This is a bullet point collection of reactions as they come in, it will be updated throughout the day by adding new items to the list. It is also a sticky post – new stories will appear below this one.
My first reaction was: That IPCC had a golden opportunity, and blew it due to being unable to adapt to reality.
My second reaction was due to a tweet from the vice chair of the IPCC, who was so tired, he couldn’t even get the website right:
There’s nothing like sleep deprived group think under deadline pressure to instill confidence, right?
My third reaction after reading the SPM is this: Looking at claims, it strikes me that the damaged credibility of the IPCC remains intact.
When you still push increasing confidence in predictions while the IPCC referenced models fail to model reality, and this has been pointed out worldwide in media, it becomes a “jump the shark” moment where the advocacy speaks far louder than the science.
Here are other reactions:
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Marcel Crok: AR5 gives no best estimate for climate sensitivity; breaks with a long tradition; good news is hidden from policy makers
One of the most surprising things in the just released SPM is the absence of a best estimate for climate sensitivity. The SPM now says this:
The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multi-century time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1°C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6°C (medium confidence)16. The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2°C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing. {TFE6.1, Figure 1; Box 12.2}
16 No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.
So from a footnote we have to learn that no best estimate “can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”. How strange this is. Climate sensitivity is one of the most important parameters. It determines largely how much warming we can expect. If there is lack of agreement between different methods/studies, we want to know all about it. However, apart from this footnote, the SPM is silent about it. Hopefully the full report, which will be released on Monday, will give all the details.
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/09/27/ar5-gives-no-best-estimate-for-climate-sensitivity-breaks-with-a-long-tradition-good-news-is-hidden-from-policy-makers/
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Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill:
Ducking, diving, bobbing and weaving are the general themes of the Summary for Policymakers, just released this morning.
You would imagine that the document would review what was said last time round and how things have changed since that time, but you’d be wrong. This is, after all, the bureaucracy at work: difficulties have to be brushed under carpets and stones left unturned.
…The general theme of obscurantism runs across the document. Whereas in previous years the temperature records have been shown unadulterated, now we have presentation of a single figure for each decade; surely an attempt to mislead rather than inform. And the pause is only addressed with handwaving arguments and vague allusions to ocean heat.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/9/27/thoughts-on-the-spm.html
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Donna Laframboise:
9,000 Nobel Pretenders | NoFrakkingConsensus
The unadorned truth was door number one. Cringe-worthy exaggeration was door number two. The IPCC made the wrong call.
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Bob Tisdale at WUWT:
Regarding the cause of the warming, still living in fantasy world, they write:
Greenhouse gases contributed a global mean surface warming likely to be in the range of 0.5°C to 1.3°C over the period 1951−2010, with the contributions from other anthropogenic forcings, including the cooling effect of aerosols, likely to be in the range of −0.6°C to 0.1°C. The contribution from natural forcings is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C, and from internal variability is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C. Together these assessed contributions are consistent with the observed warming of approximately 0.6°C to 0.7°C over this period. {10.3}
They’re still misleading the public. Everyone knows (well, many of us know) their models can’t simulate the natural processes that cause surface temperatures to warm over multidecadal timeframes, yet they insist on continuing this myth.
Sorry IPCC – How You Portrayed the Global Temperature Plateau is Comical at Best
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Apart from the usual climate-fixated organs of the MSM, it’s being barely reported. Looks like a dead cat bounce to me …
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/armageddon-report-no-5/
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Jimbo says:
We can’t explain the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent. We have improved models that predict a decrease in extent. We don’t really know why but we will simulate it and create a scary scenario anyway.
D.1 Evaluation of Climate Models
Climate models have improved since the AR4…………..
Most models simulate a small downward trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, albeit with large inter-model spread, in contrast to the small upward trend in observations……
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There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent due to the incomplete and competing scientific explanations for the causes of change and low confidence in estimates of internal variability in that region
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf
Let’s all hope this is the last IPCC report. There is nothing useful here.
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Dr. Judith Curry:
The IPCC has officially (and anti-climactically) issued the AR5 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers. I haven’t had time to go through the report in detail, I mainly looked for these two statements. Note the changes in these two statements from the final draft discussed last week:
“Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10 –15 years.”
“It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951−2010.”
