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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As others have mentioned, it looks as if the AGW side are getting more desperate as time goes on as Mother Nature continues to make a mockery of their claims. (Who knows? Maybe their models actually predicted global cooling by now but they had to ‘adjust’ the results as well! But I jest…)
I think they are also desperate to see the scam safely through Copenhagen and also to pass the cap and trade tax in The US Senate.
IBD has a nice summary of a new government “report”, with a few comments by Dr. Pielke Jr.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331253421781662
“The report “misrepresents my own work,” says University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke, Jr. It makes claims that aren’t supported by citations provided, relies on analyses that were never peer reviewed, ignores peer-reviewed studies that reach opposite conclusions from those proclaimed by the report, and cites papers that don’t support conclusions.”
And an indirect reference to the surfacestations project:
“The report also relies heavily on surface temperature data from monitoring stations located next to parking lots and air conditioning exhaust ports — falsely skewing temperature records upward.”
A little bit of panic may be setting in.
Douglas, are you back at the Lake? You should come by the LT in Lostine. I am there with my BF (who is currently as sick as I am) most Friday evenings. However, we will be up South Fork on the 4th, hobnobbing with William O Douglas’s grandson. My BF has quite a few celebrities who know him. I am just a coattail member of his inner circle. Would love to introduce you and your significant other to the locals.
I especially liked the “thousand years” part. Someone mentioned feces, but I do not think that is a fair comparison, as feces contains some nutrients.
This piece from RC shows something that is a peculiar trait of extreme dedication to the catastrophic global warming hypothesis; as far as I know it is not displayed in relation to any other scientific hypothesis. To what do I refer? Certainty, that’s what.
Some practitioners of an infant science might say “this is our hypothesis, now we’re going to study what actually happens and make any necessary adjustments”. But not, it seems, those wedded to this particular idea.
They like to say “the science is settled” but it seems to me that they really mean “our minds are closed”.
On hearing that some measures suggest global average cooling within the last decade rather than global average warming, they reply in two ways and adopt both replies, mindless to the conflict between the two. On the one hand they assert that measured cooling is not cooling at all. This is just legerdemain, by selecting particular starting and finishing points they create trend lines on graphs to argue that lower readings from thermometers actually display continuing upward movements in average temperatures. Yet you only need to adopt different start and end points to show something different. On the other hand they say “this is what should be expected because warming causes cooling” (we had this one yet again from our friend Mr Flanagan last week). No. Warming means temperatures going up, cooling means temperatures going down. You cannot create ice by applying heat to a pan of water.
These two positions are wholly contradictory. There is a credible explanation available to them but it involves a concession of uncertainty, so they will not propose it. They could say “temporary blips are only to be expected because we are dealing with a vastly complex interaction of factors and we do not fully understand them all”. That would stand alongside their hypothesis and would not cause the batting of a single eyelid. But it would require them to accept that they do not know everything and, therefore, that their hypothesis has not yet been proved. Such a position appears to be unacceptable to them because they have pinned their colours unequivocally to the “the science is settled” mast.
Acceptance of uncertainty lies behind all honest scientific, economic and political analyses until such time, if ever, that all the evidence points in one direction and nothing that is observed in real life is inconsistent with the position being advanced.
Unjustified certainty requires dissenting voices to be dismissed rather than challenged on the merits of the points they put forward. Debate and challenge are the tools of those with open minds. Scoffing, sneering dismissal is the tool of those unprepared to accept that their belief in a hypothesis might not be well-founded. It is also the tool of those who know their hypothesis can be subjected to legitimate challenge but are not prepared to risk the personal loss (whether financial, reputational or both) that would result from such a challenge being successful.
Virtually Irreversable:
Sounds like the programmers have spent a wee bit too much time hanging out in cyberspace.
Smokey (19:20:02) :
There are lots ‘n’ lots of sea level charts that Colorado U uses. At first glance they all look very similar. I sure wish they’d explain which one is right.
