Tracker + Sources
Signposts to 2030
The hallmark of good science is falsifiability, and this is why we made the predictions in the synthesis. And it’s why we made lots of them too, on lots of subjects - so that the reader can KNOW if I’m full of shit or not. So they can go through the examples one by one and scorecard, like watching the innings and marking scores as we countdown to a blowout.
(As an aside: Why don’t most studies do this anymore? How odd is it that an anonymous researcher with an outsider project has to try to set an example?)
To encourage that homework I’ve decided to make life (a bit) easier by providing some sheets. It’s not a full dashboard yet and I’m not sure it ever will be but I didn’t think I’d be going this far either - just turns out I feel the need to be a little more thorough.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-5AKjpJO4kTZRGD83FBxXRQLtgjNhnRXyFfsFyo4_SA/edit?usp=sharing
These are my private notes for the synthesis, but also a prediction tracker where I’ve listed out the individual predictions and where we are with them. I will be updating these sheets if/when I feel like it, but
Spoiler Alert: we’re already trending >22% TRUE.
And considering the trajectory to 2040, that’s really really bad news.
I have found tracking these predictions helps to steady me. If I know at least some of what’s coming, I feel a little less…terrified, helpless, etc. I can prepare. I can plan. I can move on from some items, but also rage at the right other ones.
Some highlights from just the last 3 months:
SMOC reversal - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500440122
It took only a month for us to land a bullseye so sharp I feel like a Finnish sniper.
“A study of ocean currents will find multiple currents today already changed in general flow path or function, and worse the shift would have been sometime in the last two decades and not noticed.”
Salinity changes that have propagated along the entire pole to pole path of a major current, for 10 years, wholly unnoticed despite mammoth sea ice anomalies are EXACTLY this prediction. Worse we now have verified weakening of the AMOC, of both SPGs, and of a salinity pump upwelling of the SMOC that is altering Antarctica’s sea ice. This means we have an entire route of direct chain reactions - we don’t need to wait for changes to threaten, instead we have a full cascade of ocean currents mapped and a reason the ACC is weakening too.
That’s not tipping points threatening, not regime shifts underway, that’s a CASCADE IN PROGRESS. We had it completely turned around when we said the ice sheets cause the currents to change, and the system to go nonlinear. We’ve been there already for years now!
And look we PREDICTED this. We used the heuristics, we looked at the observations and we said, something is missing isn’t it? If there are signs that the AMOC has already been weakening for decades, that the polar vortexes are failing more often, that the theorized ~34S salinity gate has fired (northward salinity transport is failing), and BMHWs showing along most basins (many via mesoscale eddies), the best explanation is fast couplings and ONGOING changes in ocean currents. It’s a scary idea, an abductive leap, but we recognize that just because we may not want an answer to be true that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. What IF the speed of changes in the ocean haven’t been properly assessed? What if instead of waiting for tipping points a whole series of them are all behind us already, and some systems set into self-reinforcing motion? Well here we are, and as it turns out with the heuristics we can even anticipate discoveries!
Warm water over the ESAS - https://www.koreapost.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=45925
Well then, the largest unstable hydrate deposit on earth (and only 50m deep) now has confirmed warm water melt pouring over it. For over ~1 year so far, but I’m sure this won’t become a problem soon…
also : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40670639/
Remember we’re aiming for 80% and using the precautionary principle. No greening at the arctic doesn’t really demand this, but the substrates of life under assault definitely does. And that’s what we have between these two papers. The nitrogen cycle has been over-estimated and nature is not currently able to put more into the system than we are withdrawing. We are debtors and plant life in many different places is paying for us. Earth is going to have serious trouble greening anything more at scale.
When we combine this with our papers on ocean microbial diversity and the plastic effects on photosynthesis, we have substrate capacity loss almost everywhere. I’m calling that prediction verified until we see some large scale increases somewhere.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/adf8ae/pdf
BTW we now also have a full pathway of microplastic production + fragmentation crisis = hyperbolic nanoplastic growth > 20nm fragments entering the body > accumulation in brain tissue > neuroinflammation + direct cognitive drain
It really is moving fast now, no?
If anyone is interested, I’ve also done some (very light) analysis of the sources. I’m still not making a mathematical model, the synthesis remains the right move, but I do have a simple timed index now of…what? How wrong institutional predictions tend to be? How much society is unable to deal with nonlinear math & implications? What do we call this?
For now I think I’ll call it the How Wrong We Are Index.
And would you look at that, plot the raw sources and immediately we start to see a pattern. Median bias is actually fairly stable, but mean keeps trending up…that suggests actual observed fat-tail outcomes are getting bigger. That’s our unexpected cascade, now underway. We’re a society of linear operators trying to digest an exponential world and it’s just right there in our own data staring back at us.
But do you see? Shit math is totally useful. Maybe just as much as really good math that doesn’t look up.
Archilochus says throw away your shield.
Hello Mr. Silverhands, I'm Miscatonic from Bluesky. I'd like to cordially invite you to follow the mess you've created on Bluesky. 😎
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for structuring the chaos. Please don't take offense if I share your insights with my followers.
I know you don't want any closer contact, so all I can do is thank you. Your words will not go unheard.
With best wishes for your health,
Miscatonic.
Thank you, Johnny Silverhands – for your openness, your knowledge, and the effort you put into making your knowledge and predictions transparent.
Your project shows us how often we are wrong and how dangerous it is to rely on linear models in an exponential world.
For me, this is not just science, but also an act of responsibility and courage.
Clarity is sometimes brutal, but it gives us the chance to prepare – and for that, I am grateful.
If you are on Bluesky, search for #predictiontracker. Your knowledge will be shared there.