These changes as a result of the ‘conclave’ this week totally dissonates my cognitives. Well, IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet – if the pause continues beyond 15 years (well it already has), they are toast. Even though they still use the word ‘most’ in the attribution statement, they go all out and pretty much say it is all AGW: ”The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, ‘extremely likely‘ in the attribution statement implies 95% confidence. Exactly what does 95% confidence mean in this context?
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Douglas Fischer – The Daily Climate What we’re seeing now: Climate scientists get Swift-boated
Six years after the IPCC’s massive Fourth Assessment Report was excoriated for a handful of errors, four years after the uproar over leaked emails put scientists on the defensive, the climate denial camp still controls the message.
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2013/09/swiftboating-climate-scientists
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Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger – Band-aids Can’t Fix the New IPCC Report
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today released the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the physical science volume of its Fifth Assessment Report. The SPM is the most widely-read section of the IPCC reports and purports to summarize and highlight the contents of the thousand-odd pages of the full report. The SPM is agreed to word by word by the international attendees of the IPCC’s final editorial meeting which concluded as the SPM was released.
The Humpty Dumpty-esque report once claiming to represent the “consensus of scientists” has fallen from its exalted wall and cracked to pieces under the burdensome weight of its own cumbersome and self-serving processes, which is why all the governments’ scientists and all the governments’ men cannot put the IPCC report together again.
http://www.cato.org/blog/band-aids-cant-fix-new-ipcc-report
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Climate panel: warming ‘extremely likely’ man-made
By KARL RITTER
Associated Press
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists now believe it’s “extremely likely” that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming, a long-term trend that is clear despite a recent plateau in the temperatures, an international climate panel said Friday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used its strongest language yet in a report on the causes of climate change, prompting calls for global action to control emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
“If this isn’t an alarm bell, then I don’t know what one is. If ever there were an issue that demanded greater cooperation, partnership, and committed diplomacy, this is it,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CLIMATE_CHANGE?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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Models of misinformation — climate reports melt under scrutiny
A last-ditch effort to refute climate “skeptics”—people unconvinced that we need to spend trillions to reshape our economies to halt or slow “climate change”– has failed.
Last week, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a study by 13 prestigious atmospheric scientists that supposedly provides “clear evidence for a discernible human influence on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.”
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/26/dont-be-fooled-latest-attempt-to-discredit-climate-skeptics-flops/
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Stefan Rahmstorf – Man’s role in global warming is rock solid, and natural variability’s role is close to nil.
“Natural internal variability and natural external forcings (eg the sun) have contributed virtually nothing to the warming since 1950″
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/the-new-ipcc-climate-report/
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Simon Donner
“It is probably the largest, most comprehensive scientific assessment in history. Not just of climate change, but of any scientific subject”
http://simondonner.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-pause-in-public-understanding-of.html
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Brenda Ekwurzel, UCS
Warming has slowed in the last 15 years, but not stopped. (If the slow down in warming persists, it would suggest a problem with the models.)
“The global average surface temperature trend of late is like a speed bump, and we would expect the rate of temperature increase to speed up again just as most drivers do after clearing the speed bump.”
(Kenji asks: so, when then?)
http://blog.ucsusa.org/hot-topics-for-ipcc-release-surface-temperature-speed-bump-and-the-latest-on-extreme-events-253
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Dr. Roy Spencer: IPCC: “We don’t need no stinking climate sensitivity!”
The newly-released Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s Working Group I for the AR5 report reveals a dogged attempt to salvage the IPCC’s credibility amidst mounting evidence that it has gone overboard in its attempts to scare the global public over the last quarter century.
The recent ~15 year lull in warming is hardly mentioned at all (nothing to see here, move along).
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It’s been six long years of relentless torment inflicted by Neanderthal skeptics. Worse, the public was even starting to become hopeful about the future once again, and were becoming less afraid of climate. For the climate catastrophe everything had been looking so bleak as the pesky real observations kept glaringly contradicting the modeled catastrophes 15 years long.
But happy days are back again – the catastrophe is coming, the UN reassures the world. The 15 years of model failure are not significant after all. In fact the UN now says the models are better than ever and the climate scientists are now 95% confident that the climate catastrophe is coming and that our living standards are responsible for it. Never before have scientists been more confident.
