between climate variables. How do you estimate the amount that the estimate of sea level rise will vary with the estimate of the rise in temperature?
It's a typical area where estimate like this can be wrong, and mischaracterize the true uncertainty with a random variable. It's one of the reasons the true risk associate with mortgage backed securities were underestimated prior to 2008.
It's no surprising the climate effects are also underestimated.
Interesting comparison.
I find that the underestimation is influenced heavily by greed and wishful thinking. in both cases. I recall listening to an economic "expert" being interviewed on NPR, around late 2006. He claimed that in the future, people were just going to continually refi their houses to buy things. I gave a "What the actual FSCK?" while driving. Here's an expert handing out an equation that rapidly ends up with a result of infinity. Not to mention not everyone owned real estate.
Yet people were busy refinancing and taking out mortgages that appeared to think that humans live forever, and handing out ARM mortgages to people who were never going to be able to repay them. We bought our house in the mid 90's, and it was starting. No ARM, 50 K less than what Mrs Real estate agent wanted us to pay. I asked the mortgage originator how a system where the originator had no responsibility for the repayment of the loan. He shrugged, didn't care, not his job.
I knew there was a positive feedback loop bubble forming when I saw the first ad on Yahoo telling us about financing a million dollars with a 250 dollars a month payback. Then the 50 year mortgages. Then....
I was told I was a nervous Nellie, didn't understand how things worked. Then the shit hit the fan.
Back to AGW, it is similar, greed and wishful thinking on one side, and doomers on the other.
The answer to what will happen is somewhere in the middle. The earth will warm, some high priced real estate will go underwater in the literal sense, And we mainly need to stop as much de-sequestering CO2 as we can. Some mitigation can work a little, but the roller coaster ride has begun. Note, some scientists speak of "tipping points". My thesis that we tipped in the mid 80's.