Guest essay by Marlo Lewis
Okay, they don’t do so in as many words. But in addition to being more confident than ever (despite a 16-year pause in warming and the growing mismatch between model projections and observations) that man-made climate change is real, they are also more confident nothing really bad is going to happen during the 21st Century.
The scariest parts of the “planetary emergency” narrative popularized by Al Gore and other pundits are Atlantic Ocean circulation shutdown (implausibly plunging Europe into a mini-ice age), ice sheet disintegration raising sea levels 20 feet, and runaway warming from melting frozen methane deposits.
As BishopHill and Judith Curry report on their separate blogs, IPCC now believes that in the 21st Century, Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse is “very unlikely,” ice sheet collapse is “exceptionally unlikely,” and catastrophic release of methane hydrates from melting permafrost is “very unlikely.” You can read it for yourself in Chapter 12 Table 12.4 of the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
But these doomsday scenarios have always been way more fiction than science. For some time now, extreme weather has been the only card left in the climate alarm deck. Climate activists repeatedly assert that severe droughts, floods, and storms (Hurricane Sandy is their current poster child) are now the “new normal,” and they blame fossil fuels.
On their respective blogs Anthony Watts and Roger Pielke, Jr. provide excerpts about extreme weather from Chapter 2 of the IPCC report. Among the findings:
- “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”
- “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”
- “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems.”
- “Based on updated studies, AR4 [the IPCC 2007 report] conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated.”
- “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extra-tropical cyclones since 1900 is low.”
Pielke Jr. concludes:
“There is really not much more to be said here — the data says what it says, and what it says is so unavoidably obvious that the IPCC has recognized it in its consensus. Of course, I have no doubts that claims will still be made associating floods, drought, hurricanes and tornadoes with human-caused climate change — Zombie science — but I am declaring victory in this debate. Climate campaigners would do their movement a favor by getting themselves on the right side of the evidence.”
For further discussion, see my post “Global Warming: Planet’s Most Hyped Problem” on this week’s National Journal Energy Insiders blog.
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See also: Global warming is ‘no longer a planetary emergency’
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The IPCC is dead but it won’t lie down for years, it will simply fade into obscurity, which is what it deserves.
But the rules and regulations it leaves behind and the bureaucracies to enforce them may not.
This is true, but will the EPA take any notice?
This is so true.
Just like the AIDS epidemic, nuclear winter, bird flu pandemics, BSE in cattle, Acid rain, Ozone holes, Y2K bugs, meteor impact, supernovae, the next ice age etc – There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life on earth and this can all be logically addressed within the next 50 – 80 years as required.
In David Whitehouse’s interview with Jennifer Francis, she maintains that there are more “stronger hurricanes” now than in the 70’s because of global warming.
Yet NOAA tell us
During warm phases of the AMO, the numbers of tropical storms that mature into severe hurricanes is much greater than during cool phases, at least twice as many. Since the AMO switched to its warm phase around 1995, severe hurricanes have become much more frequent and this has led to a crisis in the insurance industry.
And
As a result, the North Atlantic experiences alternating decades long (20 to 30 year periods or even longer) of above normal or below normal hurricane seasons. NOAA research shows that the tropical multi-decadal signal is causing the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995, and is not related to greenhouse warming.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/jennifer-francis-increased-hurricane-activity/
So, is she lying, or simply incompetent?
clivebest
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
says:
‘There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life…’
Respectfully; why do you think there is a real problem with CO2?
Not quite, they still have the “ocean acidification” card to play. Watch for it.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/03/ocean-acidification-carbon-dioxide-emissions-levels
So now the IPCC doesn’t care about drowning polar bears?
How shallow.
clivebest
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
says:
“There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life…”
Why is there a real problem with CO2? My plants are loving the extra nourishment, The trees around here are growing faster. The weather is much the same as ever.
@nicholas
But that’s the problem. Better plant growth will have more people that don’t die from hunger that will breed more and be happier. The catastrophist’s worse nightmare.
clivebest
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
says:
‘There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life…’
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are correct there is a real problem with CO2. There is not enough in the atmosphere. When the earth slips back into a glacial and the CO2 levels plummet again C3 plants may become extinct.
Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California.
At the one point in time when CO2 levels should have had the most effect….380-400 ppm
….temps stopped and went down
and they come up with the stupidest lamest excuse….it’s hiding
RC Saumarez says:
This is true, but will the EPA take any notice?
Only when we get a new administration will we even have a chance at changing the EPA.
What, no tipping point? No total disaster if we don’t act by next week, next month, next year or immediately some time in the future? I haven’t heard that rhetoric in a while, but we still are getting the skeer on a regular basis but it seems to be a bit muted.
clivebest says:
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
“– There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life on earth and this can all be logically addressed within the next 50 – 80 years as required.”
=============
Really, you go back about 100 years, and we’ve seen two world wars.
Logic wasn’t the desired outcome, quite the opposite.
They both took way less than “50-80 Years” to their conclusion.
Plant food just doesn’t seem like it will ……convert entire economies into a force to defeat the threat.
I mean there are “real problems” aren’t there ?
RC Saumarez
October 4, 2013 at 2:32 pm
says:
‘This is true, but will the EPA take any notice?’
They will notice it, but they will notice it as a catastrophe. If there’s no ‘real’ climate catastrophe they will recognize that, in and of itself, as a catastrophe. A catastrophe for their jobs, security, and the delicious authority they’ve grown to acquire. It will also be a catastrophe to the validity of their meaning, the importance of what they’ve done. Nobody wants to be told, not just that they were wrong, but that they did the wrong thing. So they will fight it. Perhaps they’ll save a few barbs for the university professors who helped lead them into this, and who themselves will slink away unscathed. (Although I am aware that it was mutual.) Then they’ll get creative and try to spin the needle, claim that the measures already taken at their insistence, though unnecessary, provided unforeseen benefits and were good policy in any case, and they designed them to be that way, yada, yada. Just wait. Government institutions, unlike those in the private sector, cannot only fail, they can fail spectacularly and still get increases in funding and respect. This is why we should have as few of them as possible.
They will say “boo!”; the MSM will for months repeat, Harry Reid said Boo! when I stood really close to him, and you will be shot if you don’t pay the tax, and that’s that.
F*** science.
One can only imagine how desperately weak the “consensus” is within the very IPCC when they are forced to report things like these. btw, I just glanced over a copy of “New Scientist” and, nope, the planetary emergency is more urgent than ever.
Er…. Uh….. If this isn’t an “Oops!” moment then one wonders what is?
@Paul Homewood –
In re Jennifer Francis – both a liar and a charlatan.
@Tom J –
The EPA and der Fuehrer’s climate change agenda are central to his objectives of crashing the economy and consolidating his Soviet-style one-party dictatorship. Therefore, as long as he is able to exert any influence, the EPA will not back off, no matter how obvious it becomes that the AGW meme is false and dead. The other elements of der Fuehrer’s planned infrastructure are Obamacare, with its extension of the IRS’s reach into our personal business, and the NSA – all of these are intended to be combined to enable the dictation of every detail of our lives. This is, or course, the worst aspect of AGW, that it is being used to justify the imposition of a tyranny. Everybody here at WUWT has been warning of this, and now it is happening right in front of us here in the US. Even the EU and Australia backing away from the AGW meme will not stop Obama’s EPA.
L’ha ribloggato su planetvoice.
clivebest says:
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
– There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life on earth and this can all be logically addressed within the next 50 – 80 years as required.
========
clive…if we had the exact same technology we have today…only 1000 years ago
What would the prediction be?
…do you see how silly this is?
Tom J says:
October 4, 2013 at 2:53 pm
clivebest
October 4, 2013 at 2:37 pm
says:
‘There is a real problem with CO2 but there is no imminent threat to life…’
Respectfully; why do you think there is a real problem with CO2?
I think he means that CO2 levels are dangerously low. Ideally, they should be more like 800 ppm, or higher.
In the end, they’ll say, “see, we told you there was nothing to greenhouse gases.”.