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Climate skeptics have seized on the fact that the rate of warming over the past decade or so has been less than climate scientists predicted given the continued increase in carbon emissions. The IPCC report address the warming “hiatus,” as it’s been called, raising a number of possible explanations—the ocean absorbing the warmth, changes in the solar cycle, volcanic eruptions that cause cooling—without pointing the finger at a single one. Which just underscores how complex the climate system remains, even as we keep experimenting on it. The scientists will keep working on those questions and others…
Climate Scientists Issue Their Report. Now It’s Our Turn | TIME.com
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MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen Rips UN IPCC Report:
‘The latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence’ — ‘It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going’
Updates will follow, readers are welcome to point out other reactions in comments.
SPM AR4 says:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
“Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show interannual
variability and localised changes but no statistically
signifi cant average trends, consistent with the lack
of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures
averaged across the region. ” (pg 9)
Cherry Picking? – SPM AR5 brings in graphics of Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice extent, but leave out Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice extent (Antarctica!)
Yet the recent Met Office report (July 2013), shows a trend in Antarctic sea Ice extent (upwards) (pg 18) which is missing from SPM AR5
http://realclimategate.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/met-office-sect-2-cryosphere-arctic-antarctic-graphic.jpg
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/e/f/Paper1_Observing_changes_in_the_climate_system.PDF
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
You will recognise a lot of IPCC graphs from these Met Office reports.
So if the Met Office can report on Sea Ice extent from both hemispheres.
Why not the IPCC?
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.se/2013/09/ipcc-sinks-into-deep-ocean.html
“This was the reason he could not sleep, and why IPCC now will sink into the Deep Ocean”
[More wasted effort by a banned commenter. Deleted. -mod]
The best synopsis goes to ” the advocacy speaks far louder than the science.”
it is what I was trying to say, but failed to find the right words. Thank you.
As someone so rightly said once – I wish I could remember who – “Climate bollocks”.
Well I’m finding it really amusing. You see, if you are in a hole and you keep digging, then you are just going to bury yourself. If they were clever, then they would have admitted the ‘pause’, admitted the Antarctic, and admitted their models are useless. Instead, they have carried on as normal – digging. Now let us all sit back and watch the global temps dip. But I hope someone somewhere is taking the names of all these people. There may even be a charge of crimes against humanity!
Congratulations IPCC! With the release of your new Nonsensus Report you’ve miraculously managed to officially resurrect a state of knowledge eerily similar to that of the Dark Ages, which is doubly ironic since the keepers of knowledge on whose expertise you rely on have worked so hard to make any pesky evidence of medieval warming disappear from the records.
That was certainly no small feat. You fully deserve to take all the credit for this incredible accomplishment that will be given to you in the history books of the future.
Warmist regards, a fan
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The biggest headline here in Germany is Sea Levels (we are of course beyond hope). Someone has suggested sponges.
Pointman’s comment was interesting.
I looked at the BBC News website for their post Most Popular news stories at 13:13 today.
The end of the world was only number 6.
1: Kanye West angry at Radio 1 parody
2: Goodbye, US passport
3: Two plead not guilty to Rigby murder
4: The man who may have saved the world
5: Cameron says no to Salmond TV debate
6: Global warming now ‘unequivocal’
7: Spain to consider time zone change
8: Quiz of the week’s news
9: Is Breaking Bad’s Walter White one of TV’s truly evil characters?
10: New Syria chemical attacks probed
No-one cares anymore…
Show me the warming… 🙂
Just heard Prof Bob Carter on BBC Radio4 World at One. Brilliant interview putting a sound sceptical perspective on the IPCC report. Well worth a listen again when it is available.
I heard a report on Canadian CBC radio this morning regarding the Summary for Policy Makers. It was NOT the lead story as it was in 2007, and they did NOT trot out David Suzuki for his routine anti-corporate rant. Though they still managed to give it the usual CBC fear-bias, but they actually had some questions about the Summary this time around. They questioned it? How dare they.
I’d say the leftist CBC is not completely on board with the alarmists anymore, perhaps enough of their journalists have seen the light. This is a major improvement over the embarrassing journalistic orgy that accompanied the release of the 2007 AR4 SPM.
I got a chuckle out of Jeff Masters comment this morning on the IPCC report and his action plan.
“We must elect new leaders and pressure our existing leaders to take the strong actions needed to advance us into a new, 21st century energy economy. You can all help make it so!”
