IPCC Draft Lowers Global Warming Projections on Climate Sensitivity
“That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” said Yvo de Boer recently. He is a former United Nations chief climate negotiator and was talking about the forthcoming fifth assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). With two months to go before the assessment is to be published, however, one sign suggests it might be less terrifying than it could have been. [The draft IPCC report] seems to reflect a growing sense that climate sensitivity may have been overestimated in the past and that the science is too uncertain to justify a single estimate of future rises. If this does turn out to be the case, it would have significant implications for policy. —The Economist, 20 July 2013
The next United Nations climate report will “scare the wits out of everyone” and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said. Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking. “That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.” –Peter Hannam, Brisbane Times, 7 November 2012
The wave of new evidence of low climate sensitivity has presented the IPCC with a dilemma. They could try to bluff it out, an approach that could be terminal given the widespread reporting of the new science in the media. Alternatively they could ‘fess up’. This too could be extremely damaging, but perhaps might not be the end of them. Being good bureaucrats they have gone for the option that is most likely to lead to their survival. –Andrew Montford, Bishop Hill, 18 July 2013
At C02 concentrations of between 425 parts per million and 485 ppm, temperatures in 2100 would be 1.3-1.7°C above their pre-industrial levels. That seems lower than the IPCC’s previous assessment, made in 2007. Then, it thought concentrations of 445-490 ppm were likely to result in a rise in temperature of 2.0-2.4°C. —The Economist, 20 July 2013
Rapid melting of polar ice sheets may be due to short-lived natural events rather than climate change, scientists said. New research suggests more time is needed to predict the likely impact of global warming and ice loss on sea levels. –John von Radowitz, AFP, 15 July 2013
It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases. –Roger Pielke Jr., testimony to the US Senate, 18 July 2013
A paper published by the Danish Meteorological Institute finds a remarkable correlation of Arctic sea ice observations over the past 500 years to “the solar cycle length, which is a measure of solar activity. A close correlation of high significance is found between the two patterns, suggesting a link from solar activity to the Arctic Ocean climate.” The paper adds to several others demonstrating that Arctic sea ice extent and climate is controlled by natural variations in solar activity, ocean & atmospheric oscillations, winds & storm activity, not man-made CO2. —The Hockey Schtick, 17 July 2013
Current general circulation climate models (GCM) to be used in the AR5 IPCC Report in 2013, fail to reconstruct observed climatic oscillations. The proposed empirical model outperforms the GCMs by better hind-casting the observed 1850-2012 climatic patterns. It is found that: about 50-60% of the warming observed since 1850 and since 1970 was induced by natural oscillations likely resulting from harmonic astronomical forcings that are not yet included in the GCMs. –Nicola Scafetta, Solar and planetary oscillation control on climate change.
The science journal Nature said only last week that the global temperature standstill “is one of the biggest mysteries in climate science.” Just like in Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition nobody expected the current standstill in global surface temperature. –David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 19 July 2013
Thanks to The GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser for this compilation.
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Norway Rat,
Any estimate of how much that nonsense has cost us to date?
I hope you know it’s a total waste of our tax money.
Rattus –
In a way, it’s even more illuminating to see what material the IPCC has prior to formal release than to look at the final product. It’s interesting to gain insight about what does and doesn’t make their final cut, at least in my view.
Technically, the math in those numbers above is quite weird.
It works out to be just 2.2C per doubling (transient I guess).
A near perfect match to the numbers is = 2.2 / ln(2) * ln(CO2) – 17.75C
Which means 2.2C per doubling and CO2 at 280 ppm = 0.0C (they are talking about the increase from 280 ppm so that is why it is 0.0C).
Maybe they do not understand they just dropped the transient sensitivity values to 2.2C per doubling. It used to be 2.55C.
Maybe I should add that 2.2 / ln(2) * ln(400 ppm today) – 17.75 = 1.12C
So we should have already gotten to +1.12C while we are only at +0.7C (less -0.3C in fake adjustments).
So even that lower transient formula from the IPCC is far higher than where we are now.
@Chad Wozniak
>In re the estimates of increased temps at 425-490 ppm, it would be interesting to see the increase in temps attributable to 1,200 – 1,500 ppm in commercial greenhouses.
This raises an interesting point that I have not seem emphasized before. If CO2 heats with a Greenhouse Effect then there should be a pretty easily demonstrated heat gain (the Gore Experiment) showing that greenhouses with 1200 ppm CO2 in them do not use as much energy in the daytime to remain warm in cold climates. If it worked it would be a heck of a good energy saving idea – I bet it would get funded if it was submitted as an energy saving technology. All you need is a working demonstration.
There are a great many greenhouses in cold countries. Let’s see their heating bills. Those that use high CO2 levels should show an energy consumption level that is significantly (measurably) lower than those that do not because of ‘all that insulation’.
My friend with a commercial greenhouse operation uses 3 GJ per day. That is enough to make an easily identified difference, well within the measurement resolution of modern instruments. All I am asking for is a demonstration of a reproducible effect.
@Rattus Norvegicus
July 20, 2013 at 9:49 am
You might want to read this:
+++++++++++
Gotta agree with the others, Rattus. We are busy people. Why would we click on a link that has no context or even a descriptive name? Up the game or stay on the sidelines.
The IPCC is in a bit of a pickle. They cannot stick with a big number (6 or 7) for 2100 because they will not appear credible with the flat temperatures over the last 15 years . And they cannot fess up to low numbers (like 2), as those can more easily be explained by natural variability rather than our reckless use of fossil fuels. The IPCC’s existence is dependent on this being a crisis. Thus they will narrow it up to a middle number with certainty that it is not lower, and uncertainty that it may yet be higher. This will present a risk that the 6th assessment may have to answer to another low number; but at least in their eyes there will be a 6th assessment. With either a credibility problem from a high number or the lack of a crisis from a low number in the 5th assessment, the 6th assessment, and the existence of the IPCC as an entity, would be in jeopardy. Bureaucracy’s tend to do what they have to to survive.
I quote:
“Rapid melting of polar ice sheets may be due to short-lived natural events rather than climate change, scientists said. New research suggests more time is needed to predict the likely impact of global warming and ice loss on sea levels. –John von Radowitz, AFP, 15 July 2013”
Looked up John von Radowitz and he does not know anything about the Arctic. This does not stop him from suggesting that Arctic warming may be caused by natural short-lived events as you quote him. Warming of the Arctic is a natural event all right but not short-lived. It started suddenly at the turn of the twentieth century, paused for thirty years in mid-century, then resumed, and is still going strong. I covered the basics in my book [1] in 2010 and followed it up with a journal article in 2011 [2]. Apparently Radowitz is ignorant of both publications. The cause of Arctic warming is not any imaginary greenhouse effect but a reorganization of North Atlantic current system at the turn of the twentieth century that began to carry warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. That is why the Arctic is the only place in the world today that is still warming while global warming as such is in a hiatus and likely to remain that way. The mid-century pause in warming most likely corresponds to a temporary return of the older flow pattern of currents. It was not simply a cessation of warming but actual cooling at the rate of 0.44 degrees per decade. Before the start of warming the Arctic had been slowly and linearly cooling for 2000 years.
[1[ Arno Arrak “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change” (CreateSpace 2010)
[2] Arno Arrak E&E 22(8):1069-1083 (2011)