Where does climate science fit in within the site?

Question

I hope I am not beating a dead horse here, but I wanted to bring this topic up with a different tact (see other question on climate science).

A number of articles, notable scientists, and studies have noted that the world has not warmed over that past decade and current climate models are overestimating warming (though the models perform better than random forecasts). A few examples:

• A Sensitive Matter - the Economist
• Test of a decadal climate forecast by Myles Allen, published in Nature and Geoscience Research Letters
• Global Temperature through 2012 by James Hansen. Here's a quote:

The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.

• Hindcast of global warming slowdown published in Nature Climate Change suggests much of increased heat flux at top of atmosphere has gone into the ocean.

My question to the community is, do we invite discussion of this on this site? It has significant implications on what we prioritize as sustainable. Many questions on this site explicitly ask about reducing carbon.

For instance, if I asked:

What are some possible scientific explanations for the warming slowdown of the past decade?

would we consider that on topic? As it is undecided and controversial, can it be a constructive question?

A question like this is probably more appropriate for GeoSciences, however, do we have a place for it here???

Answer 1

Being new to the site I don't really know the boundaries of this SE site but your example question (as it is formulated), for my feeling, belongs more to GeoSciences.SE or Biology.SE.

I don't see the obvious link between the question and living in a sustainable way which may be more focused on a practical approach. However I was curious about a similar issue (see the question on meta). Reformulating the question in a way that it addresses consumers rather than the results of climate change studies may make it on topic:

I am confused about climate change studies. What am I actually contributing with my "sustainable living" efforts?

(This question will most likely be too broad but serves just as an example)

In short: Discussing methodology and results of climate change studies misses the link to the actions an individual can take to live more sustainable and therefore may not be ontopic here.

Answer 2

The description of this site as of the writing of this answer is, "For folks dedicated to a lifestyle that can be maintained indefinitely without depleting available resources."

Where does climate science fit in within the site?

Climate science should inform such individuals that would join this site how to select living choices in such a way that are less likely to unbalance the biosphere's rhythms and equilibria as the human population grows. However, the folks that are rightly dedicated to living sustainably may not have formal scientific training or work for organizations where they are exposed to legitimate scientific culture on a daily basis.

Answer 3

As your question illustrates, it's very hard for lay people to ask deep meaningful questions on the subject, particularly if their knowledge is based on anti-science blogs; and in the absence of lots of climatologists around here, it will be difficult to gather awesome answers.

The papers you've quoted do not support the conclusions you've drawn - indeed, they contradict them. Remember that weather and climate are related, but they are different things. From the Hansen paper:

Note that the ten warmest years in the record all occurred since 1998.

So the question you've proposed isn't even meaningful: there has been no slowdown in the rise of global heat content - i.e. the world is still warming.

Furthermore, the papers you quoted explicitly show that observations strengthen our confidence in the models: directly the opposite of what you concluded.

And on top of this, the talking points you've raised, although very popular in the denialsphere, have been well-discussed and refuted in the scientific literature.

So no, it wouldn't really be a good example for the site.

There are, however, lots of meaningful questions to be asked about the realities of anthropogenic climate change, specifically about the possibilities for both mitigation and adaptation, and I'd see those as on-topic for here.

Please do remember that this is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum. So if your reason for asking is that you'd like to start a discussion about {any topic}, then you want a different site, not a StackExchange site. If you want to discuss real climate science, then Real Climate is a pretty good place to start. For example, they've got decent coverage of where the rising heat content has been stored over the last ten years.