Were Not Totally Sure How Much the Planet Will Warm This CenturyBut We Still Need to Act.Its a well worn fact that our round Earth is warming, and that human carbon emissions are the cause.Whats less well known is how much warming weve already committed our planet to in the future.Active Directory Users And Computers Change Username On Snapchat' title='Active Directory Users And Computers Change Username On Snapchat' />A new study crunched some numbers and came to an alarming answerbut other experts are already criticizing its approach, reminding us that the course of climate change remains incredibly tough to predict.The two degrees Celsius warming targetadopted by scientists and politicians alike as a threshold we ought to stay below to avoid catastrophic climate impactsis very likely to be surpassed this century, according to a study out in Nature Climate Change today.Using statistical models that project trends in socio economic factors like GDP and population growth forward in time, the University of Washington led study estimates there is only a five percent change Earth will warm less than two degrees this century.Depressingly, the authors estimate just a one percent chance that well remain below 1.Paris Climate Agreement, which is thought to offer low lying island nations the best chance of remaining above water.Microsofts experimental projects division has released a toolbar utility for Macbased Office 365 users that lets you access your OneDrive files, make video calls.This week, a security flaw within Instagram allowed hackers to assemble a database of what appeared to be verified users contact informationsome of those.Before I begin, apologies are in order.To the 310 million monthly active Snapchat users, many of whom are in their teens and early 20s Sorry, but old people are.Instead, the authors estimate a 9.Celsius 3. 6 to 8.Fahrenheit by centurys end.On the one hand, this isnt surprisingmany experts believe we arent reducing our collective carbon footprint quickly enough to align with the Paris goal.The planet has already warmed about a degree since pre industrial times, and we know that theres more warming baked in as economies make the transition to renewable energy, and as heat taken up by the oceans is re released to the atmosphere.Another study out in Nature Climate Change last week also suggested were more likely to breach the two degree threshold than previously thought, because of uncertainty in how we define our pre industrial baseline level of CO2.But when I sent the new paper to climate scientist Michael Mann, one of the co authors of last weeks study on defining the pre industrial baseline, he was immediately critical of its methods.Active Directory Users And Computers Change Username On Snapchat' title='Active Directory Users And Computers Change Username On Snapchat' />Color me deeply, deeply skeptical, he said, noting that while his study described physical constraints on warming i.CO2 weve already emitted, the new study is based purely on socio economic trendsand assuming that those trends can foretell the future.That ignores the fact that political will depends on many factors that cannot be predicted based on past behavior, he said, noting that the recent growth in renewable energy, for instance, has exceeded the projections of many market forecasters.Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institute for Science, noted that while the conclusion of the paper was wholly unsurprising, projecting the trajectory of complex social systems amounts to little more than stating ones opinion.In science, the leap from model to reality is always a dangerous leap, he told Gizmodo.Few predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, the unprecedented rapidity of the rise of China, or the election of Donald Trump.The question, as Caldeira put it, is how likely are humans to change their historical patterns of energy consumptionand when.If we dont change those patterns, then the world is likely to get very hot, he said.However, we will change those patterns. 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The question is whether we will change those patterns before we radically damage our environment effectively forever.Ive reached out to Adrian Raftery, lead author of the new study, with some of the criticisms enumerated above.Ive also reached out to a few other climate scientists to see what they think, and will update this post if and when I hear back.But, in short, theres still a lot of uncertainty about how much the planet will warm this century.Another study, also published today in Nature Climate Change, suggests were likely only committed to 1.The two new estimates are barely within the error bars of each other.Of course, none of this changes the fact that we need to act quickly to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.So, whats the average person to do about it all If you live in a wealthy nation, heres a list of choices you can make to align your lifestyle with the Paris goal.If enough of us make enough of these choices, itll help drive our economy in the right direction.But ultimately, the decisions thatll lead to the most impactful shiftsthose that cannot be predicted by models based on historical trendsare bigger than us.Theyre policy decisions made at high levels of government.So, you can also vote.Nature Climate ChangeUpdate In an email to Gizmodo, study co author Richard Startz responded to some of the criticisms above, saying that one of the goals of his teams modeling approach was its ability to account for uncertainty.Uncertainty about economic growth over the next 1.The bad news is that the band of likely outcomes range from pretty bad to outright disaster.To the point about the capricious nature of our political will to act, Startz emphasized that his team forecasts the worlds carbon intensity a metric of carbon emissions relative to economic growth will fall as quickly as it has been falling for some time now.It would take a noticeable acceleration or deceleration to make a difference, he said.Perhaps some country will pull out of the Paris accords and cut progress.Or one could imagine a country investing in basic science in a way that brings forth technological breakthroughs at a far more rapid pace than has already been the case.Instagram Done Got Hacked.Instagram, Facebooks hotter, snootier subsidiary, may have a massive data breach on its hands.This week, a security flaw within Instagram allowed hackers to assemble a database of what appeared to be verified users contact informationsome of those affected purportedly being celebrities and politicians.According to the Verge, Instagram now says the known scope of the breach has expanded to include at least some unverified Instagrammers.We recently discovered a bug on Instagram that could be used to access some peoples email address and phone number even if they were not public, Instagram CTO Mike Krieger wrote in a blog post.No passwords or other Instagram activity was revealed.We quickly fixed the bug, and have been working with law enforcement on the matter.Although we cannot determine which specific accounts may have been impacted, we believe it was a low percentage of Instagram accounts.We are very sorry this happened, Krieger added.As the Daily Beast reported last week, the unknown hackers behind the breach claim to have compromised six million accounts and set up a website called Doxagram, which allegedly offered access to phone numbers, email addresses or both for 1,0.Instagram accounts at 1.While a few of the addresses were public information, many did not return any relevant Google results, implying they were obtained from some private source.The Beast was able to confirm some of the leaked accounts had valid contact information the site was later taken offline.Per the Verge, cybersecurity firm Rep.Knight said supposed contact information for a number of celebrities featured on Doxagram was circulating on the dark web, ranging from Hollywood celebs like Emma Watson and Leonardo Di.Caprio to musician Harry Styles and boxer Floyd Mayweather.The Beast claimed the site even purported to have contact info behind President Donald Trumps official Instagram profile, which was managed by White House social media director Dan Scavino.In addition to potentially exposing users to harassment, the breach could allow hackers to target them for social engineering attacks which could compromise their accounts.Instagrams security hole may be linked to an incident on August 2.Selena Gomezthe most followed user on the siteand posted nude photographs of Justin Bieber.Data breaches are not the only major problem reported at the social media giant in recent days.On Friday, Mashable reported the sites staff is rife with individuals willing to verify Instagram accounts for prices anywhere from a bottle of wine to 1.
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