J Bryan Kramer writes of this interview with IPCC lead author Hans Van Storch in SPIEGEL.
Interview conducted by Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter
Climate experts have long predicted that temperatures would rise in parallel with greenhouse gas emissions. But, for 15 years, they haven’t. In a SPIEGEL interview, meteorologist Hans von Storch discusses how this “puzzle” might force scientists to alter what could be “fundamentally wrong” models.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Storch, Germany has recently seen major flooding. Is global warming the culprit?
Storch: I’m not aware of any studies showing that floods happen more often today than in the past. I also just attended a hydrologists’ conference in Koblenz, and none of the scientists there described such a finding.
SPIEGEL: But don’t climate simulations for Germany’s latitudes predict that, as temperatures rise, there will be less, not more, rain in the summers?
Storch: That only appears to be contradictory. We actually do expect there to be less total precipitation during the summer months. But there may be more extreme weather events, in which a great deal of rain falls from the sky within a short span of time. But since there has been only moderate global warming so far, climate change shouldn’t be playing a major role in any case yet.
SPIEGEL: Would you say that people no longer reflexively attribute every severe weather event to global warming as much as they once did?
Storch: Yes, my impression is that there is less hysteria over the climate. There are certainly still people who almost ritualistically cry, “Stop thief! Climate change is at fault!” over any natural disaster. But people are now talking much more about the likely causes of flooding, such as land being paved over or the disappearance of natural flood zones — and that’s a good thing.
SPIEGEL: Will the greenhouse effect be an issue in the upcoming German parliamentary elections? Singer Marius Müller-Westernhagen is leading a celebrity initiative calling for the addition of climate protection as a national policy objective in the German constitution.
Storch: It’s a strange idea. What state of the Earth’s atmosphere do we want to protect, and in what way? And what might happen as a result? Are we going to declare war on China if the country emits too much CO2 into the air and thereby violates our constitution?
SPIEGEL: Yet it was climate researchers, with their apocalyptic warnings, who gave people these ideas in the first place.
Storch: Unfortunately, some scientists behave like preachers, delivering sermons to people. What this approach ignores is the fact that there are many threats in our world that must be weighed against one another. If I’m driving my car and find myself speeding toward an obstacle, I can’t simple yank the wheel to the side without first checking to see if I’ll instead be driving straight into a crowd of people. Climate researchers cannot and should not take this process of weighing different factors out of the hands of politics and society.
…
SPIEGEL: Just since the turn of the millennium, humanity has emitted another 400 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, yet temperatures haven’t risen in nearly 15 years. What can explain this?
Storch: So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We’re facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn’t happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.
SPIEGEL: Do the computer models with which physicists simulate the future climate ever show the sort of long standstill in temperature change that we’re observing right now?
Storch: Yes, but only extremely rarely. At my institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations. The answer was: in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98 percent of forecasts show CO2 emissions as high as we have had in recent years leading to more of a temperature increase.
SPIEGEL: How long will it still be possible to reconcile such a pause in global warming with established climate forecasts?
Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.
SPIEGEL: What could be wrong with the models?
Storch: There are two conceivable explanations — and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.
SPIEGEL: That sounds quite embarrassing for your profession, if you have to go back and adjust your models to fit with reality…
Storch: Why? That’s how the process of scientific discovery works. There is no last word in research, and that includes climate research. It’s never the truth that we offer, but only our best possible approximation of reality. But that often gets forgotten in the way the public perceives and describes our work.
SPIEGEL: But it has been climate researchers themselves who have feigned a degree of certainty even though it doesn’t actually exist. For example, the IPCC announced with 95 percent certainty that humans contribute to climate change.
Storch: And there are good reasons for that statement. We could no longer explain the considerable rise in global temperatures observed between the early 1970s and the late 1990s with natural causes. My team at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in Hamburg, was able to provide evidence in 1995 of humans’ influence on climate events. Of course, that evidence presupposed that we had correctly assessed the amount of natural climate fluctuation. Now that we have a new development, we may need to make adjustments.
SPIEGEL: In which areas do you need to improve the models?
Storch: Among other things, there is evidence that the oceans have absorbed more heat than we initially calculated. Temperatures at depths greater than 700 meters (2,300 feet) appear to have increased more than ever before. The only unfortunate thing is that our simulations failed to predict this effect.
