Guest post by David M. Hoffer
In my first article on the leaked AR5 Chapter 11 draft, I focused on the extraordinary lengths to which the IPCC has gone to surround their projections with caveats that make it nearly impossible for any of them to be outright wrong. But what of the alarmist narrative? I am sad to report that it is alive and breathing. On the other hand, it appears to be on life support. I chose two examples to bring to everyone’s attention. One because I think it is amusing, and the other because it is a whopper that I doubt will survive to the final draft.
The amusing one relates to ice extent. The models are still projecting reduced ice extent for both the Arctic and Antarctic. For those of us who’ve been following that story line, that’s another indication that the models are deeply flawed. While ice extent in the arctic is down, the Antarctic extent has been setting new records. So how does AR5 Ch11 handle this contradiction?
In early 21st century simulations, Antarctic sea ice cover is projected to decrease more slowly than in the Arctic in the CMIP5 models, though CMIP3 and CMIP5 models simulate recent decreases in Antarctic sea ice extent compared to slight increases in the observations (Chapter 12, Section 12.4.6.1 and Figure 12.31).
Excuse me? Slight increases? When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, putting him ahead of Babe Ruth by just one, I don’t recall anyone calling it a “slight increase”. I remember “record setting” and “history making” and “unprecedented”. Interesting way to spin an extreme event, is it not? But having minimized the record ice extent in the Antarctic by characterizing it as a “slight increase” they just can’t help but throw some alarmist narrative in as well:
Periods of rapid summer-time retreat of the Arctic sea ice margin, such as that which occurred in the late 2000s (see Chapter 4) has been noted to occur in a climate model, raising the possibility of abrupt sea ice retreat events sometime in the next 50 years (Holland et al., 2006).
Oooooh, I’m scared. They’ve got dozens of models that they’ve run thousands of times with all kinds of different initial conditions. They barely agree with each other, they don’t agree with observations on any number of fronts, there’s many pages of excuses in Chapter 11 as to why…. But they have “a model”, yes, just one, that raises the possibility of some sort of “abrupt” event. One gets the impression they wiggled that one in just so it could be quoted completely out of context in the Summary for Policy Makers.
Now for the WHOPPER!
For years we’ve been subjected to horror stories of increased numbers of major storms like hurricanes, and increased intensity as well. More and worse, all due to global warming. But basic physics suggests that a warmer world should be a more tranquil world, and the observational data agrees. Ryan Mau has had several articles on this site showing that over the last 20 years, tropical cyclones have become less frequent and less intense, the exact opposite of the alarmist narrative. In the face of overwhelming evidence, it would have been embarrassing for the IPCC to not take a step back from their position. They did. In the executive summary of Chapter 11, it says:
We have low confidence that over the next few decades there will be global and regional increases in the intensity of the strongest TCs, and the decrease in global TC frequency as is projected for the end of the 21st century in response to increasing greenhouse gases (Chapter 14).
Well that statement is a bit ambiguous, is it not? It seems to imply that tropical cyclones will be about the same, or maybe a little bit worse, a bit less frequent, not a big enough change for them to make any statements with any degree of certainty. I first read it as a climb down from the frantic alarmism of the past few years on this topic.
That statement is, by omission, is a WHOPPER!
We already know from experience with AR4 that what the science says, what the AR4 report says, and what the Summary for Policy Makers says are three rather different things. We’ve got a healthy serving of the same strategy in this case. Read the statement from the Chapter 11 Executive Summary above again, and then see what they buried in the body of the report itself:
Two recent reports, the SREX (IPCC, 2012; particularly Seneviratne et al., 2012) assessment and a WMO Expert Team report on tropical cyclones and climate change (Knutson et al., 2010) indicate the response of global tropical cyclone frequency to projected radiative forcing changes is likely to be either no change or a decrease of up to a third by the end of the 21st century.
Ooops! So the science says nothing about intensity, but on frequency, somewhere between no change and a one third decrease. One would think that a projection of up to a one third decrease in tropical cyclone frequency would be important enough to make it into the Executive Summary?
Well, if record setting ice extent in the Antarctic is just a “slight increase”, I guess by extension that a one third decrease in tropical cyclones is equally un-noteworthy.
Chapter 11 can be downloaded here (PDF)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
vukcevic says:
December 24, 2012 at 2:33 am
but the data based reality, that will be relentlessly denied by anyone inclined to sell you the AGW defunct hypothesis. Sun –Earth link in the Antarctic is strong and undeniable
=======
The solar wind interacts with the earth’s atmosphere at the poles. These poles are moving more rapidly [than] at any time in history, away from the antarctic and towards the arctic.
