[Gingerkid]

I know the FE community isn't a monolith and there's disagreement on some things, but from what I've been reading most accept the idea of climate change.

All of the modeling is based on globe earth physics and alot of the data is from satellite imaging and measured changes to the gravitational field caused by changes in sea level.  For any of you who accept climate change, what data convinces you and do you trust the modeling and predictions that come from measuring gravity changes and are based on assuming the earth is a globe?

Reality is that we'd experience much different weather and climate outcomes right now if the earth was flat but setting that aside, it seems that it would be difficult to accept predictions and forecasts based on observing gravity shifts if you don't accept gravity or models based on a globe earth if you don't believe the earth is a globe.

[Action80]

Please support your claim that climate modeling is based on "globe earth physics." What the hell is "globe earth physics," anyway?

[Pete Svarrior]

Reality is that we'd experience much different weather and climate outcomes right now if the earth was flat

I'd be curious to see why you believe this - it's quite a large claim to just throw out there as "reality", with absolutely no substantiation.

[BillO]

Actually, most climate models use flat earth approximations to simplify the calculations.  However, in the last 4 or 5 years efforts are being made to investigate using a spherical model for better accuracy.

Here is a paper form 2019 on the subject that anyone can get access to.  There are other's but most are behind pay-walls.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1908198116