Steve Milloy at Junkscience.com posted this yesterday, and even though it is a few months old, it’s too funny to pass up. It is so ridiculous that it reminds me of Al Gore’s famous claim that the Earth’s mantle is “millions of degrees” on national television.
Even the worst case scenario computer models pushed by IPCC don’t come close to this, and they only go out to to the year 2100, because the uncertainty beyond that is so great.
![2.01_-_observed_and_modelled_global_temperature_growth_1000-2100[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/2-01_-_observed_and_modelled_global_temperature_growth_1000-21001.png?quality=75)
The Grist writer who made the ridiculous statement, David Roberts, is famous for regularly making wacky claims, such as his suggestion that climate skeptics should undergo Nuremberg style war crime trials.
My question is: How does somebody who makes claims like that get cleared for a TED talk? Watch the video and note all the emotional video and image insertions to go with his rhetoric, then note the graphs.
Junkscience writes:
Nuremberg-Trials-for-Skeptics-Guy says Earth’s surface temp may reach 180-degrees F by 2300 without emissions curbs
But the Earth only re-radiates so much radiation for CO2 to absorb and there’s already a surfeit of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The clip starts at about 10:15 into the video.
Note: watch until 11:08, where he makes the 180F claim. – Anthony
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Gotta love the FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE at the end with the music.
Assuming somehow Earth could get the extra energy from the sun needed to sustain such an increase, and assuming somehow CO2 manages to overcome its limits related to LWIR response in the atmosphere at band saturation, it still falls short if we take the worst case IPCC model path at project into the future to 2300.
Depending on who you ask, the average surface temperature of the Earth now is anywhere from 57F to 61F. For the purpose of this demonstration, I’ll choose 60F. I’ve taken the IPCC worst case projection and extended the line all the way into the year 2300, getting a anomaly value of 18.6C (65.5F -32F for zero line of anomaly= 35.5F) and adding that to our current average Earth temperature of 60F, (or his comment on “places of the Earth that have an average of 80F”) it STILL comes up short.
Here’s why it can’t continue in a straight line, nearly straight up as Roberts claims.
The LWIR response of CO2 is logarithmic, not linear. We don’t get much more heating for a doubling of CO2.
And then there’s Earth’s own thermostat…and the demonstrated low climate sensitivity:
…there have now been several recent papers showing much the same – numerous factors including: the increase in positive forcing (CO2 and the recent work on black carbon), decrease in estimated negative forcing (aerosols), combined with the stubborn refusal of the planet to warm as had been predicted over the last decade, all makes a high climate sensitivity increasingly untenable. A value (slightly) under 2 is certainly looking a whole lot more plausible than anything above 4.5.’ – James Annan
Wild temperature increases like the Roberts 180F by 2300 claim, and the more recent uptick hockey schtick by Joe Romm:
…look increasingly laughable.
garymount says:
March 22, 2013 at 7:57 am
He also made a mistake at the very beginning of his talk. Without GHG’s it would be about 30 C colder, but he describes it in such a way that it would be about 280 C colder. Anyone else catch that mistake?
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That suggests not a mere misstatement, but a conceptual error of major proportions. If he believes that the earth would be at absolute zero if not for the atmosphere, we’re talking Al Gore league scientific illiteracy.
seanbrady says:
March 22, 2013 at 10:57 am
I think I found the source of the Ehrlich “Blue Steam” quote. He seems to be speaking about population and not breeder reactors:
http://newspaperarchive.com/ames-daily-tribune/1969-08-16
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Thanks for posting that link. I wish I had the tech savvy to be able to print the news article out to pin on my office door for passing students to read. Ehrlich and his ilk need to be publicly lambasted at every opportunity.
In an unrelated note: I was once editor-in-chief of a high school newspaper back in the dark ages. I thought our typesetting was cleaner than that. Probably wasn’t, though. What a difference word processing has made in our daily expectations! (Strange that public expectations of scientists are not concomitantly higher.)