SPIEGEL: That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Storch: Certainly the greatest mistake of climate researchers has been giving the impression that they are declaring the definitive truth. The end result is foolishness along the lines of the climate protection brochures recently published by Germany’s Federal Environmental Agency under the title “Sie erwärmt sich doch” (“The Earth is getting warmer”). Pamphlets like that aren’t going to convince any skeptics. It’s not a bad thing to make mistakes and have to correct them. The only thing that was bad was acting beforehand as if we were infallible. By doing so, we have gambled away the most important asset we have as scientists: the public’s trust. We went through something similar with deforestation, too — and then we didn’t hear much about the topic for a long time.
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SPIEGEL: And how good are the long-term forecasts concerning temperature and precipitation?
Storch: Those are also still difficult. For example, according to the models, the Mediterranean region will grow drier all year round. At the moment, however, there is actually more rain there in the fall months than there used to be. We will need to observe further developments closely in the coming years. Temperature increases are also very much dependent on clouds, which can both amplify and mitigate the greenhouse effect. For as long as I’ve been working in this field, for over 30 years, there has unfortunately been very little progress made in the simulation of clouds.
SPIEGEL: Despite all these problem areas, do you still believe global warming will continue?
Storch: Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more — and by the end of this century, mind you. That’s what my instinct tells me, since I don’t know exactly how emission levels will develop. Other climate researchers might have a different instinct. Our models certainly include a great number of highly subjective assumptions. Natural science is also a social process, and one far more influenced by the spirit of the times than non-scientists can imagine. You can expect many more surprises.
SPIEGEL: What exactly are politicians supposed to do with such vague predictions?
Storch: Whether it ends up being one, two or three degrees, the exact figure is ultimately not the important thing. Quite apart from our climate simulations, there is a general societal consensus that we should be more conservative with fossil fuels. Also, the more serious effects of climate change won’t affect us for at least 30 years. We have enough time to prepare ourselves.
SPIEGEL: In a SPIEGEL interview 10 years ago, you said, “We need to allay people’s fear of climate change.” You also said, “We’ll manage this.” At the time, you were harshly criticized for these comments. Do you still take such a laidback stance toward global warming?
Storch: Yes, I do. I was accused of believing it was unnecessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is not the case. I simply meant that it is no longer possible in any case to completely prevent further warming, and thus it would be wise of us to prepare for the inevitable, for example by building higher ocean dikes. And I have the impression that I’m no longer quite as alone in having this opinion as I was then. The climate debate is no longer an all-or-nothing debate — except perhaps in the case of colleagues such as a certain employee of Schellnhuber’s, whose verbal attacks against anyone who expresses doubt continue to breathe new life into the climate change denial camp.
“My team at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in Hamburg, was able to provide evidence in 1995 of humans’ influence on climate events. Of course, that evidence presupposed that we had correctly assessed the amount of natural climate fluctuation. Now that we have a new development, we may need to make adjustments.”
In other words, “Oh, don’t blame us; we had “evidence” based on a presupposition.” Nice try Storch, but you don’t get off that easy. True science doesn’t just presuppose, and then build “evidence” upon that.
He does get high marks for some mighty fine footwork and high-stepping though. Nice song at the end about what “his instinct” tells him, that there will still be at least a 2° C temperature rise by end-of-century. That isn’t science, but Faith. Storch is simply acting like a politician. A slippery one at that.
Good grief.Is this a new Loony Tunes sketch?
@P. Gosselin. Do you know his age? Considering his photograph, I would guess that he needs those 5 years till his retirement. If he were my student, and answered only two percent of the final exam items correctly, I would not negotiate with him for five years about his good-luck-achievements but tell him that it’s time to go.
Wow!!! Wow!!! Wow!!!
The comments made in this interview are an unprecedented admission of the failure of the general circulation models and the first public admission from a lead warmist that the climate ‘science’ was fudged. In reply to comments by IPCC lead author Hans Van Storch
Comment 1: “At my institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations. The answer was: … in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98 percent of forecasts show CO2 emissions as high as we have had in recent years leading to more of a temperature increase.”
William: There is a 98% chance that general circulation models are incorrect based on average global temperature Vs GCM model prediction and there is a 100% chance that that the GCM are incorrect based on the fact that there is no observed tropical tropospheric warming. The gig is up.
Comment 2: There are two conceivable explanations — and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn’t mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.
