By Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in the midst of finishing its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on the topic. Based on a series of content leaks, it seems as if the AR5 has so much internal inconsistency that releasing it in its current form will be a major fiasco.
The central issue of climate change science is the earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—that is, how much the earth’s average surface temperature will increase as a result of a doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. New and mutually consistent re-assessments of this important parameter are appearing in the scientific literature faster than the slow and arduous IPCC assessment process can digest them (presuming it even wants to—given that they are making the current AR5 look pretty bad).
Further, even if the IPCC is able to do an adequate job of assimilating this evolving and quite convincing science, the vast majority of the rest of the IPCC’s report will also have to be changed as it is highly dependent on the magnitude of the climate sensitivity.
By now, though, it’s too late in the game (the final report is due out in early 2014)—the cows have all left the IPCC’s barn on these subjects and it’s too late to round them all up and rebrand them.
The First Order Draft (FOD) of the IPCC’s AR5 was leaked/made public back in December 2012. In the FOD, the IPCC recognized the significance of the earth climate sensitivity, calling it:
[T]he single most important measure of climate response because the response of many other climate variables to an increase in CO2 scales with the increase in global-mean surface temperature.
The IPCC went on to assess the current scientific knowledge as to the magnitude of the climate sensitivity this way:
Despite considerable advances in climate models and in understanding and quantifying climate feedbacks, the assessed literature still supports the conclusion from AR4 [the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007] that climate sensitivity is likely in the range 2–4.5°C, and very likely above 1.5°C. The most likely value remains near 3°C. An ECS greater than about 6–7°C is very unlikely, based on combination of multiple lines of evidence. [emphasis in original]
The IPCC’s “mostly likely value” in the FOD is 3.0°C. This is interesting in and of itself because according to the same First Order Draft the average climate sensitivity produced by the climate models used by the IPCC is 3.4°C, which is already some 13% higher than the IPCC’s 3.0 degrees.
If the IPCC thinks there was something systematically wrong with the models it was using, then it should just come out and say it. The fact that the IPCC (currently) will not do so does not exactly inspire confidence in its ability to stand up and criticize. In reality, the average climate sensitivity of a collection of results published within the past 2-3 years suggests that the value is closer to 2.0°C, and recent observations of the pace of global temperature rise hint at a value even a bit lower than that.
The IPCC has come under growing pressure from the scientific community—especially members of the commission directly involved in climate sensitivity research—to reflect these new, lower estimates.
There are some indications, though, that the IPCC times may be a–changing.
According to The Economist, which claims to have seen the most recent draft of the IPCC’s AR5, the IPCC’s assessment of climate sensitivity has now been altered. Here is how The Economist describes what is in the new IPCC draft concerning the equilibrium climate sensitivity:
Both the 2007 IPCC report and a previous draft of the new assessment reflected earlier views on the matter by saying that the standard measure of climate sensitivity (the likely rise in equilibrium temperature in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration) was between 2°C and 4.5°C, with 3°C the most probable figure. In the new draft, the lower end of the range has been reduced to 1.5°C and the “most likely” figure has been scrapped. That 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 is true, the combination of the IPCC lowering the low end of the range of possible climate sensitivity values and the IPCC deciding not to provide its assessment of the “most likely” value strongly suggests that the average climate model sensitivity of 3.4°C is even further removed from the science on the topic and less justifiable. Just how far removed the climate models really are is kept under wraps by the IPCC by its no longer supplying a “most likely” value. If the “most likely” value were to be assessed at 2.5°C, then the climate model average would be 36% too high compared to the science. If the “most likely” value were to be 2.0°C, then the model average climate sensitivity would be some 70% too high.
Because, as the IPCC admits, the change in many other climate variables “scales with the increase in global-mean surface temperature,” the climate impacts derived from the model projections (which essentially is what the IPCC is all about) are also (substantially) too high.
The IPCC has three options:
- Round-file the entire AR5 as it now stands and start again.
- Release the current AR5 with a statement that indicates that all the climate change and impacts described within are likely overestimated by around 50%, or
- Do nothing and mislead policymakers and the rest of the world.
We’re betting on door number 3.
On a final note, the problem of large government climate change assessments being scientifically outdated even before they are released is not atypical of “group science,” which is hugely expensive, grossly inefficient, and often is designed to justify policy. We noted the same thing in our comments on the recent draft report of the U.S. effort at assessing climate change impacts, the “National Climate Assessment” (NCA), stating:
To the extent that the recent literature ultimately produces a more accurate estimate of the equilibrium climate sensitivity than does the climate model average, it means that, in general, all of the projections of future climate change given in the NCA are, by default, some 40% too large (too rapid) and the associated (and described) impacts are gross overestimates.