Jeremy (19:31:40) :
That blink image appears to be two different datasets with different conditions applied. . . . 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’ve been watching the sea level charts for a while. Sea level is affected by atmospheric pressure (we’re talking about millimeter-scale changes after all), and the “inverse barometer” corrects for that. The seasonal signal correction tends to reduce the scatter of the points. To glean “meaning” from the charts, it doesn’t really matter which data set you use, as long as you stick with one. I’ve always seen “seasonal signal removed and inverse barometer not applied” posted at WUWT, so we’re not getting any sleight-of-hand.
If you download the charts from U of Colorado in .eps format into Photoshop, you can make crisp charts of any dimensions you want.
It’s very interesting what an afternoon at the historians can turn up.
Very hot 105+ summertime temps in the late 1850’s for starters.
Then in the mid 1870’s began the cold winds in April & May that always led to killing frosts.
Then in 1881 began the 60 degree or larger diurnal from DayMax to NightLow.
The summertime temps rarely got to 100 degrees, but the lows were about 10 degrees below what we know for today. The Instrumental record shows the last shadows of that time. The diurals shrank after the early 1930’s to what we know today. The year 1933 and those around it take the cake for even today’s temps.
So, all this fuss about Global Warming being unprecedented is found to be clutching at the trace of C02 in thin air.
California was founded in a warm period, suffered through a cold period, and when agriculture really got going in the 30’s it found another modern warm period.
Some people just don’t appreciate the good times they lived in.
Disaster Worship.
The mantra is:
“The oceans are rising, sea temperatures are rising, the ice is melting…”
Repeat this mantra until you believe, until it is an article of faith (or religious-style dogma), and then every data point you see will confirm your belief. And anything that falls outside this belief is discarded as erroneous data. And anyone that disputes this belief system is a heretic. No wonder talk in the climate arena is so nasty – it’s like a religious war – repent, convert, or die!
Scientists are people too (no, really – they are) and they have as many foibles as the next person. Trouble is, these foibles are being fed by massive amounts of research grants. Once, welfare was simple (almost innocent when we see what’s happened since). Then came corporate welfare. Now we’ve got science welfare running in the tens of billions of dollars.
And Hollywood keeps on attacking greedy businessmen. *hmph* Hard-working, productive businessmen are rank amateurs next to their blood-sucking cousins who pretend to be in business but are only in the business of skimming tax dollars along with other luminaries such as research hungry scientists. Cut a little corner here and there – keep repeating the mantra – and keep those research dollars flowing.
And at some point, scientists will join the ranks of politicians and lawyers in joke punch lines. And then what happens when the grant funding gravy train is not just cut, but cut off… “Would you like coke & fries with your burger?”
FatBigot (20:35:37) :
Har! Har!
Still waiting for something resembling summer, here in northern MN. If “some aspects of climate change are progressing faster”, why is it so cold here? Why do I have to have the furnace running in the summer to keep the house warm? Why was the spring growth spurt delayed for weeks? These people who claim it’s warming up need to get away from the computer and step outside the concrete bunker they live/work in and see what it’s like in the great outdoors. Somebody’s been drugging their coffee, methinks.
Their minds are not closed, their brains are welded shut.
If it wasn’t for the fact that some of them actually seem to believe that crap reading real climate would be very similar to the onion or other humor site. I think it is hilarious to watdh them accuse Pielke of “cherry picking” when their entire case is cherry picking and fudged data. (hmm think I need a snack)
I wonder what planet they are living on?
As far as I can tell, U of Col has not updated the sealevel data since Jan of this year? What gives? Not going up fast enough for them or is it a Sat problem?
Google this:
“much faster than expected” – nothing about climate. There are ~8.8 *million* hits. The hits are mostly about AGW or other catastrophic predictions.
Check it out:
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=much+faster+than+expected&btnG=Google+Search
So this technique obviously works, even though it events have disproven the claim each and ever time.
My favorite is from some AGW promotion site that makes the blatantly false claim that Antarctic ice is shrinking “much faster than expected”.
Maybe people do like being fooled all of the time?
“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”
The comment from Real Climate appears to be in line with the Copenhagen Congress Synthesis Report. For example, the graph for sea-level rise on page 8 of the report compares actual with projected rises for the period 1993-2008. The actual rises are higher than the projected.
The graph covers the period 1970-2008, with projections from 1993.
So as far as I can see, in the case of sea levels, the Real Climate website has accurately reported what the Copenhagen report is saying.
