In June 1986, Dr. James Hansen made a prediction to an AP newspaper reporter, which was carried in Oxnard, CA, of a 2 degree temperature rise by 2006. This was two years before, almost to the day before he and Senator Tim Wirth duped a bunch of Washington legislators with stagecraft on a hot June day by turning off the a/c in the hearing room while complaining about global warming and urging the need for “immediate action” (translation: cash).
Like Dr. Hansen’s 20 year sea level prediction, it hasn’t come true. In honor of the 80’s, when a popular TV commercial for a fast food restaurant had inspired a whole nation to say the catch phrase, I ask Dr. James Hansen, regarding your claims of global warming, “Where’s the Beef”?!
Let’s have a look at Exhibit A: Hansens’ GISTEMP graph, distributed worldwide from the GISS headquarters above Jerry Seinfeld’s favorite Monk’s Restaurant in New York City. Annotations in blue mine.
Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
Exhibit B: The GISS Data, available here. Let’s do the math.
Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (C) (Anomaly with Base: 1951-1980) ---------------------------------- Year Annual_Mean 5-year_Mean ---------------------------------- 1986 0.13 0.18 1987 0.28 0.20 1988 0.33 0.26 1989 0.21 0.31 1990 0.36 0.28 1991 0.35 0.24 1992 0.13 0.24 1993 0.14 0.25 1994 0.24 0.24 1995 0.39 0.30 1996 0.30 0.39 1997 0.41 0.40 1998 0.58 0.40 1999 0.33 0.43 2000 0.35 0.46 2001 0.48 0.46 2002 0.56 0.49 2003 0.55 0.54 2004 0.48 0.55 2005 0.62 0.56 2006 0.55 0.53
Finding the difference: 0.55C – 0.13C = 0.42C
Predicted change 2.0C compared to Actual change 0.42C = Climate Fail
Exhibit C: Where’s the Beef?!
Note: I realize that I could have placed the top prediction at 2.13C, but why pile on? 😉 What’s 0.13C between friends? Besides he said “nearly” and it is near well enough.
Don’t believe me? Read for yourself. The Press-Courier – Google News Archive Search
Big h/t to Steve Goddard at Real-Science for finding this one.
UPDATE: Some commenters suggested Hansen may have given the 2 degree number in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Another article on the same day suggests he did.
Read article here: http://news.google.com/newspapers
So at 4F we have 2.2 C If the reporter in the first story took the middle between 2-4F as 3F we have 1.67C or “nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years” as the reporter from Oxnard states.
The 2010 Annual Mean Temperature anomaly from GISS is 0.63 C
So, no matter how you look at it, Hansen’s 1986 prediction has not come true,
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Nick Stokes says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I made an interactive gadget here which allows you to superimpose your choice of observation datasets on Hansen’s original graph.
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Nice, now could you plot any 3 graphs of your choice so they be seen, i mean they must be very instructive and just add more data to the internets.
Of course, Hansen achieved his warming, what he could be adjustments of a database already contaminated with UHI. Look at rural stations only that have long records and we find that the recent warming only equaled 1953 as temperatures crashed from the 1938 peak.
It is only slightly interesting that his adulterated data did not meet his predictions. It is a bit dismaying, however, to give his contaminated BS any time at all.
After looking at the second article I noticed another “projection” of a .5 to 1 deg F rise from 1990 to 2000.
Looking at the chart in C we have:
1990 .36
2000 .35
no change
Using the 5 yr average which is using data after 2000
1990 .28
2000 .46
converting to F we get .32 change which is also wrong.
He’s consistent isn’t he.
@Patrick Guinness says:
It would be difficult to find anything Hansen declares, historical or predictive, that is correct. The man is fraud.
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He is not a fraud. He has just claimed things he had no right to claim (such as being 99% certain of things he had no logical reason to be 99% certain about). That makes him, at times, sound like a crank. However, the broader issue is not what Hansen declares, but that so many have chosen to kneel at his alter.
If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to become a lot cooler than it was.
Where’s the beef???? Between his ears?
At one time I thought there where only 2 jobs in the world where you could be wrong 90% of the time,and still keep your job:politicians and weathermen.Guess they have been outdone by cAGW “scientists”. They are wrong 100% of the time and still get billions.
