From their Die kalte Sonne website, Professor Fritz Vahrenholt and Dr. Sebastian Lüning put up this guest Post by Prof. Jan-Erik Solheim (Oslo) on Hansen’s 1988 forecast, and show that Hansen was and is, way off the mark. h/t to Pierre Gosselin of No Tricks Zone and WUWT reader tips.
Figure 1: Temperature forecast Hansen’s group from the year 1988. The various scenarios are 1.5% CO 2 increase (blue), constant increase in CO 2 emissions (green) and stagnant CO 2 emissions (red). In reality, the increase in CO 2 emissions by as much as 2.5%, which would correspond to the scenario above the blue curve. The black curve is the ultimate real-measured temperature (rolling 5-year average). Hansen’s model overestimates the temperature by 1.9 ° C, which is a whopping 150% wrong. Figure supplemented by Hansen et al. (1988) .
One of the most important publications on the “dangerous anthropogenic climate change” is that of James Hansen and colleagues from the year 1988, in the Journal of Geophysical Research published. The title of the work is (in German translation) “Global climate change, according to the prediction of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”
In this publication, Hansen and colleagues present the GISS Model II, with which they simulate climate change as a result of concentration changes of atmospheric trace gases and particulate matter (aerosols). The scientists here are three scenarios:
A: increase in CO 2 emissions by 1.5% per year
B: constant increase in CO 2 emissions after 2000
C: No increase in CO 2 emissions after 2000
The CO 2 emissions since 2000 to about 2.5 percent per year has increased, so that we would expect according to the Hansen paper a temperature rise, which should be stronger than in model A. Figure 1 shows the three Hansen scenarios and the real measured global temperature curve are shown. The protruding beyond Scenario A arrow represents the temperature value that the Hansen team would have predicted on the basis of a CO 2 increase of 2.5%. Be increased according to the Hansen’s forecast, the temperature would have compared to the same level in the 1970s by 1.5 ° C. In truth, however, the temperature has increased by only 0.6 ° C.
It is apparent that the next to it by the Hansen group in 1988 modeled temperature prediction by about 150%. It is extremely regrettable that precisely this type of modeling of our politicians is still regarded as a reliable climate prediction.
Reg Nelson says:
June 15, 2012 at 7:01 pm
dana1981 says:
June 15, 2012 at 6:16 pm
The problem with ‘skeptics’ here is that all you care about is “Hansen was wrong” **********
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I think we have learned that we shouldn’t be spending money on this nonsense. People can believe whatever they want, but when governments and NGO’s start imposing their belief system on private citizens, through taxes and other costs, based on little more than wild assumptions and doomsday scenarios, we have a right and a duty to question them.
You admit, “Hansen was wrong.” Has Hansen ever admitted this? Why are we wasting billions of dollars on this folly? It boggles the mind.
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Sorry, Reg. I didn’t see you’d already made the same point I went for.
Gunga Din says:
June 15, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Sorry, Reg. I didn’t see you’d already made the same point I went for.
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No worries. The more people that push back against this BS the better.
Good on ya, Gunga Din.
[snip. By now you should know that labeling those who don’t share your view as “denialists” violates this site’s Policy. It almost appears to be deliberate, thus your entire comment is deleted. Feel free to go on the internet and complain. But not here, you are wearing out your welcome. ~dbs, mod.]
KR says:
June 15, 2012 at 7:56 pm
All of this discussion appears to miss some very important points.
Forcings, as observed, as driven by economics, are around Scenario B, the most likely outcome according to Hansen 1988.
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I think you’re right. Hansen’s WRONG model has led to burning money and is driving the economy into the ash heap. Is that the outcome he wanted?
Ric Werme says:
June 15, 2012 at 4:44 pm
No, he’s 60% wrong – see my 10:55 am comment. 60% of 1.5 ° C is 0.9 ° C, and his projection was 0.9 ° C too high.
However below the diagram, we read:
In reality, the increase in CO 2 emissions by as much as 2.5%, which would correspond to the scenario above the blue curve. The black curve is the ultimate real-measured temperature (rolling 5-year average). Hansen’s model overestimates the temperature by 1.9 ° C, which is a whopping 150% wrong.
I must admit this part is very unclear, but it seems that since scenario A is for a 1.5% increase, then another line should have been drawn higher up to show what should have happened according to Hansen if the increase was 2.5%. Had that been done, we may have seen the 1.9 C at 2011. Or am I missing something?
Hey, this is America. Everyone has a chance.
Even those who were Rock Stars in their time!
Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987. There were no major CFC producing countries opposing it. By 1988 there was no reason to expect CFC production to continue as usual. Like I said, Hansen was clearly not the sharpest tack in the shed. Either that or he purposely mislead the public by displaying a scenario he knew was not going to happen.
