For the National Climate Assessment NASA has produced a model-based prediction of eight degrees Fahrenheit for the continental US by 2100 as the most likely scenario
Story submitted by Ben Bakker
NASA scientists have created a video showing predicted dramatic heating of the continental US between now and the year 2100. The video and prediction show results of models assuming a rise in CO2 to a low of 550 ppm and a high of 800 ppm by 2100. The NASA team states that the 800 ppm value is a more likely scenario. The scenarios based upon their models lead to rises of 4 degrees and 8 degrees Fahrenheit respectively across the contiguous US. Video follows:
The team states that they calibrated 15 different models to the years as a baseline for comparison. They created two videos showing the changes in temperatures and precipitation.
The interesting part is that they chose the years 1970 to 1999 to calibrate the models. Calibrate them to what? Did they assume the co2 rise during that period was the sole factor driving temperatures across the US and calibrate the rise in temperature based on that correspondence? Did they quantify the role of pollution / aerosol reduction during that period? Changes in multi-decadal oscillations on regional climate? Changes in regional humidity? Was it a global or local model calibration? Why did they end the calibration period at 1999? Why start at 1970? With more data available and no contrasting calibrations provided this looks like a search for a high end projection. Perhaps explanations are provided in the research. Questions abound.
This is part of the upcoming National Climate Assessment Report.
Here is a description that accompanies the video:
==============================================================
The average temperature across the continental U.S. could be 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of the 21st century under a climate scenario in which concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide rise to 800 parts per million. Current concentrations stand at 400 parts per million, and are rising faster than at any time in Earth’s history.
These visualizations — which highlight computer model projections from the draft National Climate Assessment — show how average temperatures could change across the U.S. in the coming decades under two different carbon dioxide emissions scenarios.
Both scenarios project significant warming. A scenario with lower emissions, in which carbon dioxide reaches 550 parts per million by 2100, still projects average warming across the continental U.S. of 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The visualizations, which combine the results from 15 global climate models, present projections of temperature changes from 2000 to 2100 compared to the historical average from 1970 -1999. They were produced by the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., in collaboration with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, both in Asheville, N.C.
The visualizations show the temperature changes as a 30-year running average. The date seen in the bottom-right corner is the mid-point of the 30-year average being shown.
“These visualizations communicate a picture of the impacts of climate change in a way that words do not,” says Allison Leidner, Ph.D., a scientist who coordinates NASA’s involvement in the National Climate Assessment “When I look at the scenarios for future temperature and precipitation, I really see how dramatically our nation’s climate could change.”
To learn more about the National Climate Assessment, due out in 2014, visit here: http://www.globalchange.gov/what-we-d…
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That’s one hell of a hardware rounding error. As the balance of probability points to a cooling period through most of the 21st C , someone is expecting warming Armageddon in the last 20 years
Anthony, you might mention in the headline that the 8 degrees is Fahrenheit.
Interesting that the low estimate for 2100 (550 ppm) is in fact exactly a doubling of pre-industrial CO2, so the predicted warming of 4.5 F reveals their estimate of climate sensitivity: 2.5 C. That’s if the predicted warming includes the warming of about 0.7-0.8 C already observed–if they are saying the warming starts from now, they are using a higher sensitivity of about 3.2 C.
We can put a man on the moon but can’t accurately predict temperature changes?
Regional Circulation Models being totally astrological at the moment, the upcoming National Climate Assessment will add zero to current knowledge and most likely reduce it considerably
I see the increase is from 2000, so they seem to be using the higher climate sensitivity of 3.2 C. I think this is transient climate sensitivity, so their estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity would be quite a bit higher.
That’s 0.051 C per year.
Too small to measure.
We have to wait 10 – 30 years to be able to validate the model.
Clever….
What happens when you run the model and simulation backwards?. Does it accurately reflect observed temps back to ‘pre-industrial’ times? What if you did it for Europe where we have much longer temperature records?
Conveniently starting the run at 2015 thus ignoring the current near 2 decade long pause in warming? Hmmmmmmm, So this should be very very easy to debunk by 2020 – 2025. It would need warming to suddenly go from nothing to increasing double the rate that it did 1979 – 1998 to match the lower of the two estimates.
I call Bovine Excrement on both of these scenarios.
