Just 2% short of the magic 97% number, I’m sure the SkS kidz will be devastated.
From Reuters:
Drafts seen by Reuters of the study by the U.N. panel of experts, due to be published next month, say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels – are the main cause of warming since the 1950s.
That is up from at least 90 percent in the last report in 2007, 66 percent in 2001, and just over 50 in 1995, steadily squeezing out the arguments by a small minority of scientists that natural variations in the climate might be to blame.
That shifts the debate onto the extent of temperature rises and the likely impacts, from manageable to catastrophic. Governments have agreed to work out an international deal by the end of 2015 to rein in rising emissions.
“We have got quite a bit more certain that climate change … is largely manmade,” said Reto Knutti, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. “We’re less certain than many would hope about the local impacts.”
…
WARMING SLOWING
The panel will try to explain why global temperatures, while still increasing, have risen more slowly since about 1998 even though greenhouse gas concentrations have hit repeated record highs in that time, led by industrial emissions by China and other emerging nations.
An IPCC draft says there is “medium confidence” that the slowing of the rise is “due in roughly equal measure” to natural variations in the weather and to other factors affecting energy reaching the Earth’s surface.
Scientists believe causes could include: greater-than-expected quantities of ash from volcanoes, which dims sunlight; a decline in heat from the sun during a current 11-year solar cycle; more heat being absorbed by the deep oceans; or the possibility that the climate may be less sensitive than expected to a build-up of carbon dioxide.
“It might be down to minor contributions that all add up,” said Gabriele Hegerl, a professor at Edinburgh University. Or maybe, scientists say, the latest decade is just a blip.
In scientific parlance, I’d call that a SWAG>
At DNAindia:
Drafts seen by Reuters of the study by the UN panel of experts, due to be published next month, say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities – chiefly the burning of fossil fuels – are the main cause of warming since the 1950s. That is up from at least 90 percent in the last report in 2007, 66 percent in 2001, and just over 50 in 1995, steadily squeezing out the arguments by a small minority of scientists that natural variations in the climate might be to blame.
That “squeeze out” is about right, look at Dr. Roger Pielke’s minority view with the AGU:
His minority view was one of 15 people that made the statement.
That works out to about a 7% minority view (or 93% majority) on that panel
Tom Nelson wonders about the 95% certainty:
[Were those numbers calculated, or just pulled out of some orifice?]
UPDATE:
Kurt Rohlfs writes via email about that statement from Tom Nelson:
Your article asks “Were those numbers calculated, or just pulled out of some orifice?” They were not calculated, at least if the same procedure from the fourth assessment report was used. In that prior climate assessment, buried in a footnote in the Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC admitted that the reported 90% confidence interval was simply based on “expert judgment” i.e. conjecture. This, of course begs the question as to how any human being can have “expertise” in attributing temperature trends to human causes when there is no scientific instrument or procedure capable of verifying the expert attributions.
Meanwhile, they haven’t offered up an explanation as to why reality and IPCC models diverge, perhaps because they can’t.
Clipe
I understand what the 95% actually means. That’s what I meant.
thisisnotgoodtogo said @ur momisugly August 16, 2013 at 12:57 pm
… warming caused by human activity, AR5 is in conflict with itself.
All warming is AGW according to them, not “most” warming.
I now understand their climate/weather bait and switch. All climate warming is caused by human activity, but cooling and weather are caused by natural factors. A pretty piece of reasoning – just false in so many ways.
Does no one teach logic in universities any more?
Milodonharlani
I think you missed the sarc symbol from your comment. You are joking, surely. If you aren’t you are seriously mistaken. It is clear from your comment that short of rabbits in the Precambrian, nothing I suggest as evidence will ever be admitted by you as evidence. It would look better on your CV together into a micturating contest than it would on mine. So no point in giving you any. Take that how you will.
It’s calculated like this:
Margaret Hardman:
At August 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm you say
So do I. This links to my above statement (at August 16, 2013 at 1:25 pm) which explains what it means
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/the-ipccs-new-certainty-is-95-what-not-97/#comment-1392526
Richard
D.I. @ur momisugly August 16, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Let me correct your spelling in that their posting of yours:
The IPPC are 95% certain that Crimatology is the way forward, and It is Mann made.
Margaret
You don’t seem to understand the sarcastic reference to the 97%. That’s what I mean.
My wish would be for “The Physical Basis” to be a downloadable .pdf in entirety (zip file?), as well as broken up in to .pdf chapters.
That way one only has to do a quick search on a topic of interest, find the biased science, and challenge it with the scientific literature (within seconds). You simply can’t do that now, unless someone wants to point out where to get the current edition in whole????? Prove me wrong.
We could do a FactCheck on the whole thing. When its broken up in separate documents its much too hard to systematically check all the errors.
This really needs to be done folks, I will tear down this piece of shit in 24 hours.
Yes, yes; and Hansen in his 1988 testimony claimed 99% certainty. When does another 25 years of intense study result in less certainty about a hypothesis? When the hypothesis was formed originally on the basis of data barely above, or even within the noise level, and there is no improvement in the resolving power or understanding of that data in the meantime.