While science remains firmly employed measuring radiation and its effects on climate, it has almost completely ignored the effects of magnetism and the solar wind. For example, we are told space is cold, yet the solar wind has temperatures as high as 1 million degrees.
We know the solar wind affects space weather. How is again that the solar wind does not affect earth weather? Isn’t the earth located somewhere in space, rather close in astronomical terms, to the source of the solar wind?
from wikipedia:
“The solar wind is responsible for the overall shape of Earth’s magnetosphere, and fluctuations in its speed, density, direction, and entrained magnetic field strongly affect Earth’s local space environment. For example, the levels of ionizing radiation and radio interference can vary by factors of hundreds to thousands; and the shape and location of the magnetopause and bow shock wave upstream of it can change by several Earth radii, exposing geosynchronous satellites to the direct solar wind. These phenomena are collectively called space weather.”
OT I know but I just want to wish Anthony and his family a very merry christmas and a big thanks for all his efforts over the year, very much appreciated.
Since AR4 represented the settled science shouldn’t AR5 merely be about correcting typos and adding recent confirming data?
We need two tables including page references. Table 1 showing AR4 quotes side by side with AR5 quotes. I suspect this will require at least four columns as AR5 is likely to include 3 three contradictory comments on each claim; the alarmist summary, the best guess and the fallback.
Table 2 should include much the same. For each claim; AR5 best guess, AR5 lower bound, AR5 upper bound and change between draft and approved.
This is a good change to crowd source a wiki.
ferd berple says:
December 24, 2012 at 7:38 am
More on the Solar wind and its effect on earth.
Press release 2 November 2009: Solar winds triggered by magnetic fields
Research paper in Astrophysical Journal
This process is not only strange but beyond belief. It is impossible to draw conclusions until you know the toted up results of what ever it is you are studying. You may had hopes, desires, ideas and so on but conclusion not possible. This is not just spin it is simply ideological, fiction. Spin it simply far to polite a term I think perhaps sophistic bull shit is more appropriate. I think I am beginning to sound like a grumpy old man. The grumpy part is firm and beyond doubt. The old is a conclusion yet to be drawn and no draft fiction can alter that.
The writing is on that wall for catastrophic Arctic melting by the looks of the recent change in the length of the melting season:
http://i45.tinypic.com/27yr1wy.png
A quick look at the rate of change of Arctic ice cover shows there has been a “sea change” is sea ice melting recently:
http://i46.tinypic.com/r7uets.png
The latest IPCC report will out of date before it’s published and relevance of this corrupt, bureaucratic, non-scientific body will fade quicker than voodoo science can melt a himalayan glacier.
So this is how a come-down looks. Change the tech stuff that doesn’t get read by those who run governments, but throw in some amiguous phrases to quote in the Summary for Policymakers. I hope Sen. Inhofe keeps on the case with Sen Kerry taking over as Sec of State. There is little hope for vigilance in the European government’s “consensus” unless there is someone going to listen to Vaclav Klaus of Czech Republic. So far we have to look for China and India to be our saviours.
Gail Combs says:
December 24, 2012 at 6:27 am
Since the dear Professor is so good at it do you think he could come up with a model to make me an instant billionaire….Well the Models ARE MAGIC aren’t they?
Miss Combs
In the Land of the Zimbabwe dollar every one is a billionaire.
In the Land of the IPCC models every model performs MAGIC.
The IPCC modelers efforts deserve to be financed in the Zimbabwean dollars.
The one thing that does seem to of been overlooked by climate science about the Arctic sea ice extent. ls the that decrease in the Arctic sea ice extent since 2008 has only been happening in the summer. By looking at the NH sea ice anomaly graph on the sea ice page, you will notice that the peak of the sea ice extent in winter has not been falling (apart from 2011) its just only that the summer sea ice extent has been. So since 2008 the Arctic sea ice extent has not been decreasing, its just that the difference between the summer and winter sea ice extent has become greater.
NetDr says:
December 24, 2012 at 7:24 am
I think you’ll find that wind speed is proportional to pressure difference. Hence that little scale thingy that often appears on surface pressure charts:
http://www.answers.com/topic/geostrophic-scale
🙂
It is a bit more complicated than just pressure. The pressure differences are created by differences in heating and humidity, which change the air density. Even that is modified by how rapidly that change occurs over distance. [A] small air pressure change that occurs over a very short distance can cause much higher wind speeds than the exact same pressure change across continental distances.
http://geography.about.com/od/climate/a/windpressure.htm
The key here is the non-uniform temperature distribution of the air mass. In a global warming world where the temperature of the arctic is closer to the temperature of the mid-latitudes would by definition result in lower wind speeds and wind energy. The exact opposite of what the AGW crowd claim.
