Guest Post by Ira Glickstein.
The graphic from RealClimate asks “How well did Hansen et al (1988) do?” They compare actual temperature measurements through 2012 (GISTEMP and HadCRUT4) with Hansen’s 1988 Scenarios “A”, “B”, and “C”. The answer (see my annotations) is “Are you kidding?”
HANSEN’S SCENARIOS
The three scenarios and their predictions are defined by Hansen 1988 as follows
“Scenario A assumes continued exponential trace gas growth, …” Hansen’s predicted temperature increase, from 1988 to 2012, is 0.9 ⁰C, OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER than the actual increase of 0.22 ⁰C.
“scenario B assumes a reduced linear growth of trace gases, …” Hansen’s predicted temperature increase, from 1988 to 2012, is 0.75 ⁰C, OVER THREE TIMES HIGHER than the actual increase of 0.22 ⁰C.
“scenario C assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions such that the net climate forcing ceases to increase after the year 2000.” Hansen’s predicted temperature increase, from 1988 to 2012, is 0.29 ⁰C, ONLY 31% HIGHER than the actual increase of 0.22 ⁰C.
So, only Scenario C, which “assumes a rapid curtailment of trace gas emissions” comes close to the truth.
THERE HAS BEEN NO ACTUAL “CURTAILMENT OF TRACE GAS EMISSIONS”
As everyone knows, the Mauna Loa measurements of atmospheric CO2 proves that there has NOT BEEN ANY CURTAILMENT of trace gas emissions. Indeed, the rapid increase of CO2 continues unabated.
What does RealClimate make of this situation?
“… while this simulation was not perfect, it has shown skill in that it has out-performed any reasonable naive hypothesis that people put forward in 1988 (the most obvious being a forecast of no-change). … The conclusion is the same as in each of the past few years; the models are on the low side of some changes, and on the high side of others, but despite short-term ups and downs, global warming continues much as predicted.”
Move along, folks, nothing to see here, everything is OK, “global warming continues much as predicted.”
CONCLUSIONS
Hansen 1988 is the keystone of the entire CAGW Enterprise, the theory that Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming will lead to a near-term Climate Catastrophe. RealClimate, the leading Warmist website, should be congratulated for publishing a graphic that so clearly debunks CAGW and calls into question all the Climate models put forth by the official Climate Team (the “hockey team”).
Hansen’s 1988 models are based on a Climate Sensitivity (predicted temperature increase given a doubling of CO2) of 4.2 ⁰C. The actual CO2 increase since 1988 is somewhere between Hansen’s Scenario A (“continued exponential trace gas growth”) and Scenario B (“reduced linear growth of trace gases”), so, based on the failure of Scenarios A and B, namely their being high by a factor of three or four, it would be reasonable to assume that Climate Sensitivity is closer to 1 ⁰C than 4 ⁰C.
As for RealClimate’s conclusion that Hansen’s simulation “out-performed any reasonable naive hypothesis that people put forward in 1988 (the most obvious being a forecast of no-change)”, they are WRONG. Even a “naive” prediction of no change would have been closer to the truth (low by 0.22 ⁰C) than Hansen’s Scenarios A (high by +0.68 ⁰C) and B (high by 0.53 ⁰C)!
I quite like his hat. It would be a shame to see it being eaten.
Well, regarding the lots and lots of cold, sticky, white stuff still lying around outside my home right at this year’s spring equinox, I rather accept 1970ies predictions of a coming Ice Age.
Brrrrrrrrr!
knr says:
March 20, 2013 at 8:03 am
My predictions for this week wining lottery numbers are 6 numbers in the range 01-50 , given that is the total range possible, and this is the good part , I must be right no matter what numbers come up.
Does this make me overqualified to be a ‘climate scientists.
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Yes, it does. If’n you want to be a REAL climate scientist you need to predict that all lottery numbers will exceed 50. When the results come in, you argue because of your large error bars that you won anyway. Of course, your only hope of collecting is if the lottery is run by NSF.
Jimbo says:
March 20, 2013 at 8:59 am
You’re right, Jimbo. Nobody but an eedjit would tell people there was to be “no-change” in the climate. (I wonder if Gavin has a link or two for his so-called “no-change” climate prognosticators?)
the models are on the low side of some changes,
The only thing the models are low on is accuracy!