James Hansen’s and IPCC’s predictions do not match observations. The question is not why but rather how long the extreme AGW cohorts will continue the charade.
The scientific reason for the J.H. and the IPCC predictions not matching observations is the planet’s response to a change in forcing is to resist the temperature change (negative feedback) rather than amplify the forcing change (positive feedback).
How long J.H. and the IPCC cohorts will continue to ignore observations has more to do with the psychology of groups and manias, rather than science.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper. We develop a method to distinguish noise in the outgoing radiation as well as radiation changes that are forcing SST changes from those radiation changes that constitute feedbacks to changes in SST. We demonstrate that our new method does moderately well in distinguishing positive from negative feedbacks and in quantifying negative feedbacks. In contrast, we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity.
u.k.(us) says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Roy Spencer says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.
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I saw that too.
It is what’s called leaving a rear guard.
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Projections come from data; predictions come from a crystal ball … usually BS.
Modelled AGW data comes from a crystal ball therefore projections and predictions from the AGW peddlers have the same meaning … BS.
Roy:
“Roy Spencer says:
March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm
I have never understood the distinction between projection and prediction (even though I am meteorologist with lots of experience at prediction). If a projection is not a prediction, then we can ignore any claimed predictive value it might have.
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very simple. To make a prediction you have to be able to control the experiment.
Projections are conditional predictions where you cannot control the experimental conditions.
.. no matter how you look at it, Hansen’s 1986 prediction has not come true,
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Why would they? They left out the natural cycles, and then based their predictions on a large positive sensitivity to CO2 instead of a very slightly negative one, which is due to the backradiation of SW-IR (from the Sun) back to space. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/07/under-the-radar-the-nas-report/#comment-916699
Streetcred says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:08 pm
“Projections come from data; predictions come from a crystal ball … usually BS.
Modelled AGW data comes from a crystal ball therefore projections and predictions from the AGW peddlers have the same meaning … BS.”
Projections are scenarios that cannot be validated. Predictions try to predict the future and can therefore be validated by comparing the prediction with what actually happens.
The UNIPCC and its many suborganisations are very careful to avoid making predictions. They need wiggle room.
steven mosher says:
March 8, 2012 at 8:15 pm
“very simple. To make a prediction you have to be able to control the experiment.
Projections are conditional predictions where you cannot control the experimental conditions.”
Very fuzzy. “Control the experiment”? When I make a prediction for a stock market, do I “control the experiment”?
IPCC speak.
>Michael D Smith says:
>
>March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm
>If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His >prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to >become a lot cooler than it was.
*ouch*. Remind me never to get into a sword fight with you. Your repartee is deadly.
And back in the USSR,
A few weeks before this article appeared, the failed experiment in the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl was making the newspapers and evening news bigtime. I do think most scientists at the time were more concerned with that event than anything Hansen had to say be it a prediction or projection.
Anything is possible says:
March 8, 2012 at 5:00 pm
James Hansen correctly predicted the Earth’s 2006 temperature to within 1.45C, that’s an approximate error margin of 1.45/288 which equates to just 0.5%.
Thats a keeper. LOL
DirkH @ur momisugly 8:25 says
” Very fuzzy. ‘Control the experiment?’ When I make a prediction for the stock market, do I ‘control the experiment’? IPCC speak.”
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I agree with you and Dr. Roy Spencer here. In my opinion, the whole projection/prediction argument is moot. If you say something is going to happen, and it doesn’t, then you are wrong. Simple as that.
Will Nitschke says:
March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm
“@Patrick Guinness says:
It would be difficult to find anything Hansen declares, historical or predictive, that is correct. The man is fra*d.
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He is not a fra*d.”
Remember his A/C stunt during the congressional hearing in 1988? Time to reconsider your statement. Not an honest bone in Hansen.
I believe that Hansen’s 2° was a P.O.O.M.A. number. That stands for Preliminary Order of Magnitude Approximation. Really it does.
Even after he had corrupted the whole World’s temperature data base to make it look as if there was some warming, he was still not able to get it to show even a fifth of the rise that he had predicted.
Nothing to see here folks, let’s all just move along now to my next prediction.
Roy Spencer said on March 8, 2012 at 6:02 pm:
A human analyzes the data, evaluates it with the available knowledge and their experience, may be assisted by computers and computer modeling, then issues their best guess which is a prediction. If it fails to come true, the human takes the blame, or at least should.
