I've written several volumes (that would probably make a respectable book) on climate change, the realities, the fantasies, and just the overwhelming scale, scope, and chaotic nature of the planet's climate. I've written how, through most of the Earth's 4.6 billion-year history, it's been warmer than it is now, with no human impact. The fact is that we don't have a sufficient understanding of this enormous, chaotic system to model it, and in this, as in all such endeavors, "garbage-in, garbage-out" applies.
So when an agency or organization, even NASA (maybe especially NASA these days), claims to have developed such a model, I can only look at it with the most extreme skepticism.
On Tuesday, there surfaced a NASA report of just such a computer model, which claimed to show carbon emissions on a global scale, referring to it as a "terrifying threat facing mankind."
This animation project was made using supercomputing models and SVS visualizers and shows carbon dioxide emissions moving around the planet as a result of the impact of power plants, fires, and cities, and how these emissions spread across the Earth by airflow and different weather patterns.
NASA used supercomputers to create a data-driven animation showing high levels of global carbon dioxide emissions that pose a threat to humankind.
Using the Discover supercomputer at the Center for Climate Simulation at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, visualizers have used datasets from supercomputer models to make "highly detailed, accurate, and stunning visualizations with Hollywood filmmaking tools like 3D modeling and animation."
This animation project was made using supercomputing models and SVS visualizers and shows carbon dioxide emissions moving around the planet as a result of the impact of power plants, fires, and cities, and how these emissions spread across the Earth by airflow and different weather patterns.
Here's the visual NASA came up with:
NASA's latest scare-mongering. pic.twitter.com/xz6LNkNy54
— Ward Clark (@TheGreatLander) November 19, 2024
Now, I have some questions. So, without further ado:
First: NASA claims the "animation project was made using supercomputing models and SVS visualizers and shows carbon dioxide emissions moving around the planet as a result of the impact of power plants, fires, and cities, and how these emissions spread across the Earth by airflow and different weather patterns." All right — let's see the raw data. How were the carbon outputs from power plants, fires, and cities calculated? Over how long a time did NASA gather data? When did the data gathering begin and end? Show your work, NASA.
Second: NASA again claims that they "used supercomputers to create a data-driven animation showing high levels of global carbon dioxide emissions that pose a threat to humankind." Who programmed the simulation? What assumptions were used, and how were they developed? And in assuming that the projected carbon dioxide levels are accurate, which we have not established, why the presumption that these emissions pose a threat to humankind when higher carbon dioxide levels in the past have not presented an existential threat to mammal life on this planet? What does the threat consist of, given that more people perish every year from cold temperatures than hot temperatures?
Third: NASA claims they used the Discover supercomputer to make "highly detailed, accurate, and stunning visualizations with Hollywood filmmaking tools like 3D modeling and animation." Again, using what data and what assumptions? What was the original hypothesis NASA set out to prove or disprove? Did the result, this piece of Disney-esque CGI, support or oppose NASA's original hypothesis?
Of course, I don't expect any answers to this question, any more than I'll get any such answers from any such claims made by NASA, by the Doom Pixie Greta Thunberg, or by any other troublesome climate scold.
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This, folks, is not science. This is show business, with a big helping of guesswork. NASA, were they interested in science and not scare-mongering, would have produced a report, and submitted it for peer-review in a respectable journal. But this hooraw is just guesswork piled on guesswork used to generate a simplistic model of an enormous, complex, and chaotic system. NASA has not made its data or its hypothesis available for review — and if you understand the scientific method, as opposed to scare-mongering, you will understand why NASA has embarrassed itself yet again with an egregious piece of climate scolding.
If mankind ever wants to get to Mars or beyond, all I can say is we should thank our lucky stars (hah) for Elon Musk, because NASA isn't ever going to get us there.