Heh. Reminded me of this:
See? You can make this stuff up! 🙂
Even the worst case scenario computer models pushed by IPCC don’t come close to this, and they only go out to to the year 2100, because the uncertainty beyond that is so great.
100 years???
Try 3 days!
I guess TEDx = Totally Erroneous Drivel, xtreme.
TRM says: “TEDX have recently pulled several videos that “didn’t live up to review” by their scientific advisory board. Perhaps if we all emailed them questioning this bogus bit of “science” they would do the same?’
Do you have a link, TRM?
What kind of IDIOT gives a shit WHAT happens in 2100?
I think its simple, Climatology accolades are from the, math is hard persuasion .
Mandelbrot realized that weather can not be modelled without new mathematical tools, chaos theory was the start.
But thats work, linear mathematics is so much easier so we have linear thinkers proclaiming the output of linear models, completely missing the cycles of real weather.
When you know the word of God, all and any garbage in will produce Gospel Out.
The best part is: I can’t watch the Gristers video because I’m behind the Great Music Wall of germany, where any video that our local RIAA equivalent, the GEMA, thinks contains precious copyrighted music, gets blocked. (Only when they actually care; in this case they did. I think their algorithms only catch crappy music anyway.)
Louis says:
March 22, 2013 at 11:20 am
“Even if he assumes it would take that long for the oceans to warm up, wouldn’t it still have to increase air temperatures first to warm the oceans? I just don’t get where they come up with the 50 year lag.”
Maybe he lives under the mistaken impression that LWIR penetrates water.
David Wells says:
March 22, 2013 at 8:53 am
says”
maybe he would like to be in the UK in West Yorkshire with blizzards and howling winds and drifts and it was the first day of spring two days ago.”
So true (u can be far from me then), also this from the daily mail today.
“Parts of the UK received 15cm (6in) of snow today, and with temperatures falling as low as -3C (27F), the weekend is expected to be the coldest March weekend for more than 50 years.
Up to a foot of snow is forecast to fall in areas such as the Pennines and North Wales overnight and into tomorrow.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297343/UK-weather-Up-foot-snow-just-hours-leads-travel-chaos.html#comments
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why with co2( ok carbon /sarc) at nearly 400ppm, why the temperature has not continued to go up for the last 17 years, soon to be 18? ? answers on the back of postcard please from a nice beach /sarc
Don says:
March 22, 2013 at 11:19 am
Chad Wozniak says:
March 22, 2013 at 9:58 am
Nuremberg trials for skeptics? What about the carbon policy wonks in the UK that killed 30,000 people from hypothermia in the UK this year?
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Hi Chad, I’ve seen this troubling claim a few times recently but have not found a source for it. Can you (or another reader) supply one? Thanks!
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Hi Don. I’ve got this from the Office of National Statistics giving the figure of 24,000 excess winter deaths for the winter of 2011/2012 (England and Wales only). Each year is different, of course. I don’t know what the highest count (year) is, but it’s very disturbing that’s it’s as high as it is.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health2/excess-winter-mortality-in-england-and-wales/2011-12–provisional–and-2010-11–final-/index.html
Even the worst case scenario computer models pushed by IPCC don’t come close to this, and they only go out to to the year 2100, because the uncertainty beyond that is so great
You must mean 21:00 tonight, of course 🙂
When you hear things like this and think “nobody could possibly believe that”, don’t doubt the credulity of your average person. I once posted a messed up google maps image ( http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mau297uNmx1rhptwbo1_1280.jpg ) that looked rather wavy, along with the (joking, so I thought) caption “Global Warming causing Las Vegas to melt!” – and people believed it was really happening!
TonyG,
Stop it, you’re scaring me! People can’t be that credulous …can they?
D.B. Stealey says:
Stop it, you’re scaring me! People can’t be that credulous …can they?
I scared ME. Unfortunately, they are.
Considering the present weather conditions here in the UK, this is also relevant:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9078273/Hypothermia-deaths-double-over-five-years.html
And so is this:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-21881129
Yes! in our Government’s wisdom we have switched off one of our major (coal-fired) power stations when the snow is a couple of feet thick and our gas (that’s gas, not petrol) is now in such short supply that we are within a couple of weeks of running out.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9947340/Gas-is-running-low-as-chill-continues.html
It gets better (or worse, depending on where you’re sitting):-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-21895654
We’ve closed a nuclear power station so that the workers can get home!
