levels. The relative value of spending for an RCP8.5 world vs a more plausible world can only be calculated by using the best estimate of the probability associated with RCP8.5. If New York mandates that planning and the associated capital expenditures must assume RCP8.5 then they’ve effectively set the probability of that scenario at 100% and directed capital away from more pressing priorities.
I appreciate your efforts very much! It is crazy that organizations are using such scenarios. And yet, I wonder to what extent the people New York asked about it responded 'why not' because they can afford to indulge in protecting against very remote possibilities. I have a question, however, I would love to see you address: what does success mean to the climate change movement? If it is just the lessening/elimination of CO2, that suggests that CO2 is THE determining factor of climate and -- based on all you've written -- it is hard to see that as true. So, is it a 'climate" like 1850 to 1899? Or? What is it that is implicitly being promised if only we can get off of fossil fuels? As they say, inquiring minds would like to know! The other area I feel could use some of your excellent attention is what scientists -- climate scientists in particular -- are doing in terms of experiments to test their theories about how the earth's climate systems work? Of course, this comes back to what is climate anyway, other than a human-constructed characterization of weather over a time and area chosen, typically by averaging various weather phenomena such as temperature, wind speed and the like. So, does anyone talk about climate change success in terms of weather phenomenon or is it all to be the characterization of climate, determined after the fact and over some period of time and space? Thank you again for all your hard work!
Roger - you comment that "First, climate change is real and poses significant risks for our collective futures."
I submit that the risks posed by climate change (both natural and anthropogenically-forced) absolutely pale in comparison to the risks to people, now and in the future, posed by asinine, misguided, unhinged, and outright lunatic actions driven by the hysteria, virtue-signalling, self-flagellation, and institutionalized and delusional groupthink that are the pillars of the Church of the Climate Apocalypse.
There are many current problems that humanity can collectively, and rationally solve. The evidence would seem to suggest that humanity lacks the ability to rationally solve, or even understand and quantify, the problem of anthropogenic climate change. As such, given that an irrational approach is unlikely to work out well, I submit the best approach is to let it sort itself out as a matter of course.
Thanks Roger for quickly pointing out how wrong headed the scenarios are. NY can ill afford to proceed with policy that will cost the people needless anguish not to mention more wasteful climate spending. I guess I should not hold my breath that the comment period will induce change.
A rational federal government would deny all funding for projects using extreme implausible scenarios in decision making. If a state wants to waste their own taxpayer money let them and they can suffer the consequence of their actions.
When I used AI in my 1969 master's thesis, "AI" meant computational techniques that would solve problems that are difficult or impossible for a human. It still does. For your information, this is how "AI" itself answers the question I posed to Professor Pielke, the question being "what are applications of ai in climate science" see: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-applications-B61XpWSHS3usMWIOEQgoCQ My concern was, how much of this is hype and how much can we expect the new computational techniques and associated hardware used in "AI" to impact the field of climate science. The problem seems to require an "Honest Broker" since the general public has no idea how climate models work. If you are concerned about bias, this is a general issue when it comes to climate models, which include a tremendous amount of guesswork and arbitrary decisions.
Does Piltdown Mann live in NY?
Would explain a lot.
The risk of AI is replacing climate change for the chicken littles of the world. Do you have any thoughts about this matter? For example, many "experts" are predicting that "Artificial General Intelligence" is right around the corner, as it has been since I entered the field in 1969. Many are saying that AI will somehow help to address the climate change problem. Is it possible that the ridiculous amount of money and computer power devoted to AI could give us climate models that can at least model a planet with hurricanes?
FYI - the following is an AI-Generated answer to the general question of AI in Climate Science. But almost nobody reading this would be able to drill down to what is real progress, what is just proposed and what is basically boiler plate from a proposal.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-applications-B61XpWSHS3usMWIOEQgoCQ
No
There is no AI, just computer models programmed by biased humans, Gemini proves that in spades.
It's unfortunate you feel obligated to bend a knee to the leftists by STARTING your article by stating..... "First, climate change is real and poses significant risks for our collective futures". If you think this will assuage radicals to accept your positions.... It won't.
Stay strong and fight like hell.
This is not "bending a knee to the leftists"; it is acknowledging reality.
No, JV is right.
Roger posts how the crisis is not happening, as per “data”, but states it will which is simply a belief in the models he derides here.
He is simply vaccinating himself
It’s a good thing New York is planning based on RCP8.5, because that means they have factored in replacing their remaining clean electricity generation (what’s left after they cancelled the offshore wind and closed Indian Point) with lots of new coal generation, which is what RCP8.5 assumes; although it may be bad for New Jersey and Connecticut because they will have to deal with the effects, although they may be planning based on the same scenario.