William: Less warming CO2 warming does not explain no warming for 15 years. As atmospheric CO2 continues to rise planetary temperature must increase in a wiggly manner as the CO2 forcing does not go away. It appears at least 0.45C of the 0.7C warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar modulation of planetary clouds. The latitudes where the warming has occurred are the latitudes that are most strongly affected by solar modulation of planetary cloud cover. There is a lack of warming to explain and the fact that the latitudinal pattern of observed warming does not match the AGW forcing pattern. .. ….There is now observed cooling in both the Arctic and the Antarctic. The observed increase in rainfall and flooding matches what happened in the Little Ice Age. Something is causing the sudden and abrupt change in climate. The other hat is about to fall. Hans Van Storch and the IPCC will need to explain significant global cooling 0.45C over 3 to 5 years, due to the abrupt slowdown in the solar magnetic cycle. http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png
Comment 3: Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more — and by the end of this century, mind you. That’s what my instinct tells me, since I don’t know exactly how emission levels will develop. Other climate researchers might have a different instinct. Our models certainly include a great number of highly subjective assumptions. Natural science is also a social process, and one far more influenced by the spirit of the times than non-scientists can imagine. You can expect many more surprises.
William: Give me a break. We will see less than 1C warming due to doubling of atmospheric CO2. ‘Skeptic’ scientist analysis puts the estimated warming at 0.3C. There is no need to ask people what their ‘instinct’ tells them. Enough is enough, the propaganda has to stop and will stop, the planet is going to cool. … …. The so called ‘skeptics’ have been unequivocally stating for at least 15 years that there has been massive fudging, manipulation of data and propaganda related to climate ‘science’. … ….The surprise is the planet is about to abruptly cool. There will be political and environmental consequences to global cooling (crop failures and so on). Politicians on mass are going to abandon the global warming cause. There will be political action to house clean climate ‘science’.
Comment 4: “What state of the Earth’s atmosphere do we want to protect, and in what way? And what might happen as a result? “Are we going to declare war on China” (William: And Russia, India & the developing world) if the (William: Any) country emits too much CO2 into the air (or cuts down trees such as is currently occurring in the Brazilian rainforest) and thereby violates our constitution?”
William: Any real reduction of world CO2 emission will require the real threat of military action, war time like rationing of energy, and a massive reduction in the standard of life for all countries of the world. The only viable technical solution is a massive construction nuclear power plants if a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions is required. ‘Green’ energy is a scam, a lie, a colossal waste of money, and in the case of the conversion of food to biofuel a policy that will lead to food wars and a massive loss of virgin forest.
Storch…. whoops, me bad.
I was think Larry Storch !!!
He was a comedian, too . 🙂
At last a warmist declares: “But since there has been only moderate global warming so far, climate change shouldn’t be playing a major role in any case yet.” for those who maintain global warming is responsible for everything under the sun..Warmistas: There is NO global warming! It ain’t happenong.
The meme is/has been cast, replacing ‘global warming’ and climate change, hereafter the calamity to befall mankind and planet Gaia unless capitulation to the mandate imposing a lifestyle straight out of the 1400’s (wood fires only for heating and cooking) is :
. . . . . . . . Beware the !! Extreme Weather Events !!
.
“So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break.”
Wow, Anthony and Lucia and Bishop Hill and other people like that must be SuperGeniuses or something, since they’ve given very clear and compelling answers to the question.
(although I think von storch is accidentally betraying an internal psychological bias here; to him and other warmistas, anyone classified as a “skeptic” doesn’t count as a person and therefore is to be ignored.)
Climate scientist is quickly becoming an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp and army intelligence. Real scientists must look at these “climate”clowns the way astronomers look at astrologists. It is a branch of social science, (another oxymoron) very close to poli- science a disipline where consensus counts. It is where activists get together to instititute their plans for saving the world, they remind me of “Pinky and the Brain”.
He’s preaching against preaching to preach what the preachers preach. Ahhh. Clever. Don’t listen to their instinct, but do listen to the same instinct that I state with a more moderate sounding tone.
Sounds like a crack in the dam. Trouble is, they’ve got the media, the governments, the schools and the money and they’re going ahead with it regardless.
Why wait 5 years? From at von Storch’s Klimazwiebel site on the Spiegel interview on the temperature standstill.
It’s a serious problem NOW. A 2% success rate is a calamity, yet we are being told to spend billions on the back of laughable failure. Tossing a coin would have been far more skillful. I have been told by Warmists that in the long term climate is easier to project than predicting the weather seasonally. This is a monumental FAIL right now. Five more years is just 5 more years of a charade.
“The climate debate is no longer an all-or-nothing debate — except perhaps in the case of colleagues such as a certain employee of Schellnhuber’s, whose verbal attacks against anyone who expresses doubt continue to breathe new life into the climate change denial camp.”
