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)!
Should the vertical scale on the CO2 graph start at zero?
In the interest of accuracy, we should drop the term “greenhouse effect.” What happens in the atmosphere in no way resembles what happens in a greenhouse, which heats itself by suppressing convection.
There is a growing body of research that calls into question the entire notion of “increased CO2 levels raising the earth’s temperature.” Physicist Ferenc Miskolczi has done some groundbreaking work in this area.
The current hiatus in the rise of global mean temperature represents a temporary pause, nothing more. The earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age, with various time-localized plateaus and accelerations along the way; and it will continue to warm in that same pattern until at some point in the future, it doesn’t.
.
In the meantime, the debate over human-induced climate change will continue to pass through the GHG Narrative Diode.
.
The GHG Narrative Diode works this way….. any plateau which is anything less than a statistically significant drop in Global Mean Temperature occurring continuously over some long period of time — let’s figure on three to five decades — will continue to be interpreted by the climate science community as representing insufficient evidence that a human caused GHG-driven global warming trend isn’t still operative as the primary driver for climate change.
.
Said another way, a statistically significant trend in falling global mean temperature must occur continuously over some very lengthy period of time — thirty years at the minimum, but more likely fifty years — before the climate science community ever begins to question the narrative of human-caused GHG-driven global warming.
Ira, looking through the details of the paper, and comparing to actual emissions, I would say Scenario B is the closest to reality.
– – – – – – –
Eliza,
Your comment presents a climate science thesis that I recommend is worthy of significant funding to expand the research base on it. The climate science community perhaps has finally opened enough for such views to start to be pursued. I hope some climate scientists who are enterprising and are traditional scientific skeptics will engage the task!
The paradigm has shifted from alarming / dangerous AGW by CO2 toward one of minimal observed or below attribution level effects of radiative gas CO2 on the Total Earth Atmospheric System.
Take care.
John
Yes, but when are the environment and ‘science’ journalists in the MSM going to get their heads around this stuff? And the fact that Hansen and his ‘team’ live in a fantasy world? Who is going to persuade them to do so?
Even with right and science on their side, the sceptics are still losing the wider argument. There had to be some way to get it out there….
Funny Ad! This is the one I saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUE5a-k1quk
It is always fun when current prophets forget that the best prophecies are always written long after the fact.
Heathens! No one cares about temps NOW as they are however going to shoot off the page any moment, just you deniers wait and see. You only have to look at the news to see every kind of weather is ‘unprecidented’ and ‘proof’. In fact we don’t even need charts or facts or poor people…if we don’t like them there is always the block function, if not we can go na-na-na-na
/sarc
But is it not reasonable to assume that if there were no CO2 – particularly in the higher, colder and DRIER regions of the troposphere – then it’s likely there would be less atmospheric water vapour. Remember a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.
This is one of the reasons I suspect that any feedback effect is probably slightly postive.
Hansen has yet to publish his Feb 2013 data.
Maybe it is not cooperating with his preferred outcome and he needs more time to persuade the data t warm up.
They are trying to sell a SPECTACULAR FAIL as success.
Nice try, guys.
Indeed there is. From ice core data, Hans Erren found it to be about 10 ppm per 1 deg C – which is roughly what we see when we look at the rate of CO2 change during El Nino and La Nina. The atmospheric CO2 change is always positive – but it’s greater in warmer years than colder.
Using Erren’s estimate the temperature rise since ~1850 has contributed about 7 ppm to the overall CO2 increase. Others argue it might be nearer to 16 ppm. Whatever – it sure isn’t anywhere near the 100 or so ppm we’ve seen in the past 150 years.
[John Finn: THANKS for clearing that up. I agree that rising global temperatures, due to any cause, will result in a small increase in CO2 levels. Over the past 130 years or so, we’ve seen a net temperature increase of 0.5 ⁰C to 0.8 ⁰C, along with a CO2 increase of over 100 ppmv. Perhaps 10% of that 100 ppmv may be due to temperature increase, 20% tops. So, it is not a FIRST ORDER effect.
The other 80 or 90% of the rise in CO2 is due to a variety of causes, including unprecedented levels burning of fossil fuels. I hasten to add that the amount of global warming has been overstated, the amount due to human activitues (both fossil fuels and land usage that has decreased albedo) has also been overstated, and that predictions of climate catastrophe are unwarranted. Indeed, if, based on the fact that the current Sunspot cycle #24 is on the low/long side, we enter a cooling period similar to past eras of a series of low/long cycles, future generations may thank us for contributing a bit to the warming of the Earth. Ira]
François says:
March 20, 2013 at 10:18 am
Well, it took you a month and a half to come up with that comment on the original Realclimate post.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s your rebuttal? It took six weeks? If he’d done it in 2 weeks would it be more right? Would Hansen be less wrong?
Troll quality has declined significantly in the last two years. Perhaps this is a proxy for something?
[Dave: Great to “see” you again! I agree with your comments to François, but let us all calm down. Perhaps François will change his mind if he hangs around WUWT and us for an extended period of time. Ira]
Given that temps have virtually flatlined the past 16 years (or more), it would actually be more reasonable to assume that the actual increase of .22C had little, if anything to do with C02.
