By Steven Goddard
Some readers may remember the 1961 film “The Day the Earth Caught Fire”. It could be viewed as the original “climate alarmist” film as it contains all of the plot elements of our current climate alarmism scenarios: exaggerated images of a dying planet, a mainstream media newspaper reporter, technology that is feared, the Met Office, and last but not least, junk science.
You can read about the whole wacky plot here.
Back to the present.
A new study out of MIT predicts “a 90% probability that worldwide surface temperatures will rise at least 9 degrees by 2100.”
This is more than twice what was expected in 2003. The Telegraph reports
“Global warming of 7C ‘could kill billions this century‘. Global temperatures could rise by more than 7C this century killing billions of people and leaving the world on the brink of total collapse, according to new research“A similar 2003 study had predicted a mere- but still significant- 4 degree increase in global temperatures by 2100, but those models weren’t nearly as comprehensive, and they didn’t take into consideration economic factors.
So what has changed since 2003 to cause the scientists at MIT’s “Centre for Global Climate Change” to believe the world is going to boil over this century and send billions of us directly to a toasty demise similar to our featured movie?
Since 2003, global temperatures have been dropping.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.south.jpg
January, 2008 broke the record for the most snow covered area ever measured in the Northern Hemisphere.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/png/monthlyanom/nhland01.png
I added a red line below showing the reported projected rise in temperatures from the MIT models, compared with the actual observed temperature trends since the previous 2003 report. Their projections show a correlation of essentially zero.
Given that the observed trends are exactly opposite what the MIT models have predicted, one might have to ask what they have observed since 2003 to more than double their warming estimates, and where their 90% confidence value comes from?
The study, carried out in unprecedented detail, projected that without “rapid and massive action” temperatures worldwide will increase by as much as 7.4C (13.3F) by 2100, from levels seen in 2000.
This study has a strong scent of GIGO (garbage, in garbage out.) MIT has one of the world’s preeminent climatologists Dr. Richard Lindzen in their Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. I wonder if the scientists at the “Centre for Global Climate Change” checked with him before firing this remarkable piece off to the press?
During the Phanerozoic, CO2 levels have at times been more than 1,500% higher than present, but temperatures have never been more than 10C higher than present. So how does a projected 30% increase in CO2 produce a 7C temperature rise in their models? During the late Ordovician, there was an ice age with CO2 levels about 1000% of current levels. Hopefully the newspaper headlines don’t accurately represent the content of the article.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/png/monthlyanom/nhland01.png
Finally, does their name (“Centre for Global Climate Change“) hint at a possible inherent bias in their raison d’être? What “rapid and massive action” do they want us to engage in?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
wws (15:48:34) :
‘Oh, and they added another heating bias to the temperature record by “accounting for the past masking of underlying warming by the cooling………’
Let me get this straight. Things have cooled down even though things are still warming. It’s just the “cold” is “masking” the “heat” as we get hotter.
I think the MIT boys and girls need to take their bi-polar drugs.
And obviously the sky is falling
Was it not long ago that they were yammering on about even a slight rise of 1C being the point-of-no-return catastrophy? What I mean to say is that their 7C increase doesn’t sound much worse than the 1C rise, so I have to wonder why they upped the conditions for doom in their computer-generated predictions. Hmm…
I think references to smaller rises with the same outcomes will cease to be uttered and will in time disappear. Since it’s looking like we’re really in a cooling period in the cycle, they can just use those 7C predictions later when things start to warm again in order to try and associate whatever might happen then with “catastrohpic” rising temps. Preparing for their future, ie, where they hope to come back in popularity. Either that or they are just buying time because they know how the cap-and-trade battle is going. Nice of them to “play god” for us and dely things, eh?
Has Schneider no self-awareness or insight ?
Has he never heard the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes ?
Just imagine if every scientist in a large institution made up her own mind on a subject and then, instead of passing on genuine results warts-and-all, she just passed on one-sided or distorted or even false misinformation that supported some hypothesis.
It will take a long time for billions of people to die due to AGW – they had better start soon.
PS .. Perhaps we should email Ronald G. Prinn as he seems to be the head of the beast rprinn@mit.edu …. here is his testimony to the committee on Ways and Means, it ‘splains the roulette wheels.. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=5563
His page is http://mit.edu/rprinn/
It doesnt take much google searching to discover where his grants are coming from.. SIGH!!!
I hate to say it, as a fervent AGW denier, but my understanding of the first graph (and by extension, all other similar graphs) is that it doesn’t show the decline of global temperatures, since I assume the graph is showing temperature anomoly.
What I think it shows is a decreasing temperature anomaly, but since the anomaly is above zero then it does actually show that temperature is still rising, but at an increasing slow rate, and if the trend continues (and I hate straight line trends) it will eventually start to drop.
I am not a scientist so if my understanding is wrong, please correct me.
If you take into account the “background” temperature rise due to recovery from the LIA then any other influencing factor, anthropogenic or natural, may actually result in a falling temperature conribution, and certainly don’t come anywhere near temperature runaway.
I make this point because AGW proponents criticise this and other sites for making claims that they don’t agree with. I think that a more rigourous use of language would ensure that they have less foundation for criticism.
“Steven Goddard (23:09:05) :
London Bridge is in Arizona. The bridge in the picture is the Tower Bridge. The story goes that the buyers of the London Bridge thought they were buying the much more attractive Tower Bridge.
“Why do you resist us? Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. We only come to improve the quality of life of all species.”
– Locutus of Borg”
Indeed it is, and we Brits love the fact we fooled some from the colonies.