Amazing. He admits as true what skeptics have been saying for years, and yet he still refers to them as climate change deniers. What a tool.
This is very revealing:
“SPIEGEL: What exactly are politicians supposed to do with such vague predictions?
Storch: Whether it ends up being one, two or three degrees, the exact figure is ultimately not the important thing. Quite apart from our climate simulations, there is a general societal consensus that we should be more conservative with fossil fuels. Also, the more serious effects of climate change won’t affect us for at least 30 years. We have enough time to prepare ourselves.”
We can translate the first part of his answer to:
“So railroading society with fibs and hype into agreeing with AGW alarmists was OK, and it does not matter how wrong we have been.”
To interpret the 98% vs. 2% point:
“The consensus of 98% of the models is this ‘pause’ cannot happen, but we will stick with the models anyway.”
Every summer in Germany over the last 10 years has seen normal or above normal precipitation. Winter temperatures have nosedived in the last 13 years according to the German Weather Service (DWD), contrary to the warmer winters they were excitedly waiting for.
The models are crap and this entire episode of the great global warming scare is quite frankly embarrassing.
So one of the instigators of the CAGW scare now declares the predictions were wrong, the models are looking overwhelmingly likely to be wrong and there is no sign of anthropogenic global warming. All that remains is instinct? And we’re supposed to hand control of national economies over to bureaucrats on this basis? We’re supposed to increase the cost of energy to the point it will inflict mortal damage on the poor of the whole world, developed and developing (don’t expect crooked governments not to stuff ‘green reparations’ into their own pockets) on the basis on a hunch? I thought the science was settled.
Van Storch is a highly respected ‘climatologist’ (for those who respect them), central to the current catastrophism, even if his prognostications have been greatly exaggerated or taken out of context. He is in any case very difficult for the warmista to dismiss as a ‘crank’ (though it wouldn’t surprise me to see them try). In this interview, his views are as sceptical as those of many regular contributors here. This interview should be made a sticky and spread far and wide. It should be posted on the message boards of ‘Skeptical’ Science, and used as a riposte for any handwaving dismissal of observations presented by alarmist cheerleaders. Despite his (understandable) squirming and nonsense about ‘instincts’, he has also done science and reason a service by admitting he might have been wrong, and should be applauded for it.
I suspect the proposed grace period of five years for the models has something to do with von Storch’s reaching retirement age.
A textbook example of climate equivocation. Storch both agrees and disagrees with his own opinion/analysis.
As has been rightly pointed out at the Bishop’s, the sentence “Yes, we are certainly going to see an increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or more — and by the end of this century, mind you.” is almost certainly too strong. The word ‘certainly’ here (‘zwei Grad oder mehr werden wir WOHL kriegen’) means ‘likely’ or ‘probably’, much weaker than certainly. “We’re probably going to see an increase ….” This makes him less contradictory with other statements he makes on the uncertainty of warming and the models. A bit of nuance has got lost in translation!
As for this being his instinct (Instinkt), I just asked a German native speaker and this relates more to feelings, so he ‘still feels this might be the case’. Bit unfair to read too much into it.
Very true.
Far better on that than on Climatology. Incidentally, here’s what Rick Werme posted on WUWT recently on the test of Rossi’s latest gadget, his Hot Cat 2:
If cold fusion pans out, it will cost much less than fossil fuel or fission-nuclear power plants, and will displace them naturally, without government intervention. If it had been discovered ten years earlier, thanks to government backing, spending lots of uneconomic wind and solar devices would have been avoided.
Compared to the following in the same interview:
Why rely on your “instinct” when you can rely on your computer models? Should we spend billions in ‘fighting climate change’ based on gut feeling or based on evidence? You decide.
Hilarious—but it would have benefited us slow-in-the-uptake readers if “Spiegel:” had been included where I’ve inserted it above.
No mention of H2O feedbacks in the GCMs should negate the CO2 effect, not reinforce it.
Instincts indeed.
My instincts tell me to fight to the death to keep my liberty against any elitist power grab.
I’ve seen other comments where it is assumed that the academic field of “political science” is highly politicized. For some crazy reason it is much less politicized than sociology or nearly any humanities field.
In five years, how many more $billions will have been flushed down the CAGW crapper? I suppose, compared to bald-faced liars like Mikey, Storch’s hesitant, waffling, somewhat more honest stance could be viewed in a positive light. Still, you just want to bitch-slap the guy for continuing to hang on to the “hope” that they were right, because, after all, fossil fuels are baaaaad and/or running out.