Climate science is become a religion for the modern age. You must believe, because modeling is theorizing is secular “theology.” Now that the crucified 1988 report has been found dead, the true believers want to believe so passionately that they poke at it again and again looking for signs of life. The scientific method never asserts that theories and models are facts, but rather propositions which subsequent observations MUST validate. When the validation fails, the proposition was false. This is as true of the population worries like Ehrlich whose “theology” has been repeatedly proven wrong, and still true believers gather together to lie under their purple blankets and wait for the mother ship. Science demands verified proof by those who would disagree; when propositions are verified, they are then become fact. Climate science operates the other way around, and then they pass the collection plate hoping for more money as the choir sings “Praise Hansen”.
i really admire the mods here. responsive rather than reactive. helpful, thoughtful, perspicacious.
sometimes they’re the best part of a thread – at least, the part that provides some rational basis for optimism in a world gone stupid. thanks for being.
In the REAL WORLD, if sales projections were this far off of actual sales, the product would be deemed a failure and would be abandoned.
If the CEO kept pouring $millions into the failed project on focus group studies, new ad campaigns, package redesigns, product tweaking, etc., the project could eventually bankrupt the company.
In business and in science, you can’t always get it right. Moreover, if you don’t have an utter failure every now and then, it means you’re complacent and your competition will eventually eat your lunch. The key is knowing when to pull the plug on a failed project.
The bottom line is that the CAGW theory is complete and utter failure. Just because the product still sells well in Washington DC, is no justification to keep selling the failed product worldwide, as it’s tanking in all other markets.
It’s time to cut bait, abandon the CAGW project and FIRE the managers responsible for keeping a failed project going for as long as it has , while wasting $TRILLIONS needlessly.
Dr. Hansen…..YOU’RE FIRED!!!!
KR says:
June 15, 2012 at 5:52 pm
That’s just a wiggle. A “Let’s change some parameters so it ‘fits’ a bit better, and we’re still right”, sort of wiggle.
What’s even more telling is that in the last 5 years (since that ‘wiggle’ post on Unreal Climate), we are still following or lower than Scenario C, that was the one with NO emissions after 2000. I fail to see how that ‘data’ contradicts what I said, really.
“SAMURAI says:
June 15, 2012 at 8:58 pm
It’s time to cut bait, abandon the CAGW project and FIRE the managers responsible for keeping a failed project going for as long as it has , while wasting $TRILLIONS needlessly.”
Regardless of our oppinions of Hansen, the money is certainly not being wasted by the people on the receiving end. I bet the eyes of the alarmists lit up like the sun when they thought this scam up.
dana1981 says:
June 15, 2012 at 1:57 pm
“2) Thinking that a ~2 ppm annual CO2 increase is 2.5% of ~390 ppm (arithmetic fail!)”
conradg says:
June 15, 2012 at 4:11 pm
“The 2.5% increase does not refer to total atmospheric CO2, but to an increase in human CO2 emissions.”
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I don’t think either of you are right. If you read Appendix B of Hansen’s 1988 paper, you find his 1.5% per year refers to the RATE OF CHANGE OF THE INCREASE in CO2. The second derivative, if you will.
Part of the problem is that Hansen is not really clear about what he means. In the text, under paragraph “4.1 Trace Gases”, he says “Scenario A assumes that growth rates of trace gas emissions….” In air pollutions studies “emissions” generally refer to the amount produced by some source, say a smoke stack . Units are mass per time or mass per power output. So it would be easy to think he means the mass increase of anthropogenic CO2.
However, in Appendix B it becomes clear he is talking about the RATE OF CHANGE OF THE YEARLY INCREASE in atmospheric CO2. For instance in Appendix B,when talking about Scenario B he says:
“In scenario B the growth of the annual increment of CO2 is reduced from 1.5% per year today to 1% per year in 1990, 0.5% per year in 2000, and 0 in 2010; thus after 2010 the annual increment in CO2 is constant, 1.9 ppmv per year.”
So the question is: which scenario best matches the actual rate of change of the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 over the past 30 years?
Not quite enough. Supposing for the moment that the forcings are indeed closest to Scenario B, the temperatures are at Scenario C and there is quite a divergence from the Scenario B temperatures. When Gavin put up his post in 2007, you could (if you were generous) believe that the temps and forcings were somewhat close. With 5 more years of data, well, not so much.
The bigger issue is the own goal you scored by breaking down the forcing contributions. It was immediately apparent that CO2 wasn’t the main player, and given the temp record to date, it is STILL overestimated.
KR mentions,
“Forcings, as observed, as driven by economics, are around Scenario B, the most likely outcome according to Hansen 1988.”
What is most amusing in your desperate defense KR is that,
1) You know very well that CO2 is the primary claimed driver of global warming in that paper. This is obvious since its growth is the main factor that shapes those scenario curves in the paper.
2) You try to blame reductions in CFCs as the reason why the temperatures have not gone according to predictions. Yet, CFC have very little contribution to climate change and furthermore their abundance in the atmosphere has changed little since 1988.
At the end of the day, the observed CO2 emissions growth has been well ABOVE scenario A and yet the temperature is below scenario C. You really can’t get it any more wrong that this paper.
Ultimately, the CO2 forcing was vastly over-estimated as the IPCC tells us. Its just unfortunate, that billions of dollars have been wasted on these rubbish models.
