Leaked IPCC Draft: Climate Change Signals Expected To Be Relatively Small Over Coming 20-30 Years

Richard111 says:
…“CO2 induced climate change”…
That’s the bit I can’t understand. CO2 is identified by three quite distinct spectroscopic bands. All three bands are very effective at shielding the surface from SOLAR RADIATION at those bands.
Only ONE of those bands can absorb radiation from the surface at night. On aggregate CO2 provides far more cooling than warming.
———————————-
And that, could be a problem with a Glaciation about due any day now. Worse still, that would mean that the CAGW crowd would have been proven right, albeit for the wrong (opposite) reasons.

This leaked document would imply that nothing will happen for a couple of decades. If the AR5 has nothing scary to report, then CAGW is dead. It must be scary or it will be ignored by the voting public, there are bigger fish to fry, simple as that.

“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Hmmm, funny, I thought “they” had natural variability pinned down, and man’s influence was catastrophically bigger……
Perhaps, “they” are wrong, perhaps “man made Global Warming” (as predicted) could only happen in an imaginary “reality”..
How though, could such be pulled off????
We all know,
Watt = Joule per second.
and,
Joule = Watt per second.
BUT, do “we” know what that really means………..ie, Black body “reality”..
Page 3, in particular, onwards..
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-1071.html
Dam, we did not…
Do you feel a bit silly. Really, do you???
If not, please show (easily and understandably) where I am wrong,
in my reasoning and conclusions.

Considering that “Climate Change Signals” are already microscopically small or non-existent, especially for the preceding 20-30 Years, only a fool would expect the next 20-30 years to be any different.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of fools out there.

polistra says:
November 14, 2011 at 10:31 am
Thank God for sane countries like Russia! (Never thought I’d say that, but it’s unfortunately true in the post-1989 world. We’re the crazy ones now.)
_______________________________________
Russians are well acquainted with dishonest politicians, hunger, famine and nasty winters. They got the Bolshevik Revolution stuffed down their throats by Wall Street.

Is the timing of this leak significant? Is this evidence that there is a mole/whistleblower in the warmist camp who thinks that the world would benefit from a does of reality?
Shortly before Copenhagen, we had Climategate which de-railed Copenhagen. Now shortly before Durban, we have the leak of this draft which may de-rail Durban.
Whilst I was not envisaging any significant developments to come out of Durban (the financial problems facing the developed world mean that they have more important issues to deal with rather than wasting dollars on climate change, and Russia and China have for a long time made it clear that they will not sign up to something that prejudices their growth), this leaked document may further pull the rug from under the feet of those pressing for action. The leaked document strongly supports the view that there is presently no need for any pressing action and therefore governments can kick the tin down the street.
Before we crow too loud, we need to see how the draft is worked upon and more significantly what form the final version of the summary for policy-makers takes, but the summary of the draft does at this stage sound somewhat encouraging.
It does appear that in 10 or so years time there may be a concession that climate scientists have mis-read and under-estimated natural variability and over estimated climate sensitivity to CO2 and that may be how all of this sherade dies a natural death. Who knows, with a quiet sun and neagtive ocean phases, the end game may be in sight. I am probably being both niaive and a little over-optomistic in thinking this way, after all money rules and climate change is mega bucks. .

Is there a solar physicist in the house who could sit down and have a cosy chat with the AGW crowd?…it may be painful but cheaper than a shrink.
If the words “settled science”, “renwables” and “green taxes” are ever mentioned then take the tablets or leave the country…..
We were betrayed they will shout…we believed….

“…climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability…”
What’s the difference between a ‘climate change signal’ and ‘natural climate variability’?
So that we are not caught by the thimble and pea trick, we also need the current defintions used for any new document as these are not necessarily static. According to http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/glossary/ar4-wg3.pdf:
Climate Change (CC)
Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.
Note that UNFCCC, in its Article 1, defines “climate change” as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between “climate change” attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and “climate variability” attributable to natural causes.

Gail Combs says:
November 14, 2011 at 12:24 pm
polistra says:
November 14, 2011 at 10:31 am
Thank God for sane countries like Russia! (Never thought I’d say that, but it’s unfortunately true in the post-1989 world. We’re the crazy ones now.)
_______________________________________
Russians are well acquainted with dishonest politicians, hunger, famine and nasty winters. They got the Bolshevik Revolution stuffed down their throats by Wall Street.

I’m almost afraid to ask, but…
What?

Following the TOL link above around led me to Judith Curry’s blog and a post last week about two papers that were published at the same time as BEST and had some significantly different conclusions. One of the papers published in International Journal of Modern Physics
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/How_natural.pdf
Warming? An Analysis of 2249 Surface Temperature Records
Horst-Joachim Ludecke, Rainer Link, and Friedrich-Karl Ewert
EIKE, European Institute for Climate and Energy
finds two things which lept out at me. One is well known and the other isn’t. The well known one is that SH warming is less than NH warming. The second (unsurprising to me) finding is that warming is far less if temperature stations reports from stations higher than 800 meters above sea level are excluded. The authors explicitly state that [they] have no explanation for this second observation. I certainly do. It’s because greenhouse gases don’t have much effect over the ocean. I left the following comment on Curry’s blog:

Interesting that LL paper finds a marked decrease in temperature rise if only stations below 800m msl are chosen. Even more interesting is they say the reason is unknown.
As I’ve said before when you find the right solution to something all the observations start making sense.
In a different thread on this blog not long ago I pointed out that the ocean surface does not [ ] cool the same way the land surface does. Ocean surface cools primarily via evaporation whereas land cools by radiation. Greenhouse gases operate by absorbing upwelling radiation and reemitting a portion downward to the source. Latent heat of vaporization carried in evaporated water molecules is unaffected by greenhouse gases.
So we arrive at the tentative position that greenhouse effect is much greater over land surfaces than water surfaces. Then we consider the observations in light of this to determine if it makes sense or not.
In this case we consider what is different about stations above and below 800m mean sea level. One primary difference that leaps out immediately is that the closer a station is to sea level the closer it is likely to be to an ocean as continental interiors are generally at higher elevations than the coasts. So if greenhouse gases have markedly less effect over the ocean we would expect that land surfaces adjacent to ocean surfaces would experience some amelioration of the greenhouse effect due to this proximity.
See… everything makes sense once you hit on what’s really happening.
The paper also notes that southern hemisphere warming is markedly less than northern. Once again, if we examine this in consideration of GH effect being less over ocean surfaces and the fact that there is twice as much land in the northern hemisphere as in the southern, then once again we find rhyme and reason.
Thank you Dr. Curry for your consideration and grace in allowing people like me who lack appropriate credentials to speak and be heard.

to Ed_B.
Sorry, I didn’t say that. I was quoting Richard111.
My apologies for the lack of clarity with the speech marks. What I said was under the dashed line, which was;
And that, could be a problem with a Glaciation about due any day now. Worse still, that would mean that the CAGW crowd would have been proven right, albeit for the wrong (opposite) reasons.
However, perhaps Richard111 would like to answer your question.