Real Climate posted a weblog on June 21 2009 titled “A warning from Copenhagen”. They report on a Synthesis Report of the Copenhagen Congress which was handed over to the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen in Brussels the previous week.
Real Climate writes
“So what does it say? Our regular readers will hardly be surprised by the key findings from physical climate science, most of which we have already discussed here. Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago – such as rising sea levels, the increase of heat stored in the ocean and the shrinking Arctic sea ice. “The updated estimates of the future global mean sea level rise are about double the IPCC projections from 2007″, says the new report. And it points out that any warming caused will be virtually irreversible for at least a thousand years – because of the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere.”
First, what is “physical climate science”? How is this different from “climate science”. In the past, this terminology has been used when authors ignore the biological components of the climate system.
More importantly, however, the author of the weblog makes the statement that the following climate metrics “are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago” ;
1. “rising sea levels”
NOT TRUE; e.g. see the University of Colorado at Boulder Sea Level Change analysis.
Sea level has actually flattened since 2006.
2. “the increase of heat stored in the ocean”
NOT TRUE; see
Update On A Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions.
Their has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003.
3. “shrinking Arctic sea ice”
NOT TRUE; see the Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Anomaly from the University of Illinois Cyrosphere Today website. Since 2008, the anomalies have actually decreased.
These climate metrics might again start following the predictions of the models. However, until and unless they do, the authors of the Copenhagen Congress Synthesis Report and the author of the Real Climate weblog are erroneously communicating the reality of the how the climate system is actually behaving.
Media and policymakers who blindly accept these claims are either naive or are deliberately slanting the science to promote their particular advocacy position.
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Good points, Dr. Pielke.
But…but…wait!…
How else can we possibly pay for all this….stuff?…if we don’t tax carbon on the basis of saving the world?
This is going to be the best tax EVAH!
JimB
I know you may want to hear something different that this Anthony, but I just see no surprise here. While you insist that this can be contributed to incompetence or something equally passive, it is [snip] and nothing less!
For AGW proponents, model predictions are empirical evidences. Any real data and observations contradicting their claims are dismissed as “oh it’s just weather; the long term trend (based on models) is beyond dispute.” And the politicians and medias are buying it. Not that politicians and medias don’t have their agenda anyways.
What can you do. Really.
Whoops. Someone was actually reading our report? We were just kidding.
The “truth” is whatever they say it is, if it wasn’t then why would they say it is.
They’re desperate and they are caught in a hole of their own making. If reality isn’t on your side, you have only 2 choices; acknowledge it and change sides or lie to yourself (and others) by ignoring what you perceive. Self deception is a very common human trait. It reinforces one of the emotional needs of every human, that being “self-approval”. I see a distinct difference therein between here and there. Here, “we” struggle for clarification on subjects as data flows back and forth and most are ultimately “comfortable” wherever that takes us. There “they” struggle to be RIGHT. They NEED to be right – not enlightened.
Here’s another nail in the AGW coffin: http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/greenlands-ice-armageddon-comes-end .
It makes me sick to watch this kind of outright dishonesty from people who claim to be following the principles of science.
“a few years ago” – ah, gotta love the precision there. Maybe they mean 1980?
“virtually irreversible” – whew, good thing the world is literal.
What about “some aspects of climate change” that aren’t “progressing” faster (see Antarctic ice extent)? Can’t mention those, can we?
I honestly think that we need to start teaching honesty and integrity in our school system and hope that some future generation will come along that understands the dangers inherent in deception, and that the end does not justify the means.
Perhaps the West Point creed should be taught to all; “A Cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.”
In the meantime we must live with in a society where manipulation and deceit appear to be the norms. It is very sad and depressing.
When we have crop failures in Canada and the Northern Tier of states,and a sucession of hard,very hard winters maybe someone might get a clue.
in the meantime we are converting food to fuel…
Everybody is familiar with the old saw, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
There’s a lesser used corollary, “If you don’t believe it, you can’t see it.”
