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Comment by yters | Hacker News Reader

Since the threat is so imminent, are there specific climate change predictions that have come true?

We’ve spent the last 15 years building better sewer systems all over Denmark in preparation for the increase in heavy rain falls due to climate change. We weren’t fast enough everywhere because the predictions proved conservative. Over all though it’s been a pretty big success.

Plenty, although "come true" depends on your definition, since the predictions are all very conservative, and the observations have tended to be worse than the predictions.

For example, the observations of the recent decline in sea ice are significantly worse than the models predict. [1]

Also, current data show the oceans are warming about 40% faster than predicted. [2]

[1] https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=35

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceans-are-warmin...

One of the predictions was that we'd get stronger heat waves in West Europe. We broke several old records this year. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49100271

But you've been in a warming trend for millennia in Western Europe -- the Danube and Rhine used to freeze over in the time of Tacitus.

The Danube and Rhine river froze over in times my parents can remember. A strong contributing factor to why rivers today don’t freeze any more is that we’re using them to cool power plants and similar.

They froze frequently, and this was not something noted in the 18th century, before power plants. You had reindeer in the Black Forest in Caesar's time. Europe was quite a bit colder in historical times.

The current temperature is clearly significantly hotter, and the rate of change is greater,

There has not been a "warming trend for millennia." The temperature rose steadily for about 1000 years since the Roman times, up through the Medieval Warm Period, then cooled steadily until about 1800, and then have shot up recently.

Take a look at the graph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

We came out of a little ice age at around 1870. The causes are complex but include a huge amount of volcanic activity over 50 years potentially lower solar output during that time known as the Maunder Minimum. The effects of both on climate hung around but were effectively over by 1950 and we wouldn't expect any further warming since then.

The Maunder Minimum ended in 1715. Ice ages are not things that you "come out of" in a single year. Volcanic activity is not regular.

So your statement "over by 1950 and we wouldn't expect any further warming since then" has no basis.

You'll notice that I didn't we came out of it in a single year. I was saying that the factors that contributed to the Little Ice Age would have stopped having an influence by 1950.

Average temperatures are not that much higher yet. The specific prediction is that there will be more heat waves.

Warming trend vastly accelerated in a relatively short time frame to the point of the long term trend not holding much salience

The sea level has risen around 5-8 inches since 1900 and the rate at which it is rising has increased over the last several decades (and continues to increase). This is compared to roughly 2000 years of stable sea levels prior to the 1900's.

Exxon's 1982-vintage predictions on global temperatures have mostly held up.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/exxon-predicted-2019-s-ominous-c...

Interesting article. I thought everything was good until I hit that part

The only thing its scientists got wrong was that what they called “potentially serious climate problems” wouldn’t emerge until the late 21st century. So much for that.

The linked article refers to the loss in biodiversity, which is in my opinion not really related to climate change. It’s related to the fact that we humans leave less and less physical space for other species. I think it’s wrong to combine the two effects.

If trends keep going and warmer oceans finally kill off most of the coral reefs, there's your lost biodiversity right there.

One prediction: We will see large amounts of ice lost from the poles, seems to have been a good prediction.

The ones that have come true can pretty much be summed up by "shitty weather". Shitty weather is quite capable of wreaking havoc upon human food production and infrastructure though, so the future could be quite scary even if the more alarmist reports are exaggerated.

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