Watching TV v Going outside.

[artie]

I saw tv reports about climate change. Long story short, according to them we are going to fry up soon, temperatures are increasing, one report even said it's the hottest weather for 125,000 years.
I'd like to know how they know that.

Then I walk outside and it's raining again, just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

It's also 19 deg.

 

[Luke Barnard]

The scientific basis is described in several levels of detail in the IPCC Assement report 6 (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/). Between the headline statements, summary for policymakers, and longer report, you should be able to find answers to most questions you have regarding this. But, to cut a long story short, we have developed a good understanding of the physical mechanisms that control weather and climate, and when we use this understanding to model and predict past and recent weather and climate, it works well. And so there is confidence that these physical models can predict what the climate will be like in the future.

I should decalare I have some skin-in-the-game, as I'm a research scientist that has done some climate modelling related work.

And yeah, even as someone who works in the field, it can at times seem a bit odd that despite our very wet and mild July, we have these warnings that the world is burning. The trick is to remember the weather above our heads and homes this day/week/month is very rarely representative of the global climate state over months/seasons/years.