In response to Theo Goodwin @ur momisugly August 16, 2013 at 2:48 pm
Theo, what happens when the end of the world, as promised by some cult leader, does not occur?
Or after Titanic sunk, described as unsinkable by naval architects?
Or I do not win millions in the Ontario lottery, as promised by the OLG.CA?
A lot of hand waving, excuses and hopes that no one notices. Either that, or there is the terminal solution, Jim Jones and David Koresh.
What we see here is the hand waving approach. God forbid the Jim Jones approach.
It’s actually pretty simple. There is no Science based reason for ANY Scientist, even a “climate scientist”, to be 95% certain of causation when there is:
1. No effect
2. No correlation
Even if I was a “climate scientist”, looking at the real-world situation I’d have that confidence level down somewhere in the 30% range. As in, it’s still possible, but not looking very likely.
Unfortunately, like something out of a Lewis Carroll novel, the characters involved are so absolutely certain of their previous claims that they can only SEE things that match their earlier predictions. Even when observation completely devastates their prediction, it’s all they see.
You can be sure the bookies have done their homework
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/novelty-betting/weather/climate-change
Margaret Hardman says:
August 16, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Why is it clear to you that I would accept no evidence of a human influence on climate. IMO there might be one, but too small to be measured & whether the effect is to cool or warm is unclear. But I’m open to your persuasion, so please try.
It’s getting tiresome that every time anyone here asks you kindly to justify your apparently blind faith in CACCA, you find some way to weasel out of so doing. I’m sure that many besides me would enjoy reading your facts & reason in support of the hypothesis (repeatedly falsified) that humans are primarily responsible for “climate change” in the past fifty years, or whatever time frame you chose.
Surely you have some concrete reasons for holding this belief. Why the reluctance to share them?
Bruce Cobb
They are a gang of CRIMATOLOGISTS; Get with the lingo!
So “natural variations in the climate” are OK to explain the failures of the models but not for any other single thing. This makes sense since “natural variations” were dismissed early on as having any impact.
Normally statistical significance is only considered reached when p<0.05. Therefore 95% is not staistically significant.
Perhaps “97%” is still a valid number? But only if it applies to confidence in the IPCC.
Most people, unless they are true deniers acknowledge that CO2 has a definite and predictable role in warming the Earth, Since the CO2 has risen, one might expect an increase in temperature.
Bravo! The IPCC has detected this and is, may be, might be confident at the 95% level that this has occurred. This isn’t really the point. Does temperature rise that is detectably attributable to CO2 actually matter if there is no significant amplification?
The headline doesn’t address this, which is the issue that matters.
Er, what volcanoes?
I don’t believe the 95% number for a second, but lets suppose for a moment that it is accurate. That still means there’s a 5% chance they are wrong. They are asking governments across the world to spend trillions of dollars on something that’s not a sure bet. If I gave you 20 guns, and only 1 of them was loaded, and offered you a million dollars to pick one, put it to your head and pull the trigger, would you do it?
The UN-IPCC is participating in a ‘Confidence Game’. A ‘95% Confidence Interval’ is just another piece of the confidence game. The ultimate goal is the continued funding fraud that is at the heart of AGW.
Confidence Game legal definition:
noun.
An intentional misrepresentation of past or present facts in order to gain a person’s trust so that he/she will transfer money or property to the individual making the misrepresentation. Also called a con game.
Doesn’t that perfectly describe the AGW confidence game?
MtK
Baffled how the confidence level can go up for something when evidence of it goes down.
Let’s say a man was charged with a crime and had a trial by jury. They are the only suspect in this crime.
After each day in court, the jurors increase their confidence in his guilt. After the 1st day they are 50% sure, day 2 at 66%.
On day 3, the defense presents credible evidence that somebody else must have participated in commiting the crime and surely they should have reasonable doubt but instead, the jury goes to 90% confidence.
On day 4, the defense shows very compelling evidence that other people, at the very least took part in the crime, if they were not actually responsible for most/all of the crime(and the jurors even admit that there must have been a role played by others)……….and the jurors, instead of increasing reasonable doubt become 95% confident in the defendants guilt.
What the heck is this?
1930’s in the Jim Crow south with a black man on trial and an all white jury??????
No, just the IPCC as the jury and CO2 charged with the crime.
The very existence of IPCC depends upon the danger of climate change – which really means anthropogenic global warming. Given human nature, why would the IPCC cut its own throat by admitting that climate change is mainly controlled by forces other than human? The only way to make the IPCC accountable is to scale their funding according to the accuracy of their climate model predictions. That would force them to silently incorporate the real forces at work in their climate model, and then everyone would be happy.
On second thought, why don’t we all listen to the Old Farmers Almanac forecasts since it has been at it for over 200 years, and just can the IPCC.
Margaret Hardman, Previous IPCC reports read like that, too. They conflate consensus and confidence level, it seems, in their very vague wording. I’d welcome any direction to a good explanation for how they derive these confidence intervals. I’ve looked pretty hard in past reports.
It appears that they calculated their confidence using the inverse of the formula used to adjust the recorded temperature of 1934.
After all, it would be overstating my opinion of their statistical prowess to assume the creation of a completely different mathematical expression of bias.