There are lots ‘n’ lots of sea level charts that Colorado U uses. At first glance they all look very similar. But they’re not.
I sure wish they’d explain which one is right.
For instance, here’s a blink gif [takes a few seconds to load], based on exactly the same data: click
If the university would archive on line all of its data and methodologies, we could eventually get at the truth.
@ur momisugly Smokey (19:20:02)
That blink image appears to be two different datasets with different conditions applied. One of them stretches to 2008, and the other one to 2009. One has “inverse barometer applied” (whatever that means), and the other does not. They appear to be similar, but one has had noise removal of some kind. That’s just what they look like, doesn’t help us much with what they mean.
I don’t think Pielke’s point is at all harmed by the different blink images here, in fact the period he is discussing seems to follow the same “flat” track in both. That said, you yourself have a point. The science departments of universities only have enough money/graduate-student-slave-labor to investigate things, and few people motivated enough to make it all make sense to those who access it.
This is very serious IMO. I hear this kind of distortion of facts all the time and the catch phrase is always “are progressing faster than was expected”
Our scientists say it, our politicians say it yet as you’ve just shown, it’s a lie.
How much longer do we have to put up with this??
The bloated government will not be denied their new taxes … Slavery by debt so huge there is nothing left, that’s the goal.
Off Topic
Today I had a conversation with an engineer who is buying all of this stuff hook, line, and sinker. He believes solar and wind will turn the world into Utopia of cleanliness and it will cost nothing. He believes everything our media prints or puts on the internet. I sort of understand politicians being confused and led like sheep, but an engineer with the background to understand the science?
We need the media to be more balanced. If not, a future headline will read, “America, Bankrupt.”
Does anyone else see a parallel between the AGW’ers and the mortgage derivative traders? The traders really didn’t understand what they were buying and selling but the computers kept spewing out data saying that these investments were good, would make money, and were safe. Then the sub-prime meltdown began to hit and most of them kept trading this garbage and kept thinking the price would always keep going up. I’m sure there was a moment when some of them thought, “wait, this can’t really be happening. The computers say these investments are still valuable”. Suddenly they realized that they have a portfolio full of worthless dog crap. Just like the financial mess, I think the cooling of the earth will eventually be undeniable and these AGW’ers will find themselves holding a bag of poo.
Not the best little summary from a fact standpoint, but it does refer to your work Anthony.
http://lewrockwell.com/orig9/deming3.html
Mk
Doctor JJ-you just quoted Con.Peter DeFazio D. Oregon who said the same thing about the whole bag of Malarkey er, Waxman/Markey …
It will bring 1929 back…
This is a mere trickle before the torrent of misinformation which will precede Copenhagen. And the chance of its falsity ever being aired in the MSM is very small.
Too many egos, too many tenures, too many investment scams, and too many taxing schemes are dependent on the AGW preachers holding sway.
Roger,
You are actually wrong about the sea level flattening off from 2006. I analysed the data using a glm in R and the result is that the sea level rise declined from the 3.2mm/yr +- 0.4 in the figure to 2.1mm/yr +- 0.4 from 2006. However, the rise remained statistically significant (p<=0.001).
I think that we have to be careful with terms like "flattening out" when the stats say otherwise. The warmers will jump on such terminology with gusto. I guess we can say with confidence though, that the rate of sea level rise has declined.
All the best
The other day the letters section of the Sydney Morning Herald lead with a letter saying that the UK government was incompetent with regard to climate change and that the Aussie government (Penny Wong) should look to Germany ‘s actions on climate change.
So I wrote a rely letter stating that Germany intends to build 26 new coal fired power station over the coming years and should our government follow Germany’s lead as the letter espoused. My letter wasn’t printed – that’s the problem.
They just added another adjustment procedure to the sea level data – “Glacial Isostatic Adjustment” – I guess the land rebound from the glaciers of the ice age is still contributing another 0.3 mm per year to the measured sea level rise – adjusted that is – Jupiter tides will be next.