Ira
Further to my post (richard verney says: March 20, 2013 at 8:57 am), I am not saying that you are wrong, merely that your assertion may be wrong. Personally, i consider the 30degC figure to be highly suspect.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the MWP existed as a global event and it was warmer than today. What does that event say about climate sensitivity?
Ditto, if the Roman and the Minoan warm periods truly existed and were warmer than today?
Ditto, the Holocene Optimum existed and was warmer than today?
I would be interested to hear your views as to climate sensitivity with respect to those 4 scenarios.
Is it not the case that proponents of cAGW have to erase such events from the global temperature record since if they existed, then it follows that climate sensitivity must indeed be small (less than 1degC, perhaps the 0.25degC figure you mention)?
[richard verney: I accept that the Roman and Minoan and Medieval Warming Periods (as well as 1934 at least in the US :^) were warmer, on average, than the past decade. Therefore, as you say, Climate Sensitivity MUST be small, perhaps as small as 0.25 ⁰C, and very unlikely to be higher than 1 ⁰C. So we are in agreement. Ira]
ok IRA . . . you got me at “nothing can move faster than the speed of light” . . . . If that is true . . . why DOES . . E=mc2 (squared)?
(checked out your site) http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/ ABOUT MY ENTRY
it’s as far as I got~!
[Laurie Bowen: THANKS for checking out my Blog. For those who have not checked it out, my current top topic is “What is Time? Alan Alda’s 2013 Flame Challenge“. I make the claim that Time is the fourth dimension, plain and simple, and I subscribe to the theory that you and I and the whole Universe is zipping along the Time dimension at nearly the speed of light, which is as fast as anything can go. That is how I explain the fact that, when we move in any of the three Space dimensions, our speed in the Time dimension must reduce a bit such that the vector sum of our speed in Space and our speed in Time always equal exactly the speed of light. (Time Dilation and Length Contraction are well established, experimentally demonstrated truths. These effects are tiny even at the speeds of our fastest rockets, but they are real in that GPS satelites must correct for them. At speeds approaching a significant fraction of the speed of light, these effects can cause Time to slow down considerably.)
I have submitted a five and a half minute video that will be judged by 11-year-old science students. Please check it all out HERE.
As for your reference to e = mc^2, I don’t know what that has to do with the speed of light other than that Albert Einstein contributed to our understanding of the close inter-relationship between Energy and Mass as well as Space and Time. Ira]
Thank you Sir very much.
Alfred
For even more laughs, you should plot the absolute “global-averaged” temperature instead of the anomalies. GCMs cannot even get absolute temperatures right. And remember, energy transfer by thermal radiation varies as absolute temperature to the fourth power…
I predicated that Manchester United would win this years Champions League.I was wrong but only by one away goal. Sadly it was scored quite early in the competition…
How about we re-draw Hansens graphs starting from 1995 say? How well do the curves fit then? Perhaps “fit” is the wrong word…..
Don’t confuse “emissions” with “atmospheric concentrations”.
Hansen’s 3 scenarios were built around different GHG emissions paths. Exponential growth, linear growth, and abrupt curtailment.
For each emissions path, he projected atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. These are a derivative of each scenario… not the scenario itself.
The problems with Hansen (1988) are two fold…1) emissions have continued to rise as fast as scenario A, but concentrations have only risen in line with Scenario B, and 2) despite concentrations that have risen in line with Scenario B, temperatures have risen less than Scenario C.
RealClimate and Skeptical Science both gloss over problem 1)… pointing out that Scenario B should be the reference point for comparison because atmospheric concentrations of all GHGs have been below Scenario A. This is goal-post shifting.
Scenario A spelled out an emissions path, and is still the relevant benchmark for how the real world has played out..
If emissions have continued to grow exponentially, but atmospheric concentrations have risen less than projected, it means the model was wrong, and either GHG absorption by the biosphere is greater than projected, or atmospheric dwell time is less than projected. Either way… Hansen’s models were biased high.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says, (March 20, 2013 at 8:07 am): “All else being equal, I am pretty sure Climate Sensitivity is somewhere between 0.25 ⁰C and 1 ⁰C. If Atmospheric CO2 had zero effect, the Earth Surface temperatures would be over 30 ⁰C cooler, because the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is real. Thus, if you could hold Cosmic Rays and Multi-Decadal Oscillations and everything else constant, and then increased Atmospheric CO2, Earth Surface temperatures would increase.”