IMO, the reason why popular belief in CAGW is falling away, is actually due to their over exposure to the “Boy that cried Wolf” scare mongering pablum that is fed to them, yet the hiatus in warming continues to be fact as CO2 levels continue to rise.
HarveyS says:
March 22, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why with co2( ok carbon /sarc) at nearly 400ppm, why the temperature has not continued to go up for the last 17 years, soon to be 18? ? answers on the back of postcard please from a nice beach /sarc
That’s easy. The carbon from 50 years ago is on a break. Hey, it was the 60’s, so that’s cool. Can you dig it? Come to think of it though, so is the carbon from the 50’s. You see, unlike ordinary carbon, man-made carbon works in strange, almost-magical ways. It does what it wants to, when it wants to do it. You just need to be patient.
180F by the year 2300? That’s a long time to wait for a properly poached egg…..
MtK
tim maguire says:
March 22, 2013 at 9:51 am
This is currently my biggest complaint about the debate–the incredible carelessness/shameless dishonesty of the CAGW crowd. CAGW, AGW, global warming, and climate change are all used interchangably. This linguistic slight of hand is consistently used by CAGW believers to twist the debate to their advantage.
Even on this blog I’ve seen “climate change” used Where CAGW is meant. The skeptic community needs to be more vigilant in making sure the proper terms are used. I believe real headway could be made simply by policing the conversation better.
I agree.
I even take it further and use “CAGW by CO2” to be even more specific.
Good grief! The geniuses at TED must have lost their collective minds sponsoring scare-mongering junk like this. Whatever credibility they had will take a big hit.
TEDx events are paid for by the speaker/promoter.
So, you can buy your own if you want. If you are as crazy as this guy is, maybe you think it will pay for itself ( or maybe the crazy organization you work for does) or maybe wind farms will become economic or maybe temps will rise 100F, or maybe a person should just be sensible and not so prone to dump in their pants over nothing.
chris y — March 22, 2013 at 8:05 am:
“Keep in mind that Roberts is being much more conservative than Hansen, who wrote this with a straight face: ‘After the ice is gone, ….. I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.’
Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren.”
His “Venus syndrome” is a runaway greenhouse effect, another fairy tale to add to those “storms” of his grandchildren. He was originally an astronomer on the Pioneer Venus project but he abandoned his job, jumped over to GISS, and in two years became the boss. Obviously by pre-arrangement, to facilitate spreading the gospel of global warming. Still, from his record you might think that he knows something about Venus but it turns out that he is totally ignorant. The geology of Venus, you see, is very different from the earth because Venus has no plate tectonics. This is vital to understanding its atmosphere. Radioactive heat on earth is constantly vented by plate boundary volcanism but on Venus it just builds up below the crust. It will form numerous in-plate volcanoes which so weaken the crust that it breaks up into large slabs that sink into the interior. A new crust is then formed and the cycle begins again. Judging from impact crater counts one such repaving cycle may take from 300 to 600 million years to complete. If the planet is the same age as the earth is there may have been as many as ten such cycles in its history. Its atmosphere is entirely a product of these giant eructations and has nothing whatsoever to do with any runaway greenhouse effect. But Hansen keeps spreading this misinformation and thereby fools people unfamiliar with the true state of Venusian atmosphere into unjustified fear of a non-existent danger. Someone should straighten him out every time he brings out this stupidity as science.
He did not make the claim you are accusing him of making. If your point of view was honest, would you need to lie to defend it?
I’m holding my own in the comments under this ludicrous video ( posting as pasanonic ) but it’s not my area of expertise and i may struggle with the serious bits. Any help gratefully received.
I’ll still argue. not because I’m a contrarian but because when I think I’m right I’ll be right, dammit.
I’m happy to be told I’m wrong as most of my education is fuelled by whisky 😉