"It’s a good thing New York is planning based on RCP8.5, because that means they have factored in replacing their remaining clean electricity generation (what’s left after they cancelled the offshore wind and closed Indian Point) with lots of new coal generation, which is what RCP8.5 assumes...."
If the entire U.S. converted *everything* to coal tomorrow (i.e., magically converted all electricity to coal-fired, converted all cars to battery electric vehicles supplied by coal, converted all heating systems powered by oil or natural gas to coal, etc.), and continued to fire every single exajoule of energy by coal for the rest of this century, the world would not come even close to burning as much coal as in the RCP 8.5 scenario.
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2023/03/is-the-rcp-85-scenario-plausible-was-it-ever-plausible.html
From Table 1 of that posting, in the year 2100, RCP 8.5 assumes that there will be 795 exajoules (EJ) of coal usage. The *total energy* used annually in the U.S. at present is a little under 100 exajoules.
RCP 8.5 is insane pseudoscience (nonsense pretending to be science). It was pseudoscience even the day it was first published.
Historically I have been politically left of center. In the last couple years, my views have changed, and now I am right of center. My friends, and all but one member of my family, are politically liberal. As you might expect, they trust more liberal news sources. They will however engage with me. I see that Wayne Brown is suggesting that you move off the RPC 8.5 conversation. He’s probably right for this group. It would however be very handy for me to have a one or two page lightly technical PDF document that I can share with friends and family that talks about why RPC 8.5 is not a credible scenario and what the implications of that are. They don’t subscribe to your Substack, so I can’t forward links to them. Would you be willing to write something shareable and mildly technical that we could use with friends to talk about RPC 8.5? I think the key to any conversation is to present material that is consumable and factual but doesn’t imply that they are idiots or morally wrong. I have been able to use some material from Robert Bryce’s Substack to talk with friends about energy topics.
Hi,
Here is a blog post I wrote explaining how insane the coal usage in the RCP 8.5 scenario is:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2023/03/is-the-rcp-85-scenario-plausible-was-it-ever-plausible.html
If you go to Table 1 of that post, you'll see that RCP 8.5 assumes that global coal use increases throughout the 21st century, going from 3,218 MMT (million metric tons) in the year 2000, to 27,140 MMT in the year 2100. That's a factor of 8.43 increase. Right now, we're at about 8,500 MMT per year. I don't know of a single energy analyst who thinks the globe will ever consume even 12,000 MMT per year...i.e., not one single energy analyst I know of thinks the world will even get to half of the value assumed by RCP 8.5 in 2100. And that's half of the value assumed for the year 2100 at any time in the future...let alone increasing constantly to reach 12,000 MT in 2100. Let alone reaching 27,140 MMT in 2100.
It is currently not that clear if we are on rcp 4.5 or 8.5: see figure 2.3 and table 2.1 https://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_futurechanges.php shows that 4.5 mean very little by year 2100. Positive feedback > negative feedback is disproved by past cycles and levels.
"It is currently not that clear if we are on rcp 4.5 or 8.5: see figure 2.3 and table 2.1..."
No, it's currently *very* clear that we're not on RCP 8.5. See Tables 1 and 2 here:
https://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2023/03/is-the-rcp-85-scenario-plausible-was-it-ever-plausible.html
To be on RCP 8.5, we'd have to be on track to globally burn 27,140 million metric tons (MMT) of coal in the year 2100. We're not on track for that at all. In 2023, we're at about 8,500 MMT of coal burned annually. So the amount of coal burned annually would have to *increase* by a factor of 3.2 from 2023 to 2100. But there is no region in the world that is likely to increase coal usage by a factor of 3.2 from 2023 to 2100. In fact coal usage in North America and Europe *declined* from 2000 to 2021, per Table 2 referenced above.
So it's clear we not only aren't on track to RCP 8.5, but we never were, even when the scenario was first published. RCP 8.5 was never plausible.
Alright, thanks, will dig into the details.
Could this ramping up of government mitigation policies for over-projected climate change be the equivalent of having enough nuclear weapons to bomb the earth 10 times over or having a military complex large enough to fight a dozen wars at the same time? My data on military capacity is obviously unresearched, but hopefully you catch my drift. Believe me, I don't like the crazy climate cult either, but to ignore the fact that all government agencies over project their threats and necessary risk mitigation is hypocrisy.