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Ira, this calculation about “over 30 ⁰C cooler” is so wrong. It is based on the notion that the Earth gets warmed as a disc and cools as a sphere. This is absurd, Ira. Earth gets warmed as a sphere too, because it rotates. The Earth without atmosphere would be very hot, because radiative cooling is very slow. Just start thinking about it.
The second thing is that back radiation (from CO2 or whatever) does not warm the source. This is impossible already on the theoretical level, because the assumption that it does leads in some cases to creating energy out of nothing, which means that the assumption is wrong. And on the experimental level it has been known since the R.W.Wood experiment (1909).
Time to wake up, Ira, and look at those things really critically.
In reply to tallbloke:
tallbloke says:
March 20, 2013 at 7:42 am
Good summary. The whole sensitivity debate is a red herring however. Changes in co2 level FOLLOW changes in temperature, at ALL timescales. Cause precedes effect.
William:
I do not understand the reasoning to support this comment. Post 2000 CO2 has increased linearly and there has been no increase in planetary temperature. What is driving the linear increase in CO2? If the 20th century increase in CO2 was caused by the increase in planetary temperature wouldn’t we expect the rise in CO2 have stopped as the rise in planetary temperature has stopped?
Comments:
1) Explaining the glacial/interglacial lag in CO2 rise is a separate problem. The specialists cannot explain the drop in atmospheric CO2 from interglacial to glacial phase or the increase from glacial to interglacial. The amount of CO2 that is absorbed by the oceans as they cool is almost offset by the reduction of CO2 due to shrinking of the biosphere (vegetation) due to the massive ice sheets. The proposed hypotheses (mechanisms) to explain the change create paradoxes when applied to other periods.
2) The question of what maintains atmospheric CO2 and why atmospheric CO2 changes on geologically long time periods is not understood. The proposed hypotheses (mechanisms) to explain the change create paradoxes when applied to other periods. The hypothesis that increased erosion removed the atmospheric CO2 for example results in catastrophically cyclically low atmospheric CO2 levels (end of plant life).
3) The current observation that there is no correlation in planetary temperature to changes CO2 and the observation on geologically long time periods that planetary temperature is not correlated to atmospheric CO2 can be explained by the CO2 greenhouse mechanism saturating due to clouds in the tropics increasing and decreasing to resist forcing change. Lindzen and Choi’s sensitivity paper supports the assertion that the planet resists forcing change by increasing or decreasing clouds in the tropics.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167.full
Using a variety of sedimentological criteria, Frakes et al. (18) have concluded that Earth’s climate has cycled several times between warm and cool modes for roughly the last 600 My. Recent work by Veizer et al. (28), based on measurements of oxygen isotopes in calcite and aragonite shells, appears to confirm the existence of these long-period (_135 My) climatic fluctuations. Changes in CO2 levels are usually assumed to be among the dominant mechanisms driving such long-term climate change (29).
Superficially, this observation would seem to imply that pCO2 does not exert dominant control on Earth’s climate at time scales greater than about 10 My. A wealth of evidence, however, suggests that pCO2 exerts at least some control [see Crowley and Berner (30) for a recent review]. Fig. 4 cannot by itself refute this assumption. Instead, it simply shows that the ‘‘null hypothesis’’ that pCO2 and climate are unrelated cannot be rejected on the basis of this evidence alone.
http://faculty.washington.edu/battisti/589paleo2005/Papers/SigmanBoyle2000.pdf
Glacial/interglacial variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide by Daniel M. Sigman & Edward A. Boyle
The exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the surface ocean would reach completion over the course of six to twelve months if there were no other processes redistributing inorganic carbon in the ocean. However, the pCO2 of surface waters is continuously being reset by its interaction with the deep ocean reservoir of inorganic carbon, which is more than 25 times that of the atmosphere and surface ocean combined (Fig. 2).