Now that I’ve actually looked at the video, they say the temperature increase is based on the 1970-1999 average, so the writeup stating it is the increase from 2000 is wrong. If the 1970-99 average is, say 0.2 C less than the 2000 value, it would imply a sensitivity of exactly 3 C, right in line with all IPCC estimates for the last 20 years. So they are absolutely toeing the IPCC line. Never mind all the recent studies.
And they quietly ignore the fact that the 1930s were the hottest years on record for the USA?
(ie before Hanson put his thumb on the scales!)
Surely after all these years there must be a simple tutorial on the internet that shows how increasing carbon dioxide will warm the planet in the near future.
My own layman studies from the internet teach me that carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere is a coolant. The gasses nitrogen, oxygen and argon, 99.9% of the atmosphere, are essentially radiatively inactive. If it wasn’t for the ‘greenhouse gasses’ in the upper atmosphere radiating directly to space the atmosphere would simply get hotter and hotter.
I need that tutorial.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/EF_SC_Cert_Amicus_153014_1_Final-1.pdf
@Lance
NASA – Doubling of CO2 = 4.4 C
Didn’t the IPCC say 3 C per doubling of CO2?
Adam Gallon says:
July 29, 2013 at 12:31 am
And they quietly ignore the fact that the 1930s were the hottest years on record for the USA?
Not according to this.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-announces-warmest-year-record-contiguous-us
Classic GIGO, once it becomes clear that is approach is no longer a funding winner this ‘science’ will change
It angers me that NASA has joined the Climate Change team. That was not the mission of our space agency when it was the pride of a nation for its great accomplishments in space. It tarnishes its position now. Clearly this effort was constructed in a baised manner with a goal of supporting the climate alarmism campaign. It is not good science. When will it end?
So we denialists seem to be settling on climate sensitivity of 1.7C per doubling of CO2. So 800ppm of CO2 by 2100AD is one doubling, so 1.7C = 3F. 3 degrees F increase by 2100AD, OK. Sounds good.
Love the scary music.
If the Keystone XL pipeline goes ahead, perhaps it can be repurposed later on to ship water from the super-wet parts of northern Canada down to the extra-dry southern states where looks like it will be needed by 2100.
Oh gawd! Surely everyone is fed up with this by now. How long are they going to try and get away with stopping at 1999? We’re well beyond that point and it’s looking very shabby that they can’t move into the present. They’ve got mega-computers, yes? Billions of dollars has gone into research that stops all their graphs at 1999? That’s just got to make more people very suspicious.
We should tell them to go away and do it again and come back when they have up to date figures including the latest research. This is NASA, right? Sheesh!
And yes, I know, I know – don’t call you Surely… 🙂
Stick to rocket’s and space. NASA is in danger of becoming a laughing stock.
NASA has become a political organisation
“When I became the NASA administrator, (President Obama) charged me with three things,” Bolden said in the interview which aired last week.
“One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math;
he wanted me to expand our international relationships;
and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”
NASA chief Charles Bolden
http://www.space.com/8725-nasa-chief-bolden-muslim-remark-al-jazeera-stir.html#sthash.tNeUMbTp.dpuf
William Astley says:
July 29, 2013 at 12:37 am
I wish the petitioners well, but I don’t think they’ll get far. Here’s Scalia’s opinion
It is really not up to the Court to decide on such matters
The Court’s alarm over global warming may or may not be justified,but it ought not distort the outcome of this litigation. ***This is a straightforward administrative-law case, in which Congress has passed a malleable statute giving broad discretion, not to us but to an executive agency. No matter how important the underlying policy issues at stake, this Court has no business substituting its own desired outcome for the reasoned judgment of the responsible agency.****
that’s where they’ll come down, imo. Just like Roberts said, none of his business…if you don’t like obamacare…change your representatives…thanks John….that helped a lot
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1120.ZD1.html
It is also possible the unforeseen technological innovations and inventions render this projection as a fail? US total greenhouse gas emissions have been coming down recently, partly due to shale gas. Remember the horse manure crisis of 1894? People were in despair and drew trend lines out into the future. They made certain assumptions. Here is a cautionary tale – among many others.
Sad to see so much confusion here too.
The ipcc estimates are GLOBAL
The USA are a tiny part of the globe
–> hence the ipcc estimates cannot tell us anything about the US temperatures.
The world might warm by 10C and still the USA cool by the same amount, for all we know.
So who is going to tell NASA that they are in fantasy land??