Climate Change: Why is it so often “sooner than predicted”?

NASA graphic: 2015 was the warmest year since 1880

A June 15th headline elicited feelings in me of both shock and déjà vu: “Climate change: Arctic permafrost now melting at levels not expected until 2090” [Independent, June 15, 2019]. Shock because that’s quite a bit ahead of time. Déjà vu because how often does a climate change headline or story use a phrase like that? “At levels not expected until” or “faster than expected” or “sooner than predicted.” I opened a search engine and started plugging in these and other variants to find out. It didn’t take long to answer my question: regularly, as it turns out, and for the past decade.

Here are a few examples, from 2014 to the present [all emphasis is mine]:

• “As the Climate Council has reported, hot days have doubled in Australia over the past half-century. During the decade from 2000 to 2009, heatwaves reached levels not expected until the 2030s. The anticipated impacts from climate change are arriving more than two decades ahead of schedule.” [“‘It’s been hot before’: faulty logic skews the climate debate,” The Conversation, February 20, 2014]
• “Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thought” (University of Leeds study) [Science Daily, March 16, 2014]
• “New research shows climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than expected” (different study) [Arizona…