Oh boy. Deja vu all over again ... i.e., the GWP misuse story all over again. Although I disagree, I can
see some sliver of logic underlying use of RCP8.5. But policymakers should also consider lower (lower than RCP4.5) scenarios ... specifically ones consistent with the Paris Agreement (PA). In this regard, I note that RCP4.5 gives a long-term warming (for ECS = 3C) of 2C ... which some would say is consistent with the PA (a bit of a stretch really). For the 1.5C PA goal, my 2018 Climatic Change article
gives sea level rise estimates consistent (based on the 1.5C warming case) with the PA. But it also discusses some more extreme cases.
It is embarassing to be from New York. Get a load of this quote from the regulatory impact statement
Amendments to Part 490, Projected Sea Level Rise Regulatory Impact Statement
Thus, the question for decision makers is not if a critical sea level will be reached, but when. Strauss (201338) calculated that historic emissions have already committed the globe to a mean sea level rise of 6.2 feet. Levermann et al. (2013) estimated that the current international target of 2°C warming will result in an eventual mean global sea level rise of more than 15 feet after 2000 years. Thus, a full range of projections in Part 490 that includes higher values is appropriate to allow for consideration of a level of sea level rise that will likely occur at some point, even if the timing of such occurrence is uncertain.
The timing is 2,000 years but they think this should be considered. Nuts is too kind.
Honestly you need to get off the 8.5 subject. I generally just ignore your hundredth comment on this matter. I get it. Really. Move on.
Of course that's your prerogative Wayne.
Personally, I like to be informed when (and by who) this outdated scenario is used in policy. It matters.
Wayne, I hear you! I laughed out loud when I read this. ;-)
You can’t stop writing about it because then it would break continuity with the past, which is why ClimAID says NY should keep using RCP8.5.
Those of us in private industry have long understood that in order to optimize the utilization of limited capital in the presence of a variety of opportunities of variable risk those risks MUST BE quantified. Governments have to choose between many priorities. They could direct funds towards improved public safety through enhanced policing, reduced driving fatalities through more effective interchanges, or they could reinforce seawalls and raise piers to account for increasing sea levels. The relative value of spending for an RCP8.5 world vs a more plausible world can only be calculated by using the best estimate of the probability associated with RCP8.5. If New York mandates that planning and the associated capital expenditures must assume RCP8.5 then they’ve effectively set the probability of that scenario at 100% and directed capital away from more pressing priorities.
I appreciate your efforts very much! It is crazy that organizations are using such scenarios. And yet, I wonder to what extent the people New York asked about it responded 'why not' because they can afford to indulge in protecting against very remote possibilities. I have a question, however, I would love to see you address: what does success mean to the climate change movement? If it is just the lessening/elimination of CO2, that suggests that CO2 is THE determining factor of climate and -- based on all you've written -- it is hard to see that as true. So, is it a 'climate" like 1850 to 1899? Or? What is it that is implicitly being promised if only we can get off of fossil fuels? As they say, inquiring minds would like to know! The other area I feel could use some of your excellent attention is what scientists -- climate scientists in particular -- are doing in terms of experiments to test their theories about how the earth's climate systems work? Of course, this comes back to what is climate anyway, other than a human-constructed characterization of weather over a time and area chosen, typically by averaging various weather phenomena such as temperature, wind speed and the like. So, does anyone talk about climate change success in terms of weather phenomenon or is it all to be the characterization of climate, determined after the fact and over some period of time and space? Thank you again for all your hard work!
Roger - you comment that "First, climate change is real and poses significant risks for our collective futures."
I submit that the risks posed by climate change (both natural and anthropogenically-forced) absolutely pale in comparison to the risks to people, now and in the future, posed by asinine, misguided, unhinged, and outright lunatic actions driven by the hysteria, virtue-signalling, self-flagellation, and institutionalized and delusional groupthink that are the pillars of the Church of the Climate Apocalypse.
There are many current problems that humanity can collectively, and rationally solve. The evidence would seem to suggest that humanity lacks the ability to rationally solve, or even understand and quantify, the problem of anthropogenic climate change. As such, given that an irrational approach is unlikely to work out well, I submit the best approach is to let it sort itself out as a matter of course.
'Seal level rise' will be a direct result of the 'sea level rise'?
Pardon my lame sense of humor; the paragraph that starts with 'First...'
Thanks Roger for quickly pointing out how wrong headed the scenarios are. NY can ill afford to proceed with policy that will cost the people needless anguish not to mention more wasteful climate spending. I guess I should not hold my breath that the comment period will induce change.
A rational federal government would deny all funding for projects using extreme implausible scenarios in decision making. If a state wants to waste their own taxpayer money let them and they can suffer the consequence of their actions.