I'm fairly early in my career (read: youngish). And, truthfully, I'm very much having an existential crisis. I often wonder what the worth in studying the climate is. After all, we already have an extremely detailed understanding of the basics. Does refining our estimate of melt and other such issues, reducing the error bars, really contribute anything more to society? I'm not sure. It feels fruitless. But I recently had a friend explain that I should consider myself more a documentarian than a researcher which shifted my perspective quite a lot. Some people here will like the quote:
"Somebody has to document what happened, it's better than selling ads on the internet. Imagine a world where we burn ourselves to death and we didn't even keep track of the specifics, it seems even more tragic."
Anyway. I think the answer is clearly... frustrating.
"Somebody has to document what happened, it's better than selling ads on the internet. Imagine a world where we burn ourselves to death and we didn't even keep track of the specifics, it seems even more tragic."
Anyway. I think the answer is clearly... frustrating.