As ocean temperature was lower during ice ages, it is an obvious first step to consider its effect on atmospheric CO2. The lower temperatures of the glacial ocean would have reduced the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by drawing more of it into the ocean. The deep ocean, which is the dominant volume of ocean water, has a mean temperature of 2 8C. Sea water begins to freeze at about -2C, producing buoyant ice. As a result, deep ocean water could not have been more than 4C colder during the last ice age, placing an upper bound on how much additional CO2 this water could have sequestered simply by cooling. The potential cooling of surface waters in polar regions such as the Antarctic is also constrained by the freezing point of sea water.
There are uncertainties in each of these effects, but it seems that most of the 80±100 p.p.m.v. CO2 change across the last glacial/interglacial transition must be explained by other processes. (My comment than by temperature variance which forces CO2 out of solution in the ocean.) We must move on to the more complex aspects of the ocean carbon cycle.
What caused Glacial-Interglacial CO2 Change?
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/revgeo/rog.pdf
Abstract. Fifteen years after the discovery of major glacial/interglacial cycles in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere, it seems that all of the simple mechanisms for lowering pCO2 have been eliminated. We use a model of ocean and sediment geochemistry, which includes new developments of iron limitation of biological production at the sea surface and anoxic diagenesis and its effect on CaCO3 preservation in the sediments, to evaluate the current proposals for explaining the glacial/ interglacial pCO2 cycles within the context of the ocean carbon cycle. After equilibration with CaCO3 the model is unable to generate glacial pCO2 by increasing ocean NO3 2 but predicts that a doubling of ocean H4SiO4 might suffice. However, the model is unable to generate a doubling of ocean H4SiO4 by any reasonable changes in SiO2 weathering or production.
Our conclusions force us to challenge one or more of the assumptions at the foundations of chemical oceanography. We can abandon the stability of the “Redfield ratio” of nitrogen to phosphorus in living marine phytoplankton and the ultimate limitation of marine photosynthesis by phosphorus. We can challenge the idea that the pH of the deep ocean is held relatively invariant by equilibrium with CaCO3. A third possibility, which challenges physical oceanographers, is that diapycnal mixing in ocean circulation models exceeds the rate of mixing in the real ocean, diminishing the model pCO2 sensitivity to biological carbon uptake.
@Ira Glickstein: “If Atmospheric CO2 had zero effect, the Earth Surface temperatures would be over 30 ⁰C cooler, because the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is real. ”
Sure about that? This is based on calculations assuming Earth as a black body. Except it is known that there is not a body in the universe that actually behaves as a black body. The Earth is not a good contender – I mean, exactly at what point should you consider it as a black body? On the Earth’s surface or at the top of the troposphere or some mean point from top of atmosphere to Earth’s surface or….. where?
[Ryan: True, the Earth is NOT a PERFECT Black Body, nor is anything in the Universe. The Earth is not a perfect absorber nor a perfect emitter of electro-magnetic radiation. The Earth has an albedo (reflectiveness) significantly greater than zero. The Earth reflects around 30% of the incoming Sunlight back out into Space, so only about 70% of that Sunlight energy participates in the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect”. All the calculations I have seen include the effect of our albedo. Ira]
Ira, you’ve got to clean up that graph. Too much information crammed into a small space. It’s like you’re talking so fast it’s hard to recognize the words. Don’t change the story; just make it more elegant.
24 years of being wrong, only Ehrlich can beat that.
while my prediction that Romney would win the 2012 election was not perfect, it has shown skill in that it has out-performed the naive hypothesis of no-winner in that election.
Always a pleasure to see a post by Ira. Thank, Ira.
“… while this simulation was not perfect, it has shown skill in that it has out-performed any reasonable naive hypothesis that people put forward in 1988 (the most obvious being a forecast of no-change). …” –“Real”Climate
While Bernie Madoff was not perfect, he has shown honesty in that he stole a lot less than other people we can’t name might have.
This image is quite revealing about the “heat trapping” skills of the CO2:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.33/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.33/trend/plot/rss/from:1997/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/uah/from:2004.75/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:1997/normalise/offset:0.34
the CAGW-camp should come up with a very good explanation
Ira I would tend to agree but I think the negative feedbacks are greater so that’s why from being a skeptic I now believe C02 has no effect whatsoever on global temperatures. If anything an excess of C02 would tend to lower global temperatures as a compensatory mechanism. I think both Lindzen and Spencer have shown this somewhat. There is evidence I believe from Holocene records that 3000ppm+- C02 was related with massive ice ages?
