Dutch advice to IPCC: limiting the scope to human induced climate change is undesirable
Governments around the world have been asked by IPCC to think about the future of the IPCC. The Netherlands now sent their submission to the IPCC and made it available on the website of KNMI.
I would say Holland is fairly critical about how IPCC is operating right now. This part struck me as most interesting:
The IPCC needs to adjust its principles. We believe that limiting the scope of the IPCC to human induced climate change is undesirable, especially because natural climate change is a crucial part of the total understanding of the climate system, including human-induced climate change. The Netherlands is also of the opinion that the word ‘comprehensive’ may have to be deleted, because producing comprehensive assessments becomes virtually impossible with the ever expanding body of knowledge and IPCC may be more relevant by producing more special reports on topics that are new and controversial.
I agree with both points. The (almost) obsession of IPCC with greenhouse forcing has greatly limited progress in climate science in my opinion, so I am glad my government now raises this point. And in my (Dutch) book De Staat van het Klimaat I concluded that IPCC in AR4 had not succeeded to come up with a “comprehensive” report. I also agree IPCC should pay much more attention to controversial topics. The treatment of controversial topics in AR4 and also AR5 was and is unsatisfactory for two reasons: there is not enough space reserved to go into the necessary details and the author teams are almost always biased in favor of the consensus view and therefore not giving enough credit to minority views.
The Netherlands also want to make an end to the huge volumes IPCC is producing and replace it by shorter web based (special) reports:
More here:
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/07/05/dutch-advise-to-ipcc-limiting-the-scope-to-human-induced-climate-change-is-undesirable/
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IMO the role of CO2 is not highly controversial, although room for debate still remains. What is controversial are the assumptions made about feedback effects in deriving the so-called climate sensitivity of a doubling of CO2.
The derived direct effect of CO2 increases (about one K at ~600 ppmv) cannot by themselves produce the desired catastrophic predictions or projections.
To be clear, I should have said one K warmer, but probably understood.
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:40 am
Yet you continue to “believe” that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming, rather than cooling….?
The issue is not about ‘if’ but about ‘how much’ or, perhaps, ‘how little’?
I would like to ask a question; why are CO2 molecules in the atmosphere immune from conductive heating? After all they are being battered by other molecules some billions of times per second. This tends to equalise the local gas temperature which at normal atmospheric temperature should keep the CO2 too warm to be able to absorb any passing 15 micron photons. Yet it seems the CO2 molecule can absorb every 15 micron photon from the surface and ignore the 15 micron photons emitted from all around by other CO2 molecules. A remarkably selective gas molecule to say the least.
why?….that’s not why they were created at all….
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to assess the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of human induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for mitigation and adaptation.”
henry@ur momisuglyleif
ignoring the NO, in the quoted paper, let us assume all is CO2 up there, @ur momisugly 0.05% in total
and we had 95% back radiated to space and 5% absorbed heat:
and that is a ratio 19:1
Now let us make it 0.06% CO2 due to human emission in the future
that will increase the ratio to 19 x 0.06/0.05 = 22.8 : 1.
in which case we have 95.8% being back radiated to space and 4.2% absorbed heat.
That would be a net cooling effect caused by the increase in CO2
(remember we were only talking here about the thermosphere)\
so, on top, we have (more) cooling….by more CO2
do you agree?
The Dutch are way behind the times . The IPCC changed their definition of climate change and their mission – on paper- in the 2011SREX reort . In practice however nothing actually changed,Here’s a quote from a post on my blog http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com from Nov 2011
“you are still making the same gross scientific error of judgement or deliberate misrepresentation that was made by IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers previous to this latest one ( thru AR4) This was the assumption that they or you knew or know what the natural variability was/is.. You cannot possibly say that the ” “eight year SST global cooling trend” is well within expected random variation ” if you dont know what the expected range of random variation is.To say nothing of the fact that to say a variation is random also implies that you don’t know what the cause is and can’t be bothered to find out.In AR4 for example the Summary for Policymakers is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. You should note that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.. I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC AR4 science section itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.”
The importance of the new report (SREX) is that finally the IPCC recognises that the uncertainties of climate prediction are much greater than they previously acknowledged. They are now in the embarassing position of having to acknowledge that the whole UN CO2 scare is built on very uncertain foundations and they somehow need to as quietly as possible change their position.The first thing they do is to change the definition of climate change (Global Warming no longer seems a convenient term to use) They say :
“several of the definitions used in this Special Report differ inbreadth or focus from those used in the AR4 and other IPCC reports.]
Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to naturalinternal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.2[INSERT FOOTNOTE 2: This definition differs from that in the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where climate change is defined as: “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed overcomparable time periods.” The UNFCCC thus makes a distinction between climate change attributable to human activities altering the atmospheric composition, and climate variability attributable to natural causes.]
