Submitted by Dr. Clive Best
The first IPCC report in 1990 chaired by Prof. Houghton made a prediction for a rise in global temperatures of 1.1 degrees C from 1990 until 2030. This prediction can now be compared with the actual data as measured up to now (May 2011).
Figure2: Comparison of yearly HadCru & UAH data with IPCC 1990 predictions
These results have been derived as described below. You can see the results here
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=2208
regards
Dr Clive Best
Anyone can make predictions!
The hard part is being correct!
It takes wisdom and courage, to keep ones head, while the rest of the world, is scrambling fearfully about. GK
Looks like Government work, never correct.
I’ve never been clear on what predicted concentrations of atmospheric CO2 drove those 3 red lines.
I recall reading a comment from Steve McIntyre that the difference between Hansen’s scenario’s A and B (which bear an amazing resemblance to the IPCC’s business-as-usual and best-guess scenarios above) was due overwhelmingly to different assumptions of CFC concentrations over the time period.
It would be interesting to know whether CO2 and aerosol predictions have proven to be far higher than what actually happened.
The IPCC listens to climatologists, not engineers.
Smokey says:
June 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm
The IPCC listens to climatologists, not engineers.
I knew I got my ME degree for a good reason. And those were two of the best I have seen in a long time.
Climate FAIL Files candidate?
To what extent is “climatologist” defined as someone with a credential that requires approval from alarmists?
I trust in science, but not in all who claim to practice it. Credentialing organizations which have been shown to be corrupt and are unwilling to fix it need to be replaced from the ground up. Until that happens, there are no trustworthy “authorities.” The people covering up Climategate need to learn the hard way that this means them.
They’re still looking for a more accurate version of the Navier-Stokes equations…[heh]
“Smokey says:
June 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm
The IPCC listens to climatologists, not engineers.”
They do listen to engineers… as long as they are railroad engineers 🙂
Smokey said @ur momisugly June 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm
“The IPCC listens to climatologists, not engineers.”
And mountain guides, rather than glaciologists…
http://gbpihed.gov.in/MoEF%20Dissussion%20Paper%20on%20Himalayan%20Glaciers.pdf
The outputs from the models are an expression of the CO2 forced global warming hypothesis, and the outputs have been wrong for two decades. Robustly wrong.
The hypothesis has been invalidated.
Figure 1 from the cited article would have been clearer than figure two which still has a anomaly period offset.
Suggest that you use figure 1 for a more informative presentation.
The other thing that the author should do is present the actual GHG forcing over the period in question. that is, the 1990 forecast is contingent upon assumed emissions. So, you really cannot simply compare the forecast to the observations. Most NOTABLY the forecast did not foresee or take into account any volcanic eruptions.
Simply: the forecast says : IF we see no volcanos after 1990, and IF the sun behaves as predicted, and IF the GHGs we putinto the atmosphere, THEN you will see temperatures go up like so.
Well, the FIRST question you need to address BEFORE comparing the forecast to observations is the
status of all those qualifiers. Were there volcanos? did the sun act as predicted? and did we emit GHGs as PROEJECTED.
After you answer those questions, then you can start the comparison. That is one of the things that makes this kind of predicting very tough. The predictions are all CONDITIONAL. we dont control the experiment. this isnt like the lab and simple lab approaches miss the point and the complexity. Now, it can be done, but its just harder than what is presented.
even despite all these severely manipulated data sets, none of them make the IPCC forecasts.
They could have tried harder to manipulate the data. Anyhow, these supercomputers and agencies + climatology departments cost an awful lot of money to come up with such poor and erroneous predictions.
Its like Galileo confronting Giovanni de Medici who invented a dredging machine which he was very proud of. Galileo pointed out that whatever else it would do, it wouldn’t dredge.
“It’s difficult to make predictions especially about the future” Yogi Berra
Steven Mosher says:
“Simply: the forecast says : IF we see no volcanos after 1990, and IF the sun behaves as predicted, and IF the GHGs we putinto the atmosphere, THEN you will see temperatures go up like so.”
Its all very tentative. The Met Office have been claioming for well over a decade that C02 is now the most dominant climatic factor. That means that all the others cannot offset the alleged effect of c02 on temperature. They make so much of the fact that solar forcing is a second to anthropogenic c02, which over-rides all other influences.
To add to what Steven said, you can’t compare three scenario’s to reality anyway.
Only one of them is true, because only one of them will fit reality well. So its all well and good that all three scenarios are wrong, but the best comparison is to simply put just compare the best guess to what we have today.
As far as solar and volcanic influences go, I tend to disagree with this with what Steven was saying. You can always adjust the guesses for whichever scenario is seen to match reality. That is not a problem really, the key is finding out what the guesses were based on. (Which I think is the point Steven is really trying to make there.)
I always thought the scenarios were rather retarded anyway. But maybe thats just me. Anyone who makes high claims of knowing the future tends to make themselves seem like an oracle, and I would probably trust one just as much.
The future is always unknown. The current situation with the sun should prove that, and the effects of that are not going to be felt for a couple more years, but when they are felt…
Steven Mosher says:
June 9, 2011 at 1:22 pm
“Simply: the forecast says : IF we see no volcanos after 1990, and IF the sun behaves as predicted, and IF the GHGs we putinto the atmosphere, THEN you will see temperatures go up like so.”
If that is what the IPCC reports do – assume that there are no volcanic eruptions in the future – then WHY did ANYONE EVER take any of their projections and scenarios seriously? Because it means that that forecast is not a forecast for planet Earth.
Sorry to be objective but where is the GISS plot?
Spen, possibly he forgot which circular file it landed in?
Smokey says:
June 9, 2011 at 12:23 pm
The IPCC listens to climatologists, not engineers.
sorry to disagree but they do listen to a railroad engineer!
If as Mosh points out, the two temperature curves were shifted to go through the 1900 point, the low IPCC prediction looks right on.
Steven Mosher says: “The predictions are all CONDITIONAL.”
I appreciate your point Steve, but those predictions are being used to drive policy decisions with possibly profound consequences for the wealth and lifestyle of nations. The policymakers don’t seem to follow the caveats closely, and quite honestly, neither do many of the climatologists nor the AGW proponents. So, while bearing your conditions in mind, I think it’s still worthwhile to see a prima facie presentation of how those predictions stand a decade later.
Seriously OT, but pertinent to a raft of recent comments on another thread:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0509/Fracking-for-natural-gas-is-polluting-ground-water-study-concludes
Those graphs are damning, whatever the caveats about CFCs , volcanos and Sun behaviour. They were claiming their projections are an accurate assessment of what will happen in the future if we did not change our ways. We did not changed our ways, China and Indian economies have taken off, and the projections are right at the bottom of their predictions even after giving the most generous interpretations to their caveats.
The caveats are wriggle room, and they have run out of wriggles.
So, if you make enough guesses, you might be right (eventually)?