A human takes the available knowledge and their experience, uses it to program a computer model which analyzes the data, the program then issues the best guess which the human reports as a projection. If it fails to come true, the human blames the computer model.
To an outside observer, all of the individual steps taken may be exactly the same, there is no discernible difference in the process. But if the human actually takes the time to critically examine the program output to determine if it’s actually BS that couldn’t come true, then the model can’t be at fault, only the human, thus the best guess should be reported as a prediction.
In reality the human will examine the output regardless, and may go through a thousand program runs before finding the combination of coding and conditions that yields what they are certain is a result that must be possible (and true), and that’s the result that gets reported. But the best guess is still called a projection so they can still blame the model.
DirkH says:
Remember his A/C stunt during the congressional hearing in 1988? Time to reconsider your statement. Not an honest bone in Hansen.
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He can describe it as theatrics because he was trying to ‘save the world.’ That’s not the same thing as fraud. He corrects his mistakes, a little at a time, grudgingly. He understands his 1988 climate model ran ‘too hot’. But he still thinks he is essentially right in his claims and is casting around for reasons why his heat-in-the-pipeline is not being detected. But again, Hansen doesn’t matter. If not him, someone else would replace him. The broader issue is that his 1988 prediction is still basically canonical text in the eyes of the IPCC. Prophets would be harmless if they had no followers.
In: “Overheating of Earth Poses Survival Threat”, (AP) Washington, in The Press Courier, Oxnard, CA, June 11, 1986 archives, there is the following item:
“Hansen predicted that global temperatures should be nearly 2 degrees higher in 20 years (2006), “which is about the warmest the earth has been in the last 100,000 years.””
(Someone tell Hansen about the Holocene Climate Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, when temperatures were up to 4 degrees C warmer than today, and sea level was over 4 meters higher.)
Then, at the end of the article:
“Hansen said the average U.S. temperature has risen from 1 to 2 degrees since 1958 and is predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020.”
Clearly, Hansen said that there would be from a minimum of 1.7 up to a maximum of 2.2 degrees C global temperature increase by 2020. Yet here we are in 2012, and Hansen’s prediction of a 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 C) increase from 1986 to 2006 only came in as a 0.4C increase, and through 2011, recent cooling has reduced the increase since 1986 to only 0.3 degrees C.
If Hansen’s prediction of total warming of 1.7 to 2.2 degrees C from1986 to 2020 is to be realized, Earth will have to warm another 1.4 to 1.9 degrees C (2.5 to 3.4 degrees F) in less than eight years.
Someone tell Hansen, “Time’s a wasting!”
What I want to know is, if carbon dioxide is so good at trapping heat, never allowing it to reradiate and just constantly making everything hotter and hotter at just 390 ppm, why don’t we build a big box, say a kilometer square, and put a glass lid on it and fill it with 50,000 ppm CO2. Obviously in no time at all the CO2 would trap so much heat it would become like the surface of Venus and then we could power whole cities from it. You know I’m taking the micky don’t you, or am I?
Michael D Smith says (March 8, 2012 at 7:34 pm): “If you think Dr Hansen is finished with this dataset, you are going to be sorely mistaken. His prediction will come true, sooner than you think. There is no reason to think 1986 is not going to become a lot cooler than it was.”
The only thing keeping him (relatively) honest is the satellite temp record, which started in 1979. Before that, he can adjust all he wants, since the surface readings were the only game in town. 1986, fortunately, falls within the satellite era.
The Miami article actually should be read as the paragraph (2 sentences hah). According to “Hansen’s findings” and “if current trends are unchanged” that between 1990-2000 a .5 to 1 full degree F would occur and THE DECADE FOLLOWING THAT another 2 to 4 full degree F would also occur.
So it’s being misrepresented how bad it is, between 2.5F and 5F was the expectation ending 2010. Now yall can argue over arbitrary locs, time-frames, randomness, etc., in order to define how to prove correct or incorrect.
I looked for the Congressional record; therefore I’m assuming it is not online. Perhaps I need to look harder. All I found were records back to mid 90’s. Did find Climate Audit’s 20year Hansenversary from 2008, which has pdfs and such. Not sure how it compares since I’m just a regular dude.