Peter Plail,
If the temperatures anomalies (relative to a fixed baseline) are declining, then the temperatures are also declining. Adding a constant to a linear equation does not change the slope.
bill,
If you increase the temperature of the ocean, the solubility of CO2 decreases, so the oceans out gas more CO2. Thus the close relationship where CO2 concentration follows temperature – as seen in the Vostok graphs.
More inconvenient warming…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zealand/2442017/Fairytale-opening-to-ski-season
And from the link to the article…
“Fairytale opening to ski season
It’s snow time folks, and New Zealand skiing has never had it so good”
I feel the warmth…
I nominate Cassandra King’s post as post of the week. Brilliant!
The shrill is getting louder because they know the public isn’t buying into their propaganda. It’s becoming painfully obvious what Freeman Dyson meant when he said this is bad science. I think there is a concerted effort by the AGW forces to try and manipulate public opinion, especially since important legislation is pending in the Congress. But, I think this is great news. It should be widely circulated and the public should be made very aware of this chicken little theory so that when the apocalyptic projects don’t materialize, the public sentiment will turn even more negative, hopefully killing legislation such as cap and trade for good.
The CAGW hypothesis is really very beautiful. Unfortunately it is “masked” by “ugly”.
The reason for this story is obvious– The Climate Bill.
This MIT study, which will later be withdrawn or changed, is timed to give Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic alarmists in congress a powerful public relations weapon for their cap and trade scheme.
Truly a sad day for science. This is precisely what I have feared. I have always respected MIT, my father graduated MIT with honors. I have met several MIT alumni through the years, whom I have held in the highest regard.
However, my fears are unfolding before my eyes. The destruction of scientific trust. How can I ever again trust any scientific studies coming from MIT? How can I respect this once fine institution? When the next big discovery leaps from the laboratories of MIT, do I believe it? Can I believe it? How can I know? Is any other university any better? Who can I believe? Who can I trust? Bad science is everywhere…
My friends, we are witnessing the collapse of science as we know it. It is as I have predicted (and have written previously here at WUWT).
It is a sad day…
Joel Shore @19:18:22
Thanks for the link. I still don’t find this man convinving – he’s squirming in that article
My goodness you almost gave me a heart attack!
IRT Schneider’s dissing Skeptics and others who point out how full of it AGW promoters are:
Be careful what you wish for, AGW believers.
I’ll answer my question above: The SSMI satellite data seems to be broken again, just look here:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/Arctic-ice-concentration-maps-from-SSMI-and-AMSRE
So the NANSEN and NSIDC graphs are pretty useless right now, but AMSR-E data look OK.
Also the MIT ‘study’ puts AGW in a quandry:
The IPCC/Hansen, etc. all say that the great models they use to tell us about AGW are correct.
Not one of those models predict 7oC by 2100.
So if their models are wrong, why should the AGW promoters have any credibility at all?
Another question is this:
How many times has the AGW community come out in the last ten years or so to claim loudly that “AGW is much worse than predicted”?
Has anyone bothered to correlate those predictions with actual climate events vs. political events that required prodding along?
“…the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
So if the ‘right balance’ is 50-50, then 50 % of the truth will accord with 50% effectiveness, but 10% truth will make you 90% effective.
‘Extremism in defense of brainwashing is no vice; moderation in pusuit of truth is no vice either.”
With apologies to my first and only political hero.
i would just like to share these pictures with you. as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. these are taken in switzerland, in the simplonpass area of the alps
http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/varie/snow1.jpg
this picture is taken the 30th of april, there is a lot of recent snow, like i have never seen in the last 6 or 7 years.
http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/varie/snow2.jpg
this is how a bus stop sign looks like, the same day.
http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/varie/snow3.jpg
this is taken from a local newspaper. the 27th of may the gottard pass is supposed to open, but in some places there are still FIVE meters (thats 17 feet) of snow, and the roadworks department had to remove 220,000 metric tons of snow.
there was so much snow on the mountains that there were numerous and massive snow avalanches, and many skiers and trekkers were killed (because cold kills, but that is just weather, i guess. wonder if all those deaths will be attributed to global warming, in the stats)
many people living in the mountains got their houses destroyed by avalanches.
http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/varie/snow4.jpg
these are the remains of a 2 or 3 weeks old massive snow avalanche, air temperature is 25 C at an altitude of about 700mt, but still a lot of snow is there. it is reduced to a quarter or a fifth of the original mass, but is still quite impressive. the “tunnel” in the middle has been produced by the river water. Also, all rivers are very swollen, because of the massive amount of water coming from the thawing of the enormous snow mass.
we had a very harsh winter, with massive snowfall and record low temps. i would have really liked to have a few greenies trying to live out of sun and wind in my garden last winter, with down to -14C temperatures.
rbateman – re The Plot
If you can find a copy, there’s a c1950s Sci-fi story called Occam’s Razor. It concerns an alien race, posing as humans, who come from a dying world who’s atmosphere is higher in all sorts of pollutants than Earth’s. They take over corporations in a position to pollute Earth’s air, such as automobile manufacturers, mining and power generation. The conspiracy comes out when someone performs an autopsy on one of the disguised aliens.
Not that I’m suggesting we cut open any of the Team or allies. At least, not until they are actually dead!
The fact that they predicted a “90% chance that temperatures will be at least 9 degrees” tells you this is complete nonsense. If thats the 90/10, what the 50/50 ? 15 degrees ? ha ha. These chumps can’t even describe a basic expectation curve.
I have to laugh at some of the EcoWorldly comments as well. “The models are all getting worse and worse” … oh no – we are all doomed. Its funny how the models seem to be getting worse and worse, but the actual data seems to be showing us getting cooler and cooler.
And given that Richard Lindzen is Professor of Meterology at MIT I find it difficult to believe that MIT was involved at all.