“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.”
I believe they have mistaken cooling for warming. It takes longer to climb out of cooling than it does to sink into it. Figures they would do that.
RJ Hendrickson (21:10:14) :
There was a forecast warning that some ‘northern tier’ state might not have a summer. You might just fit that bill, but it cannot be anything but Globyll Waarmeeng.
Milwaukee Bob (18:50:06) :
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.
Milwaukee Bob – Agreed. I think this is one of the barriers true believers face that block their ability to disentangle themselves from the reason sucking incubus of AGW belief.
I would suggest that the mature approach is to not ascribe ones “Self Confidence, Self Belief, Self Approval… etc” to belief and participation in a group dogma.
Instead one could establish these qualities on the firm ground of lived experience, created from within by self driven choice and action.
That way, these qualities are not dependent on the whims of circumstance, and group membership.
I would wish to point to this Pielke’s significant statement:
“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.”
1. There is no difference. We use to call it “Physics of Climate”, though by saying “Climatology” is more than enough.
2. The real Physics of Climate does not ignore the biological component, the “Biosphere”. The evolution of any ecosystem follows a well known ecological process identified as Ecological Succession, which implies drastic natural changes of biotic and abiotic resources of a given ecosystem. Ecological Succession has been deliberately ignored by AGWers because it would set their “climate change” definitely as one more of natural processes. If a boreal forest would end like a desert, they would blame to human beings, although biologists know very well that it is a quite natural and unavoidable phenomenon.
On the other hand, if the warming of the Earth lasts for more than 1000 years, it would be because the alternating cycles of warmhouses-icehoses can last millions of years, as it has happened throughout the geological eras. All is natural, except their obsession for impose taxes on the air we breathe. Guess what… Here in Monterrey we pay 15% of taxes over our monthly bill from using water.
FatBigot (20:35:37) :
This piece from RC shows something that is a peculiar trait of extreme dedication to the catastrophic global warming hypothesis; as far as I know it is not displayed in relation to any other scientific hypothesis. To what do I refer? Certainty, that’s what.
… (rest above)
FatBigot – An excellent summary. Very well said. Thank You.
Jim G (20:40:22) :
Virtually Irreversable: (irreversible)
Sounds like the programmers have spent a wee bit too much time hanging out in cyberspace.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Within the overall climate dialog which includes models and related digital things the use of “virtually irreversible” is ironic and funny. However the meaning of the phrase is clearly meant to be, and generally acknowledge to be, “very likely irreversible.” It is easy when writing comments to take a shot at these things but it doesn’t advance the cause much.
Now, as “bubkes” = goat droppings, that’s another matter. In the title, drop the word claims, and now we have a quotable truth:
Roger Pielke Senior on: Real Climate = goat droppings
Ridicule may be useful when the listener isn’t paying attention to facts.
BarryW (21:22:44) :
Maybe they are not in a particular hurry because they are 5400 feet above sea level. 8^)
Nasif Nahle (21:44:40) :
15%?! Wow, all those taxes and CA still can’t balance the budget? Sad, really. Let me guess, fighting crime has drained the state of money?
A new assessment of the error budget of global mean sea level rate
estimated by satellite altimetry over 1993–2008
M. Ablain1, A. Cazenave2, G. Valladeau1, and S. Guinehut1
Abstract. A new error budget assessment of the global
Mean Sea Level (MSL) determined by TOPEX/Poseidon and
Jason-1 altimeter satellites between January 1993 and June
2008 is presented using last altimeter standards. We discuss
all potential errors affecting the calculation of the global
MSL rate. We also compare altimetry-based sea level with
tide gauge measurements over the altimetric period. Applying
a statistical approach, this allows us to provide a realistic
error budget of the MSL rise measured by satellite altimetry.
These new calculations highlight a reduction in the rate of sea
level rise since 2005, by 2 mm/yr. This represents a 60%
reduction compared to the 3.3 mm/yr sea level rise (glacial
isostatic adjustment correction applied) measured between
1993 and 2005. Since November 2005, MSL is accurately
measured by a single satellite, Jason-1. However the error
analysis performed here indicates that the recent reduction in
MSL rate is real.
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/193/2009/