OssQss says:
June 15, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Hey, this is America. Everyone has a chance.
Even those who were Rock Stars in their time!
‘Fess up — you picked that vid because of the hockey stick at 1:12, didn’t you?
Steven mosher
To evaluate hansens projection we first have to find the scenario that is closest to the projected forcings. That is scenario B, not C and not A.
Steven that is incorrect.
Here is from the original paper
Scenario A => Annual greenhouse growth rate of 1.5% of the 1980s emission
Scenario B => Annual greenhouse growth rate constant at the 1980s level
Scenario C => Annual greenhouse growth rate decreases after the 1980s such that it ceases to increase after 2000
Steven, CO2 emission has not been “constant at the 1980s level”, so Scenario B does not match observation. It is Scenario A that matches observation.
And here is comparison of Hansen’s projections with observations => http://bit.ly/JPvWx1
Scenario B => Annual greenhouse growth rate constant at the 1980s level
The greenhouse growth rate has been increasing by about 1.64% since the 1980s, slightly more than Scenario A’s growth rate of 1.5%.
Scenario A is the one closest to the reality.
D. J. Hawkins says:
“It was immediately apparent that CO2 wasn’t the main player, and given the temp record to date, it is STILL overestimated.”
So long as they stay above ZERO they are over-estimating !!
FYI This is obviously not a science blog
http://scienceblog.com/54571/1000-years-of-climate-data-confirms-australias-unusual-warming/
They have not conceded that the paper was withdrawn
I read through this entire post with all the too-ing and fro-ing, it would seem to me that two things are evident. 1. There are some true believers that will go to any length to defend their hero.
2. Their hero ceased to be a real scientist many years ago.
KR says:
June 15, 2012 at 11:59 am
@ur momisugly me: “These experiments begin in 1958 and include measured or estimated changes in atmospheric CO2, CH4, N2O, chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) and stratospheric aerosols…”
I have no idea where you got that misconception. But it’s quite wrong.
Good catch — I read the caption on Fig. 1 of the post, rather than an Hansen’s paper. Which brings up an interesting point: Hansen’s control run was based on estimated 1958 values, in which CFC-12 (Freon) was 50.3 parts per trillion (pptv). In 1986, CFC-12 was estimated to be 400pptv.
http://www.ideaconnection.com/solutions/516-Chlorofluorocarbons-as-an-environmental-hazard.html
Hansen used a baseline CFC figure from a decade before when the figure from only two years’ prior was eight times as large, and he still came up short in all three scenarios.
But wait! CFC-12 is the most potent GHG *evah*! Oh, look — it has “20,000 times carbon dioxide’s capacity to trap heat in the atmosphere”!
http://www.ideaconnection.com/solutions/516-Chlorofluorocarbons-as-an-environmental-hazard.html
Oh, wait — “Molecule for molecule, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the most potent of greenhouse gases. One type of CFC, CFC-12 or ‘Freon-12’ as it is known by its trade name, is 17,700 times more potent than carbon dioxide”
http://education.arm.gov/studyhall/ask/past_question.php?id=407
Oh, wait again — CO2 has 72.369% of the heat retention characteristics of water vapor while CFC’s only have 1.432% of the heat retention characteristics of water vapor!
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Oh, and still wait yet another when — UNESCO-ELSS doesn’t even consider CFC a greenhouse gas —
http://www.eolss.net/ebooks/sample%20chapters/c06/e6-13-01-01.pdf
So, when you guys can’t even decide if CFC is an actual greenhouse gas, let alone how much effect it has (in parts per friggin’ *trillion*, no less), color me less than compelled by the narrative.
KR says:
June 15, 2012 at 11:53 am
Arguing that Hansen’s model was flawed based upon events that didn’t happen is a completely bogus strawman argument.
Who are you trying to kid? Hansen based all three scenarios on things that either would or wouldn’t happen.
Error! Error! “Hansen used a baseline CFC figure from a decade before when the figure from only two years’ prior was eight times as large…” should have been “Hansen used a baseline CFC figure from three decades before…”
That’s what I get for typing while the security guys are talking about a capella doop-wop songs…
chicagoblack says:
June 15, 2012 at 9:10 am
Irrelevant. The Farmer’s Almanac predicted last year would be colder but it wasn’t. Modeling accuracy changes over time and improvements are obviously made just like with other measurement techniques, climate or otherwise.”
Irrelevant? Modeling accuracy improves over time and improvements are made?
What’s irrelevant are Climate Change models. Period. If their accuracy improves over time then wake me up when they are aren’t a giant FAIL.
AUSphysicist says:
June 15, 2012 at 10:50 pm
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A succinct and very good summary highlighting the flaws in the paper/projections. In a nutshell all that one needs to know.
Real time empirical observation strongly supports the view that CO2 sensitivity has been widely over estimated by the IPCC and its team, and real time empiriacl observation presently leads to the conclussion that it is extremely doubtful that CAGW exists and any future CO2 causative warming will be modest and hence of no great concern.