Our recommendation is that an alternative set of projections be developed for all topics discussed in the NCA, incorporating the latest scientific findings on the lowered value of equilibrium climate sensitivity. Without the addition of the new projections, the NCA will be obsolete on the day of its official release.
And to think, these national and international assessments are undertaken to justify policy actions.
Scary thought.
Not for the first time I wonder how far AR5 will go in relating the rise of CO2 to deforestation, particularly in Amazonia, and whether they will spend any time examining the effects on climate of the loss of so much CO2-absorbent rainforest’ given the uge amount of the earth’s surface covered when the losses began.
There is an interesting paper on the local effects of rainforest loss in Amazonia, which postulates a significant rise in both precipitation and local temperatures as a direct result. The paper, by Marcus Heil Costa and Jonathan A Foley (link from vol 13 of the JOURNAL OF CLIMATE), dates back to 1998; I’d be very interested to know what current research into deforestation says about the consequent rise in atmospheric CO2, and whether this topic is covered by the IPCC.
I’m very much a lay person but this loss would seem to me to be a far more likely cause of the rise in this trace gas than immeasurable and cyclical ‘AGW’
“Combined Effects of Deforestation and Doubled Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations on
the Climate of Amazonia”
http://swp.gmu.edu/silvacarbon/sites/default/files/CombinedEffects.pdf
In reply to:
Mike Haseler says:
July 27, 2013 at 1:23 am
William Astley: “It would appear the IPCC and many of us do not believe significant cooling is possible. ”
The key word here is “significant”. This is in fact a concept born out of model of variation based on Gaussian noise. In Gaussian noise one can assign levels of “significance” as in a threshold which we not expect to be crossed by 5%, 0.01% or whatever level we choose.
However, climate variation is not Gaussian … instead it is 1/f. The difference is that a signal drifts, so there cannot be any concept of a “significant” level because the theoretical level of long term noise is infinite. So, there is no single level which is “significant”.
William: Significant cooling from the standpoint of the public and the scientific community, a reduction of average planetary temperature of at least 0.5C with the majority of the cooling occurring in high latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Significant in terms that the cooling would reverse the majority of the warming in that occurred in the last 70 years. Significant in terms of how the cooling would change climate theory: the cooling would indicate there are one or more fundamental errors in the general circulation models.Significant in terms of its affect on the media’s communication of the climate change science. The IPCC was completely incorrect.
Your above comments appear to be irrational/not scientific and not related to the analysis of this physical problem. This is a physical problem. What has happen in the past and will happen in the future is determined by the mechanisms (how the planet responses to different forcing changes) and the internal forcing changes (volcanic eruptions, ocean current changes, anthropogenic changes, geomagnetic field changes and so on) and external forcing changes (solar changes and orbital change affects on solar and solar changes) on the earth.
Past planetary temperature changes (which happened for physical reasons) is a clue to what will happen (how the sun can and will vary) and how planetary temperature can and will change in the future. Look at how temperature has changed in the past (see Greenland Ice Sheet data last 11,000 years). As I stated above the pattern of warming in the last 70 years does not agree with the pattern of warming that the general circulation models predicted for an increase in atmospheric CO2. The Northern hemisphere (excluding the tropics) warmed twice as much as the global as whole and four times as much as the tropical region of the planet. As atmospheric CO2 is evenly distributed in the atmosphere the potential for CO2 forcing should be the same throughout the global with the most amount of warming occurring in the tropics as that is the region of the planet were there was the most amount of long radiation emitted to space prior to the CO2 increase. The warming in the last 70 years does not match the pattern for CO2 forcing.
That observed pattern of warming in the last 70 years, matches the pattern of warming which occurred in the past when the sun was in a grand solar magnetic cycle maximum. The sun was in a grand solar magnetic cycle minimum during the last 70 years.
You are not thinking in terms of the physical cause of the planetary temperature change in the last 70 years and what caused past planetary temperature changes in the past and how much and how rapid planetary temperature has changed in the past. There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record that correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes, that is a fact. Look at Richard Alley’s graph of how temperature has changed on the Greenland Ice Sheet for the last 11,000 years.
The most amount of warming in the 70 years has been on the Greenland Ice sheet. The Greenland Ice sheet has warmed and did warm when the sun is in a grand maximum (high number of sunspots, short cycles, high velocity solar wind, high number of solar wind bursts caused equatorial coronal holes) and then cools when the grand maximum is followed by a Maunder like minimum.
The solar magnetic cycle is currently abruptly changing, moving towards a Maunder minimum. The planet cools significantly when the solar magnetic cycle enters a Maunder minimum. The Maunder like solar minimum will last for 30 to 100 years based on what has happened in the past, from the proxy record of the solar magnetic cycle. The cooling period is longer 50 to 150 years as the solar magnetic cycles are lower weaker when the solar cycle restarts.
