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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Bart says:
March 9, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Phil. says:
March 9, 2012 at 11:10 am
“CO2 emissions growth much lower than was happening then, Montreal protocol signed etc”
Please substantiate this assertion.I have a data file of emissions from I cannot remember what source which shows CO2 emissions rising almost linearly from 1960 onwards, with what could be a temporary uptick from 2002-2006.
Scenario A from the 1988 presentation assumed continued growth of CO2 at 1.5%/year, exponential growth not linear. The details are included in Appendix B.
A pity you can’t remember what your source was to substantiate your claim.
Bart says:
The point is that you want to separate out different effects. So, it is reasonable to ask, “What would happen if CO2 levels go up but other things like water vapor and clouds and ice-albedo are imagined to remain unchanged?” That is the reference state and from there we can describe what the effects of water vapor, clouds, and ice-albedo changes are.
It is true that the reference state is somewhat arbitrary and one can imagine different reference states. In particular, Isaac Held has recently been arguing that it might be more sensible to make the reference state the state where, rather than keeping water vapor constant, you keep relative humidity constant as CO2 increases. See this post and the following post: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/02/28/24-arbitrariness-in-feedback-analyses/
Phil. says:
To be more specific, in one of Hansen’s papers he spelled out the scenarios in gory detail. When one actually looks at the scenarios for the increase of the various atmospheric constituents and the resulting radiating forcing and compares it to what actually happened, then indeed the one that we have followed comes closest to Scenario B…In fact, I seem to recall that it might even fall slightly below Scenario B, but not particularly consequentially so.
Joel Shore says: March 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm
[…]
When one actually looks at the scenarios for the increase of the various atmospheric constituents and the resulting radiating forcing and compares it to what actually happened, then indeed the one that we have followed comes closest to Scenario B…In fact, I seem to recall that it might even fall slightly below Scenario B, but not particularly consequentially so.
See the graph at: Smokey says: March 8, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Hansen is clearly >.5°C below scenario C, compared to UAH.
Steve Keohane:
You are completely right in your comment at March 11, 2012 at 4:32 am.
However, with respect, you have fallen for a ploy used by Hansen supporters who desire to obscure the truth which you state.
Hansen made his prediction (n.b. PREDICTION and not “projection”, please see my post at March 10, 2012 at 11:18 am) in 1986 which was years before his 1988 hearing presentation and the associated paper which you cite.
The arguments about scenarios are an attempt to obscure the fact that Hansen was plain wrong.
Richard
Phil. says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:34 pm
“… at 1.5%/year, exponential growth not linear.”
Quibbling – 1.5% annual growth is effectively linear over several decades. Here is a plot of emissions. I do not see any indication of a slowdown from 1988 onwards. The best fit slopes in the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s are virtually identical.
Steve Keohane says:
I doubt that is at all true (unless perhaps you are talking about the individual monthly result while we are in a La Nina, but you wouldn’t be doing that unless you were engaging in political rather than scientific discussion). I am also not sure why you are choosing UAH specifically unless you are just trying to cherrypick data that best agrees with the result that you desire.
Joel Shore says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:27 pm
My apologies, Joel. I did not read your exchange with Jim Petrie carefully enough, and thought you were saying something you were not.
Joel Shore:
At March 11, 2012 at 3:59 pm you respond to Steve Keohane’s accurate statement that said:
“Hansen is clearly >.5°C below scenario C, compared to UAH.”
When you write;
“I doubt that is at all true …” etc.
Nobody gives a fig about what you “doubt”. Keohane is right. And you not liking the truth is no reason for you or anybody else to “doubt” the truth.
If you have any evidence which shows Keohone’s statement to be wrong then please provide it. Until then please don’t obfuscate by assertion of undefined “doubt”.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
Since he made the claim, it should be up to him to show the claim is true. However, since it is easy enough to show it is false, I’ll show it: Here is a graph of UAH LT data with a linear trend through the part since 1988: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/uah/from:1988/trend Measuring the trend off that graph, I get about 0.15 C per decade, or 0.36 C rise total since 1988. If you compare this to Hansen’s Scenario C (e.g., http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/08/hey-hansen-wheres-the-beef/#comment-916664 ), it looks like it projected a rise between about 0.4 and 0.5 C over that time. Hence it is clear that the claim that the cherrypicked UAH temperature record is running more than 0.5 C below the Hansen Scenario C is shown to be a falsehood.
crakar24 says:
March 8, 2012 at 3:46 pm
It was a projection not a prediction dont you guys know anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In which case what right did he have to even request action based on it let alone virtually demand it?
This is the sort of shabby low down weasel word play we expect of the seediest politicians and lower than we have learnt to expect even from the average ones.
Joel Shore:
Sorry, but I refuse to play that game. See my post at March 11, 2012 at 6:34 am because it explains why.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
In your previous post, you said: “If you have any evidence which shows Keohone’s statement to be wrong then please provide it.” I did so and now you say that you “refuse to play that game.”
Joel Shore:
I repeat, that I had explained( in my post at March 11, 2012 at 6:34 am) why ionly a fool would fall into the trap of agreeing Hansen was talking about scenrios .
So, I will not fall into that trap by playing your game. And anybody can assess your actions and my response for themselves.
Richard