Upon making a fortune selling his site to ” the weather channel”, he is not happy with Obama.
I normally would not link the absurd, but make an exception this time.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2535
SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.
@M Courtney
On my computer at 13:28 UK time ‘Global warming now ‘unequivocal’ stands at number 8 out of 10, of the most read. (And what the hell, I thought it was ‘unequivocal’ ages ago, when the science was settled /sarc off).
I just checked Russain news site, and there is no mention of the report AT ALL. Not even in the small print. Top stories – Greenpeace gang getting punished, Syria, Kenian atrocity, and how much the prosecution office spent on buying new cars for themselves.
We should just be pointing out the errors now. There is no point discussing the virtual world the IPCC is talking about – they are not talking about the real planet Earth, but some virtual world, planet Nibiru in a climate model.
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One major graphic is clearly wrong. The observed change in temperature from 1901 to 2012 – figure SPM.1 (b), particularly the Oceans part.
There has been no warming in the central Pacific but it is shown as +0.4C or so in the graphic (large parts of it not shown despite there being a large number of measurements in this region covering the whole period). There has been no warming in the far southern ocean (again it is missing despite a large number of ships being there over the whole period – including whaling ships in the early part of the 20th century). Other areas have no warming over this period yet the entire Ocean area is shown as having warmed. Clearly the Figure is meant to show warming everywhere yet that is not correct.
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The graphic showing observed change in temperature relative to the climate models shown in earlier drafts is not included in the report anymore.
“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”
Lack of agreement??? What happened to the science is settled, with 97% consensus? Climate sensitivity is the CENTRAL issue.
What they are saying here is they don’t know how much it will warm, and by inference, they also don’t know who much of the warming that has already occurred has been caused by humans. If they know (with 95% certainty) that most warming since 1950 has been caused by humans, then they should also know how much warming will occur with doubling of C02. You cant know one without also having a very good idea of the other.
Still living in fantasyland.
In the MSM (BBC, CNN, etc) the IPCC report is being portrayed as the gospel truth on climate change. For example the CNN summary is “The world’s getting hotter, the sea’s rising and there’s increasing evidence neither are naturally occurring phenomena”. I think it’s fair to say that the MSM are onside with the warmists. The online debate is not reaching the consciousness of the general public.
The BBC are all over it today, of course. Fawning interviews with the IPCC crowd to spread their political message and – a new development! – the occasional few words from the likes of Bob Carter, now being allowed as the “minority view” to give the impression of balance. Overall, exactly as you’d expect from “The World’s Most Respected Broadcaster” (© BBC): junk reporting of junk politics.
I, meanwhile, remain unshaken and unstirred. Nobody has yet produced any evidence (that I’ve been able to find) to suggest that humanity has had any effect, still less a “catastrophic” one, on the world’s weather systems, therefore the null hypothesis holds. Still waiting, guys. Show me how evil we are, rather than how evil you are.
“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”
That statement may qualify as the new consensus.
Ross McKitrick says: September 27, 2013 at 5:32 am
Thanks for the chuckle. It’s good to start the morning off with a laugh.
“Climate sensitivity is one of the most important parameters.”
Only a dark agent of ignorance &/or deception would believe this.
Wouldn’t now be an excellent time to release the CG III documents ?
According to the BBC
It adds that a pause in warming over the past 15 years is too short to reflect long-term trends
But apparently 1979-98 was long enough!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24292615
@ur momisugly M Courtney, 5.19am
4. “The Man who may have Saved the World” was quite worth clicking on (BBC website). It kind of dovetailed rather nicely with recent “Americans dropped H bomb on the USA and it almost went off!” story we had last week.
Who writes this stuff, and why? It’s all very entertaining.
As for the IPCC, ho hum.. dull.
Climate sensitivity.
OK global warming is proportional to the climate sensitivity.
The document is the Summary for Policy Makers.
And the policy makers need to know what their policies should be.
So the policy makers need to know what the climate sensitivity is.
But the IPCC disagree amongst themselves as to what the climate sensitivity is.
So the IPCC cannot tell the policy makers what the climate sensitivity is.
So the IPCC issue a big expensive report to tell the policy makers they don’t know what the climate sensitivty is.
But at least they are able to tell the policy makers they don’t know what climate sensitivity is to a certainty of 95%.
At last they are making some progress!