There is no point in discussing how much cooling will occur if the next Maunder like minimum is followed by what causes a Heinrich event. Heinrich events can terminate interglacial periods. The cooling is unimaginably rapid and large.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/
At the above site, the following graph, a comparison of the past solar cycles 21, 22, and 23 to the new cycle 24 is provided. That graph is update every six months or so.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/PersistentSolarInfluence.pdf
Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene
Surface winds and ocean hydrography in subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in the production rates of cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s “1500” year cycle. … ….during which drift ice and cooler surface waters in the Nordic and Labrador Seas were repeatedly advected southward and eastward, each time penetrating deep into the warmer strands of the subpolar circulation. The persistence of those rather dramatic events within a stable interglacial has been difficult to explain.
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy
Precision measurements of 14C/12C ratios in annual rings of the long-lived bristlecone pine have provided a continuous, proxy record of long-term changes in the level of solar activity through the last 11,000 years: since the end of the last Ice Age24. As such, these data now extend the length of the historical, written record of solar activity by a factor of about thirty: and the eleven-year signal, though severely attenuated by smoothing in the exchange processes of the terrestrial carbon cycle, can be detected, albeit with difficulty, throughout. A more obvious and climatically more significant feature of the long record is the recurrence of repeated Maunder Minimum-like depressions in the overall level
of solar activity, each persisting for thirty to about 100 years.
An independent verification of these insights into solar history has come from the analysis of 10Be in polar ice and deep-sea cores4,25,26. Since the 10Be and 14C records are subject to quite different types of internal modulations, we can at first assume that features common to both of them point to the Sun as the most likely cause.
A more recent oceanographic study, based on reconstructions of the North Atlantic climate during the Holocene epoch, has found what may be the most compelling link between climate and the changing Sun: in this case an apparent regional climatic response to a series of prolonged episodes of suppressed solar activity, like the Maunder Minimum, each lasting from 50 to 150 years8.
Further to my post above, here’s a link to the website of a professional geologist working in relevant areas, who seems broadly in agreement with my thoughts on this:
http://deforestation.geologist-1011.net/
I wonder if this gentleman posts here at WUWT. I see that no doubt for professional reasons, he prefers to keep his scepticism under wraps. http://geologist-1011.org/
” The central issue of climate change science is the earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—that is, how much the earth’s average surface temperature will increase as a result of a doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. ”
Nope. The central issue is the energy budget at the TOA. And long-time averages of the in-coming and out-going fluxes.
I beg his pardon – Timothy Casey BSc has his name in the strapline, where I missed it.
His is an interesting site, and I’d love to see a guest post here on deforestation by him.
Quote from this page: http://geologist-1011.net/
“The articles presented here on this site review the science that refutes these claims, but this is only the tip of the iceberg, and one must ask how competant scientists could possibly dream up such obvious fiction. The modern “environmentally” motivated “science” of anthropogenic global warming is either based on incompetance and charlatanism or lies and dishonesty. I will endeavour to leave the interpretation to you. However, suffice it to say that such a pitiful excuse for science as we see in modern “environmentalism” compells us to ask for the material evidence every single time an assertion is claimed to be scientific. We may yet ponder how a single lobby outperforms and outclasses all other pseudosciences put together for sheer diversity and volume of brazen disinformation.”
The problem is that “stopped” implies no resumption. More neutral terms are “flatlined” or “plateaud” or “gone sideways” or “diverged increasingly from projections.”
As in the previous 4 IPCC reports the body of the report will contain a myriad of studies on one side of the story and the other but the “executive summary”, or whatever they call it, will contain blatant lies and distortions to further the cause. And we know that is all the lame stream media, the big smoke, and the watermelons read and act on, so….
William Astley says:
July 26, 2013 at 9:45 pm
Your Propaganda does not change reality.
It appears based on the observed cooling, that the majority of the warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle change modulation of planetary cloud cover
No, that doesn’t appear to be the case: http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cocmic-Rays-Climate.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf
” Sensitivity will be found to be even lower once the ocean cycles and solar variation effects are properly quantified and included.”
I agree with Tallbloke .It is like basing the heat sensitivity of your house on the hair dryer but ignoring the furnace .
William Astley says:
July 27, 2013 at 5:19 am
The sun was in a grand solar magnetic cycle minimum during the last 70 years.
No, it was not: http://www.leif.org/research/The%20long-term%20variation%20of%20solar%20activity.pdf
AR5 will be built around “CO2 causes bad weather” meme
– I predict that AR5 managers are planning to get 1 or 2 “CO2 causes extreme weather events” papers published in Nature “we will publish any vague climate scare story” Magazine (and others).