Where does the 0.22 C line come from and how was it calculated? It doesn’t seem to reflect anything else on the graph. Maybe I am missing something here.
[xham: I merely took the midpoint between GISTEMP and HADCrut4, as plotted on the RealClimate graphic for 1988, and drew an arrow to the same midpoint for 2012, and subtracted the (estimated) numbers. Thanks for asking. Ira]
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
March 20, 2013 at 8:07 am
“…If Atmospheric CO2 had zero effect, the Earth Surface temperatures would be over 30 ⁰C cooler, because the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is real….”
The fatal flaw of the greenhouse effect resolves around the idea and ignored that energy stored in the oceans doesn’t contribute to it,. Fortunately it contributes a lot and the 1-4% water vapor and CO2 in the atmosphere cannot be claimed to be the 33c difference on there own. The black body using Stefan’s law to show the difference of 33c doesn’t take into account a water body storing extra energy. IMO the current theory of the greenhouse effect is wrong and calculation, observational data is needed to estimate how much energy this contributes to the overall greenhouse effect itself.
What did Feynman say of data matching theory? I’d the data doesn’t match the theory, then the theory is wrong. It’s that simple.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
New age math: 22 is greater than 53 when it suits your purpose.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/20/how-well-did-hansen-1988-do/#comment-1252989
That is exactly Right! . . . . and that is exacty why we have GOLF!
If the warmists really believed really,really hard then the temperature would be higher. They are not believing hard enough, the crystals are not responding. Gaia feels unloved and is letting the Physics monster win.
John Finn says:
March 20, 2013 at 11:44 am
“Indeed there is. From ice core data…”
Forget your trumped up ice core analysis. That is a massive, flailing rationalization.
The relationship is right here before your eyes. Temperatures drives CO2. There is no way to contradict it – the best, most modern, most direct, most reliable measurements indicate that temperature drives CO2, and CO2 has little effect on temperature in the modern era.
Important reminder that Hansen devised these scenario’s just after only 8 years of global warming. Yet somehow in [their] delusional world 16 years is still not long enough to falsify it. You are wrong again for dozens time and you you are wrong now. The planet Earth has falsified you not the skeptics. The skeptics just have to show the plentiful supportive evidence towards this conclusion. Which is why the CAGW’s have lost the plot with most most bizarre tactics only can be described as not science.
p.s. It can not be claimed to be a short term natural pause any more because it is now longer than any since the instrumental record began. The only periods that occurred longer than this involved long term cooling.
If it don’t fit, use a bigger hammer…
Since so many are chiming in on Dr. Glickstein’s statement below:
“If Atmospheric CO2 had zero effect, the Earth Surface temperatures would be over 30 ⁰C cooler, because the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is real.”
I’d like to chime in myself. The question I pose is: “What precisely is meant by the Earth’s Surface in this calculation?”
The textbook figure that is usually used for this calculation is around 15 ⁰C (15 actual measured degrees less -15 theoretical degrees yields 30 degrees of “Greenhouse Effect” warming). I would like to argue that the textbook number of 15 is higher than true surface temperature of the Earth by more than 5 degrees C. The textbook number 15 for surface temperature of the earth comes from a merge of air and sea surface temperature records. What is universally overlooked is a vast pool of deep ocean temperatures approaching 4 ⁰C that is also part of earth’s surface temperature. It’s a fascinating phenomenon in and of itself and is due to the fact that water is densest at 4 degrees C. In effect the earth’s ocean is refrigerated. This refrigeration, as I call it, implies that there is a stream of energy exiting the system (purportedly in the Arctic) that is generally overlooked and unincorporated into the calculation the of degrees of the “Greenhouse Effect” on the Earth’s surface. Assuming straight line proportionality, I would argue that climate sensitivity calculations based on 30 degrees of Greenhouse Effect are overestimated by 20 to 30 percent simply due to this oversight.
For purposes of incoming energy what amounts to the Earth’s surface is simple, it is anything struck by sunlight. When considering what the Earth’s warmed surface amounts to things are a little more complicated. Nonetheless, it should include all areas influenced by both incoming sunlight and outgoing longwave radiation. This includes the deep ocean.
[Hank Henry: Let us assume, for sake of argument, that the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is overstated, as you claim, by “20 to 30 percent”. That would change my statement to “over 20 or 25 ⁰C cooler”. So, even accepting your math, the Atmospheric “Greenhouse Effect” is still real. Ira]
Temperature once was the main driver of CO2. That means when we look at the past and see temperature and CO2 rising together we cannot assume that CO2 is the cause and the temperature change is the effect; and use this to infer what what changes in CO2 will do to temperature today.
However we don’t know that it is still true today that temperature alone is driving CO2. In fact we have good reason to suspect that CO2 today is also being driven by other things like the burning of fossil fuels and land use changes (e.g. desertification). If today’s higher CO2 levels are caused by multiple factors with temperature being only one of them then we cannot predict what will happen to CO2 by looking at temperature alone.
In fact trying to predict CO2 from temperature is the same kind of mistake as trying to predict temperature from CO2.