Climate Physicists Face the Ghosts in Their Machines: Clouds (quantamagazine.org)
(Monday February 23, 2026 @11:48AM (msmash)
from the cloudy-with-a-chance-of-existential-crisis dept.)
- Reference: 0180846508
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/02/23/1531240/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds
- Source link: https://www.quantamagazine.org/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds-20260220/
Climate scientists trying to predict how much hotter the planet will get have long grappled with a surprisingly stubborn problem -- clouds, which [1]both reflect sunlight and trap heat , account for more than half the variation between climate predictions and are the main reason warming projections for the next 50 years range from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius.
Two research groups are now racing to close that gap using AI, though they disagree sharply on method. Tapio Schneider at Caltech built CLIMA, a model that uses machine learning to optimize cloud parameters within traditional physics equations; it will be unveiled at a conference in Japan in March. Chris Bretherton at the Allen Institute for AI took a different path -- his ACE2 neural network, released in 2024, learns from 50 years of atmospheric data and largely bypasses physics equations altogether.
[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds-20260220/
Two research groups are now racing to close that gap using AI, though they disagree sharply on method. Tapio Schneider at Caltech built CLIMA, a model that uses machine learning to optimize cloud parameters within traditional physics equations; it will be unveiled at a conference in Japan in March. Chris Bretherton at the Allen Institute for AI took a different path -- his ACE2 neural network, released in 2024, learns from 50 years of atmospheric data and largely bypasses physics equations altogether.
[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds-20260220/
wait... (Score:2)
"Two research groups are now racing to close that gap using AI, though they disagree sharply on method."
Isn't AI supposed to be THE METHOD? Don't you use AI to improve the model? And are they "racing"?
"...his ACE2 neural network, released in 2024, learns from 50 years of atmospheric data and largely bypasses physics equations altogether."
Seems unlikely, but by doing precisely what? Producing an alternative model? Why does that matter? Isn't the result what matters?
There are climate models. You judge t
Re: (Score:2)
> There are climate models. You judge them on the reliability of their predictions.
Right. But if they are admitting to some major uncertainties in the models, they aren't ready to use them as the basis of trillion dollar investments. So keep working. The science isn't done yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Climate is notoriously complex set of wild interactions that are unknown at best. Predictions of climate crisis have always been wildly off, because the goal is to scare people into action.
But the boy who cried wolf is a cautionary tale that climate people failed to learn.