In other words where previously climate change meant change due to human activity now it means change due to human and natural causes . As previously quoted in the original post they now say that they can’t distinguish these causes for the next 30 years.The rest of their predictions re extreme events are simply trivial and tautologous speculation – they simply say that if warming continues, certain extreme events are more likely to occur. If they don’t know what is happening in the next 30 years they certainly don’t know what will happen in th next hundred. “
@svalgaard with role do you mean climate sensitivity?
http://www.knmi.nl/research/ipcc/FUTURE/Submission_by_The_Netherlands_on_the_future_of_the_IPCC_laatste.pdf
“The IPCC should reconsider the regionalisation of the assessments […] regionalisation significantly increases the volume of the assessment, makes it more difficult to read and causes an almost unmanageable writing process. It becomes more vulnerable to uncertainty, inconsistency and the existence of potential errors. Consequently, regionalisation puts more pressure on the contributors. It also complicates the synthesis of the assessment.”
unacceptable, evasive self-contradiction
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 11:54 am
(remember we were only talking here about the thermosphere)
http://www.ann-geophys.net/29/1779/2011/angeo-29-1779-2011.pdf
“We have argued that the trends in thermospheric temperature seen are too large to be caused by the CO2 changes seen and that the large day-tonight difference in trend does not point to a greenhouse gas at all. The correspondence in breakpoint year and the essential disappearance of the trend at night both have interpretation in terms of O3 as the causative agent”
Your ‘calculation’ is incomprehensible.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:01 pm
@svalgaard with role do you mean climate sensitivity?
According to Crock what the IPCC says is not controversial, so check out the IPCC to get a non-controversial definition and calculation.
Break it down. For example, Hansen treats the empirical evidence for 3 degrees of warming for a doubling of CO2 as historical fact. He also seems to think the forcing is linear for temperatures near current global temperature. He also seems to think there is no significant regional variability in the nature of the forcing. IMHO, there are huge issues here. So a comprehensive report on the empirical evidence for GHG forcing would be of interest to me.
henry@leif
perhaps you did not understand this from the quoted paper:
For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space….
try and understand my calculation from this statement?
The Dutch had their president of the National Academy of Sciences, a quantum field theory physicist, as head of the IPCC review committee which found all these problems.
The big difference is that Holland LOOKED.
IPCC is depending on people and countries NOT LOOKING….
@svalgaard nothing the IPCC says is controversial?
HenryP says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:17 pm
perhaps you did not understand this from the quoted paper…
so, on top, we have (more) cooling….by more CO2
Perhaps you didn’t even read paper I quoted http://www.ann-geophys.net/29/1779/2011/angeo-29-1779-2011.pdf :
“the cause of the long-term cooling of the thermosphere has been a decrease in heating [due to O3] rather than an increase in cooling [due to CO2].”
So it is not clear what dubious conclusion you want to draw.
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:22 pm
@svalgaard nothing the IPCC says is controversial?
According to Crock [to stay on topic] what IPCC says is not controversial, and Crock urges the IPCC to pay more attention to controversial issues.
adrian_oc says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:21 pm
The big difference is that Holland LOOKED.
And did not find that the role of CO2 is controversial [according to Crock].
lsvalgaard says:
so following in that respect the IPCC party line.
—-
The IPCC has a party line?
@svalgaard is it difficult to channel Crock? I can think of a few controversial things said by the IPCC, for one that Western Europe would see less colder-than-average winters.
The role of CO2 isn’t controversial. The interactions between CO2 and photons are well-understood. Our host (and most contributing authors) vehemently reject the Dragon-Slayers. I suspect most (and you?) even accept a no-feedbacks climate sensitivity of around 1 degC, though many may be unwilling to risk the wrath that such explicit statements may cause among those who claim climate change as a hoax.
Almost everything else in climate science IS controversial, particularly feedbacks and the ability of models to accurately quantify them. AR4 WG I never discussed the ability of climate models to reproduce recent current climate and project future climate change. The chapter on Evaluation of Climate Models is mostly concerned with comparisons between models. The final chapter on Attribution and Projection assumes that the IPCC’s collection of national models (which even they called “an ensemble of opportunity”) represents the full range of current and future climate change that is consistent with our understanding of the chemistry and physic of the atmosphere and ocean.
Controversies arise mostly from politicization of climate science which is intended to promote legislation restricting emissions of CO2: hockey sticks which eliminate the MWP and make current temperatures “unprecedented”, attribution statements which claim that warming in the last half-century must be mostly due to humans while earlier similar rates of warming can only be explained by natural variation, attributing every new weather disaster to the already-changed climate of our planet, understating uncertainty, overestimating damage and ignoring benefits, etc.
Mr Bliss says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
The IPCC has a party line?
You disagree?
Steven Devijver says:
July 5, 2013 at 12:35 pm
is it difficult to channel Crock?
We are discussing Crock’s post. He urges the IPCC to pay more attention to controversial issues. Perhaps you should alert the IPCC to issues you think are controversial and ask them to heed Crock’s advice.
Leif put out a little test for you all there. He wishes he could issue better grades. 🙂
leif quotes paper
These results suggest, first, that the greenhouse cooling of the thermosphere may well not be detectable with current data sets and, second, that the long-term cooling that is clearly
seen may be due largely to O3 depletion.
henry@leif
you have to be kidding me
whilst I can probably agree with the first statement,
the 2nd is clearly completely wrong: O3 has been increasing
whilst temps. have been falling
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/#comment-352
@Leif
From the point of view of the IPCC, anything else but the role of CO2 is controversial, and they should look at these ‘controversial’ issues. That’s what is meant by Marcel and you know it. Why try so obvious to hijack this post. Do you fear the role of the sun will finally be studied and, heaven forbid, mentioned by the IPCC? It’s quite unscientific what you do today. Not what I would expect from you.