– That way they can build AR5 around that even though the papers will too young and too spurious to have been properly analysed.
[snip -attempt to inject “slayer” argument into this thread – mod]
Expect the IPCC to add to the summary for policy makers about the ‘urgent need to set up a global deep sea temperature monitoring network’ as the heat most likely is in the deep sea. They will refer to a couple of paid for papers and that is how they will justify their continued existence until at least AR6. The failure of the models will be put down to
the dog ate my homeworkthe deep oceans ate the heat. And that my friends will be that. They get another term in office.The IPCC may in fact be the most public exhibit of Skeptical Science Syndrome.
Skeptical Science Syndrome is based on reality can not exist. Only what I project can exist. And I have mysterious ways of projecting. NO common person can understand, only a select few can comprehend those mysteries.
Dan Hughes says:
July 27, 2013 at 5:30 am
” The central issue of climate change science is the earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)—that is, how much the earth’s average surface temperature will increase as a result of a doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. ”
Nope. The central issue is the energy budget at the TOA. And long-time averages of the in-coming and out-going fluxes.
This is a classic example of what my senior manager taught me to avoid when I was an apprentice engineer (50yrs since).
He always said “when you have a problem go to the source of power first and work your way forward.” There are some classic UK Met off statements that fail everytime on the premise. EG: The changes in the jetstream are causing wild weather. My boss would say “why did the jetstream change ?”
Now which of the two statements above is looking at the source.?
Sam the First says:
July 27, 2013 at 5:26 am
What a brilliant site. If you are reading today Tim, well done.
William Astley says:
July 27, 2013 at 5:19 am
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
The Sun-Climate Connection by John A. Eddy
There are 2 interesting names among the authors.
…Round-file the entire AR5 as it now stands and start again.
Release the current AR5 with a statement that indicates that all the climate change and impacts described within are likely overestimated by around 50%, or
Do nothing and mislead policymakers and the rest of the world….
If I were the IPCC I would:
– only accept papers from up to, say, 4 years ago.
– produce a report full of the usual ‘It’s getting worse!” scares
– include a short weasel-word section somewhere at the bottom of page 598 saying that:
“Recent work suggests that sensitivity may be somewhat less than anticipated. This work is still under consideration, and so has not been included in this paper…”
Village Idiot–
Have you ever heard of Mass v. EPA and the EPA endangerment finding, which are why you will soon not be able to get a permit for a coal-fired power plant? The Supremes deferred to IPCC in the first case and the second was based on the 2009 National Assessment.
William Astley says:
July 26, 2013 at 11:35 pm
“Western countries have wasted trillions of dollars”
I don’t know where you get your figures, but they’ve spent/wasted peanuts in the great scheme of things. And as you point out, nothing has worked; a) Governments don’t prioritize the problem b)Governments don’t know how to tackle the problem while keeping in power.
“There has been absolutely no realistic discussion of what it would take to reduce CO2 emissions by say 60% for the entire world not just for Western countries.” Agreed. GHG levels will not be controlled as the current science suggests they should
Excessive warming of the globe (from whatever source) will not be a problem for the environment, but for Society.
That’s scary.
The leaders of the IPCC will not accept anything that does not continue the current charade. I believe they will change the emphasis to the oceans. After all, it is the perfect time. The timing of the ARGO float delivery is perfect to pick up the cyclical warming of the deep oceans just like the timing of satellites picked up the cyclical warming of the atmosphere.
The media will fall into line and politicians will be more than happy to change the goalposts. However, a significant cooling of the atmosphere might give them problems. Very cold winters will turn the average person against the profiteers.
***
Mike Haseler says:
July 27, 2013 at 12:11 am
Any engineer who has ever dealt with positive feedback just knows that high levels of positive feedback are highly unlikely in any real system. So, as a matter of simple common sense you would need an extraordinary argument to justify a figure even as high as 2°C. Personally I would need my arm twisted behind my back by unquestionable data and unanimous agreement by ivory tower academics to even consider a sensitivity greater than 1.5°C.
***
Exactly. Natural systems in general have almost unfailing negative feedback. One has to purposely & carefully “construct” a system to produce overall positive feedback.
The only major positive-feedback aspect of earth-climate is the snow/ice-albedo feedback. This is important during glacial periods, but the overall negative-feedback of the entire climate system eventually overrides it. The snow/ice-albedo effect during the interglacial is small except locally/temporarily on winter-snow-covered continents and polar sea-ice, but larger during glacial times when glaciers & sea-ice are much further equatorward & semi-permanent.
This study should be highlighted as much as possible:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim
It demonstrates that the predicted enhanced GHE has not changed over this a 14 year period except for variations in clouds. Any bets on whether this paper makes it into AR5?
PS. You have to love the caveats. Anyone think these were required before getting approval for publication?