For the National Climate Assessment NASA has produced a model-based prediction of eight degrees Fahrenheit for the continental US by 2100 as the most likely scenario
Story submitted by Ben Bakker
NASA scientists have created a video showing predicted dramatic heating of the continental US between now and the year 2100. The video and prediction show results of models assuming a rise in CO2 to a low of 550 ppm and a high of 800 ppm by 2100. The NASA team states that the 800 ppm value is a more likely scenario. The scenarios based upon their models lead to rises of 4 degrees and 8 degrees Fahrenheit respectively across the contiguous US. Video follows:
The team states that they calibrated 15 different models to the years as a baseline for comparison. They created two videos showing the changes in temperatures and precipitation.
The interesting part is that they chose the years 1970 to 1999 to calibrate the models. Calibrate them to what? Did they assume the co2 rise during that period was the sole factor driving temperatures across the US and calibrate the rise in temperature based on that correspondence? Did they quantify the role of pollution / aerosol reduction during that period? Changes in multi-decadal oscillations on regional climate? Changes in regional humidity? Was it a global or local model calibration? Why did they end the calibration period at 1999? Why start at 1970? With more data available and no contrasting calibrations provided this looks like a search for a high end projection. Perhaps explanations are provided in the research. Questions abound.
This is part of the upcoming National Climate Assessment Report.
Here is a description that accompanies the video:
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The average temperature across the continental U.S. could be 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of the 21st century under a climate scenario in which concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide rise to 800 parts per million. Current concentrations stand at 400 parts per million, and are rising faster than at any time in Earth’s history.
These visualizations — which highlight computer model projections from the draft National Climate Assessment — show how average temperatures could change across the U.S. in the coming decades under two different carbon dioxide emissions scenarios.
Both scenarios project significant warming. A scenario with lower emissions, in which carbon dioxide reaches 550 parts per million by 2100, still projects average warming across the continental U.S. of 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The visualizations, which combine the results from 15 global climate models, present projections of temperature changes from 2000 to 2100 compared to the historical average from 1970 -1999. They were produced by the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., in collaboration with NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, both in Asheville, N.C.
The visualizations show the temperature changes as a 30-year running average. The date seen in the bottom-right corner is the mid-point of the 30-year average being shown.
“These visualizations communicate a picture of the impacts of climate change in a way that words do not,” says Allison Leidner, Ph.D., a scientist who coordinates NASA’s involvement in the National Climate Assessment “When I look at the scenarios for future temperature and precipitation, I really see how dramatically our nation’s climate could change.”
To learn more about the National Climate Assessment, due out in 2014, visit here: http://www.globalchange.gov/what-we-d…
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Models again. Sorry, I haven’t read all the hundreds of posts, but I think it’s important to cite this article: http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/a-climate-of-belief/ , Patrick Frank, A Climate of Belief. Published some time ago by Skeptic magazine and website, also via eSkeptic, to which I subscribe. Frankly (excuse the unintentional pun) Skeptic has become unskeptical completetely, because Michael Shermer had a road-to-Damascus type conversion to AGWT. Still, my respects, because he hasn’t censored or deleted this article from the site. But it blows apart any pretension to predict the future via computer models. Read it, download it, this article should be one of our main arms in combatting (sorry for the spelling, I’m British) the pseudo-science in climate modelling.
Do you have names or links or other clues?
I’m hoping the laws in the US liberalize enough to allow online betting on future events. (DARPA thought that would be a good idea.) Too few people in the US were willing to mail checks to Intrade and wait for them to clear.
rogerknights says:
July 30, 2013 at 2:42 am
Other dead certs worth mentioning are the South Sea Bubble, the Tulip market, the .com boom and the mortgage securitizing market. Smart, informed money on dead certs is the main reason you’ll never meet a broke bookie.
dp says: July 29, 2013 at 9:30 am
What NASA needs to do is show us a model that works and accurately predicts today’s climate using data available up to 1913. If they can do that I’ll convert to climate hysteria advocacy within the hour.
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Great idea! They can even us the measured CO2 level for the past 100 years as well. How hard can it be?
During the mid 1990’s I predicted the climate would follow it’s usual 60 year cycle and the globe would cool/stop warming with changes in ocean SST’s. The PDO, AMO, AO, NAO indices just being part of it. The planet always warms and cools over 60 year periods and CO2 has not done anything to change this cycle.
The NASA prediction of 8C is alarming and dreadful science based on a cherry picked period that they can’t even explained why this behaviour occurred and what is happening now. If we don’t get a 1c rise over the next decade this is falsified already. Thanks NASA for becoming a laughing stock that the Hadley centre would be proud of.
Sorry, the above should be 8F and 1f.
This forecast falls in the same category of blatant stupidity as ignoring the warnings from engineer Allan J. McDonald about the leaky O-rings that triggered the Space Shuttle CHALLENGER disaster.
It’s going to blow up in their face too.
William Astley says:
July 29, 2013 at 9:33 am
“There is a significant solar magnetic cycle change underway. Each and every warm period in the current interglacial was followed by a cold period when the sun when into a Maunder like minimum.
The sun is going into a Maunder like minimum.
In the past, for some unexplained physical reason there was a delay of roughly one cycle (10 to 12 years) from the time that the solar magnetic cycle slowdown started and the cooling occurred.”
At least one part of what has gone on appears to be an El Nino tending to be triggered soon after a solar minimum in the ~ 11 year cycle, making solar forcing change not appear in atmospheric temperature as much then as would otherwise be the case. A prolonged Grand Minimum would after a bit overcome delaying effects, as you imply. Interestingly, though, solar/cosmic-ray modulation over recent decades is much more blatant in sea level rise rate variation and, at a particular altitude, humidity patterns as illustrated in the following:
http://s18.postimg.org/l3973i6hk/moreadded.jpg
(Enlarges on further click).
“The delay is caused by a process … (no need to explain the mechanisms as to why there is delay in cooling until there is more cooling.)”
I would be curious what else you have observed, but I can understand not wanting to do all of the work on publishing it yet.
Since nobody else has done so AFAIK, though unfinished yet from lack of time, I once started attempting to reconstruct temperature history by creating a spreadsheet model using actual low climate sensitivity (as opposed to a false high value in CAGW publications), accounting for the effect of cosmic ray variation (as opposed to models which ignore such), and without aerosol input adjusted as a fudging factor. Incomplete investigation seems to be approaching finding an ENSO-related sawtooth waveform as major in addition to the external solar/GCR forcings, though with the former influenced by the latter.
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As for the 8 degrees warming by 2100 absurdity mentioned in this article, even though they followed the first rule of untrue alarmism by setting the timeframe (2100 A.D.) to be after their working lifetimes, even a decade from now will make such extra ludicrous with nothing like around 1 degree per decade rise. That they made such an extreme claim is helpful in a way: Sometimes I wish the CAGW movement was less cunning and made claims like 20 degrees rise in a decade, so critical thought and skepticism would be fostered more.
“Why did they end the calibration period at 1999?”
Because after about then (or 1998) global temperatures (and probably U.S. too though I’d have to look up data) have been declining, which would be inconvenient for them. And naturally they started the period in 1970 since there was cooling before then, as seen within http://s18.postimg.org/l3973i6hk/moreadded.jpg