“IPCC has gone to surround their projections with caveats that make it nearly impossible for any of them to be outright wrong.” Called “adhockery.” See E. T. Jaynes’ Probability Theory: The Logic of Science.
“But what of the alarmist narrative?”
Don’t fret. It will come with guns a blazin’ in the “Executive Summary.”
The honest scientists of the IPCC will show feeble outrage how the “Executive Summary” ignores the “Scientific” report’s demeanor.
Happens every time.
Thanks, David,
Good reporting!
Doug Huffman said:
December 24, 2012 at 11:33 am
“IPCC has gone to surround their projections with caveats that make it nearly impossible for any of them to be outright wrong.” Called “adhockery.”
——————————————————————
How about adhockeysitckery 🙂
Excellent analysis, David. I always enjoy your comments. It seems on the one hand, they want to be taken seriously for the stuff that they do, but on the other, are mindful that if there isn’t a crisis, there’s no need for them.
A very Merry Christmas to all, and particularly to Anthony and the mods, and the families. Thank you for what you do.
Paul
BREEEEPP! Personal Foul. Illegal use of “there’s” in a head post. 15 yards, Still first down.
David flips
That statement is, by omission, is a WHOPPER!
———–
Sure the language is a pain to decipher but it’s not particularly ambiguous. The key concept to grasp is the distinction between some projected outcome and the confidence in that projection.
So just to help David — the projection of a maximum fall in tropic cyclone frequency is not considered to be a reliable projection.
— the projection of an increase in TC intensity is not considered to be a reliable projection.
In other words there is some theory to support these projections and some evidence to support these projections but there are confounding factors. More evidence might contradict naive expectations based on the physics.
LazyTeenager;
More evidence might contradict naive expectations based on the physics.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I hereby CHALLENGE you to explain the physics and why expectations based on the physics should be considered naive.
If they gave a real opinion based on data a prediction uncertainty, it wouldn’t be as scary and grant money would dry up. NGO’s would be less important and would lose funding. Political organizations vying for power and control would have to use less heartwarming stuff than polar bears, saving the planet and the end of civilization as we know it. Since when has any of this had anything to do with science?
If IPCC ARs make testable predictions, they are science. If not, they are not science.
Their models predicted higher average global temperature with higher atmospheric CO2. That has not happened for 16 years, just as it didn’t happen for a similar period before about 1977, despite post-war CO2 increase (as observed in questionable data sets).
If, as some argue, Hansen in the ’80s & the IPCC in the ’90s & ’00s didn’t make actual predictions, then there was never any real science to be tested & found false.
LazyTeenager says: December 24, 2012 at 5:33 pm
“…In other words there is some theory to support these projections and some evidence to support these projections but there are confounding factors. More evidence might contradict naive expectations based on the physics….”
For once, a sensible statement from Lazy.
Except he should note that this applies to pretty much ALL of the modeled projections, in almost every area.
Well it is simple 4H club science. A place that has a Temperature of 300K radiates EM thermal radiation five times as fast as a place that is at 200K, other things being equal, and it does so at wavelengths that are 2/3 of those of the colder place, further from the CO2 15 micron band, and more into the atmospheric window, so it cools much faster.
Also it takes 3.375 times as much energy to heat a 300K place by 1 deg C than it does a 200K place, so heat energy moving from the tropics to the poles, warms the poles 3.375 times as much as it cools the tropics.
So of course the coldest places warm more than the hottest places, when energy is added.
At what point do you expect a range of scenarios to collapse to, if not one scenario, perhaps just a couple?
If you admit that the science is not settled, that the models are not adequate, then you might maintain the suite of scenarios, saying that the complexity of the actual world is beyond your understanding, that what happens now is not necessarily indicative of what happens later. But if you claim that we already know enough to determine what will happen, you must be prepared to say that the recent past is, in fact, indicative of the unfolding future. But, after 24 years we still see the same range of potential outcomes to increasing CO2 emissions, despite observations to-date that suggest the appropriate model to prepare for is that which predicts a temperature rise at the bottom of the range .
At which AR are we to expect “the” scenario for 2100? This is not too much to ask for. An AR every five years leaves us 16 more to 1993. Is the answer to this simple and reasonable question, AR21?
Tsk. Despite best efforts by Responsible Persons, actual science keeps leaking through the WG1 reports. They will be the death of the IPCC yet. Not a moment too soon!