Well, it took you a month and a half to come up with that comment on the original Realclimate post. By the way, trace gaz means a lot more than just CO2 (methane, cholofluorocarbons et al.)
[François: Actually, although you are right that the RealClimate posting I commented on has been up for several weeks, I only just saw it a few days ago. My visits to RC are infrequent, about as often as I go to the dentist, and for similar painful reasons of duty. The above WUWT posting only took me several hours to compose.
And, yes, “trace gas emissions” include more than CO2. There’s CH4 and lots of other minor contributing “Greenhouse gases”. However, is there any evidence you know of that “trace gas emissions”, broadly defined, have ceased their increase since the year 2000? That is what Hansen Scenario C assumes, and that is why Scenario C is only about 30% higher than the actual data posted on the actual RC graphic that I annotated.
Actual “trace gas emissions” are somewhere between Scenarios A and B, but the temperature change is way less than predicted for Scenarios A and B. Actual results are close to Scenario C but “trace gas emissions” are close to Scenarios A and B. So, what is your point? I’m listening. Ira]
The C projection even does not present a realistic picture from using the same start point instead of a say 5 year rolling projection that would show temperatures being flat since around 2000.
If you don`t move the base that projection will still show a rising trend 5 years from now
even if temperatures remain flat, Words like `foot` `own` and `shooting` come to mind……………..
Hansen till wrong but only by a few degrees instead of entirely.
FTA: “As everyone knows, the Mauna Loa measurements of atmospheric CO2 proves that there has NOT BEEN ANY CURTAILMENT of trace gas emissions. Indeed, the rapid increase of CO2 continues unabated.”
There has not been any curtailment of emissions, that much is true. But, the rate of change of CO2 has leveled out, in lockstep with the leveling out of temperatures. Our emissions do not control CO2 – Nature bats them away with barely an acknowledgement.
[Bart: Have a close look at the Mauna Loa CO2 data (second graphic above) and tell me where CO2 has “leveled out”. Yes, since CO2 has its small seasonal ups and downs there are some months where it is level, but, on a smoothed yearly basis it seems to me to be a continued rapid increase that is slightly exponential in the upward direction. Ira]
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
March 20, 2013 at 8:07 am
“All else being equal, I am pretty sure Climate Sensitivity is somewhere between 0.25 ⁰C and 1 ⁰C.”
All else being equal being the operative phrase. All else is not equal.
“If Atmospheric CO2 had zero effect, the Earth Surface temperatures would be over 30 ⁰C cooler, because the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is real.”
A globally positive function is not necessarily monotonic. Local sensitivity – the incremental change in temperature due to an incremental change in CO2 concentration at the current position, i.e., the partial derivative – does not have to be significant or even positive. The data show that there has been no significant deviation from longstanding patterns in the past century.
[Bart: What does that link or your mathematical jibber-jabber have to do with the past century? Or with the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” that makes the Earth Surface at least 30 ⁰C warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere lacked “Greenhouse gases”? I read your words four times and visited your link. Please explain your point in English. advTHANKSance. Ira]
richard verney says:
March 20, 2013 at 8:37 am
“If one looks at the 33 years of satellite data then there would appear to be no first order correlation between temperature rise and the rise in CO2 emissions.”
But, there is a definite correlation between the rise in CO2 concentration and temperature.
[Bart: I have to agree with Richard Verney that there is no FIRST ORDER correlation between temperature rise and the rise in CO2 emissions. Please don’t simply point to some graph. Explain what you mean so even Richard and I can understand. advTHANKSance. Ira]
So clear, so simple yet the other guys will still try and pretend Jim was right.
Thanks Ira, this is going out to all stations Keitho.
“What if there was a rapid curtailment after 1988, Hansen would be seen as a superstar scientist.” –Jimbo
He’d be disappointed with that title. He’d much prefer “Messiah.”
http://fuelfix.com/files/2012/12/JamesHansen-306×204.jpg