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.
But wiki gives the clincher definition!
“Global warming” includes a PREDICTION.
“Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation.”
So that’s why when it’s cooling, it really is warming.
It’s settled.
In advance.
Observing the IPCC and their Green supporters brings to mind an observation I made during my college days in the late 1970s. I was part of a large religious students organization that was recruiting and sending missionaries “over there” to help the heathen to find God.
In time, as I migrated through the religious experiences, I came across interesting deployments of other missionaries, namely from “over there” locations coming to America to help us find God. I inquired among our missionary faculty what was going on.
It turns out that people are the same, the world over. We believe that we’re fine, but those heathen “over there” need saving. So we send missionaries to “over there” locations. The religious in the “over there” locations send their youth to America to convert us to the true religion.
And so it is also in the political economy, where surveys find people believe that they personally are fine, but that others in different states are doing poorly. (rampant Confirmation Bias).
So here we see the Green Movement behaving quite religiously about their topic, including sending their missionaries to places where the ignorant savages live. Each year, the IPCC cranks up the amount of man-made climate harming, et cetera.
I have to acknowledge the shear audacity to push these lines of assertions in the face of 17 years of cooling. Facts don’t matter. The heathen “over there” need saving!
Perhaps when we acknowledge the religious bent of their thought processes, we can begin to understand that nothing we are currently saying to them is even registering in their mental reasoning centers. We are talking to “true believers” that facts and logic simply do not matter.
What happens about the Arctic Sea Ice Extent (DIP) chart? It is still not brought up to date, and the curve for 2013 ends with a sudden dip, that certainly is an instrumental error.
The graph says that actual warming from 1990 to 2012 is 0.12 to 0.16 C. How do you get that figure?
A check on Woodfortrees.org gives with a mean of 60 months gives a value of approximately twice that, see: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1980/mean:60/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1980/mean:60/plot/gistemp/from:1980/mean:60/plot/uah/from:1985.4/to:1995/trend/plot/uah/from:2005/trend
Even if you cherry pick the top in 1990 and the down in 2012 you get more increase than 0.16 C on a 60 months mean. You can of course justify the value of 0.12 – to 0.16C by narrowing the cherry picking to a few months in 1990 compared to a few months in 2012, but is that is less than fair statistics.
Is it my imagination or is it that as the “evidence” becomes more tenuous the “scientists” become more certain?
The rationalization to 95% is extremely significant for the hypesters.
A 95% confidence rate is one that has profound implications in statistics.
Making fun of this by comparing to the bs of Lewandowsky and SkS is missing the point.
When the IPCC fabricates this sort of stuff, it has deadly implications. 95% confidence means the IPCC can, if their obviously false claim stands up, make their *policy demands* sound ligitimate.
The IPCC leadership is fighting for their lives by using the ‘the best defense is a good offense’ strategy.
This study is good evidence that the entire edifice of the IPCC and AGW is operating with even less scientific basis than a religious board which, after years of seeking divine inspiration finally gets the answer they sought from the start.
But since AGW is a secular pseudo-religion that most politicians embrace, the implications for people who care for science and good public policy had best take this latest load of IPCC garbage seriously.
Jean Meeus said on August 16, 2013 at 11:59 pm:
Assuming you mean DMI, that’s the old type chart, using 30% sea ice concentration, which they were going to stop making. Since the product’s being discontinued and they don’t want it used, perhaps they just don’t care about fixing the erroneous dip.
Although if you follow that link, you’ll see an updated chart, with dip, currently Aug 17.
You want the new chart, 15% concentration, current and with no big dip.
There is also available another 15% daily Arctic sea ice chart, IARC-JAXA.
Interesting how the summary for politicians becomes ever more disconnected from reality. Observations about the lack of warming trump models, sensitivity estimates for climate feedbacks plummet, (as opposed to the CAGW trumpeted CO2 doom feedbacks) and more scientists are speaking out. Yet the science challenged IPCC senior editors still spin ‘unprecedented’ climate impacts from CO2 effects they can not definitively measure nor ball park predict.
As others mention, frantic hand waving combined with near meaningless polly* speech frames the IPCC draft suitable for more “man is evil, CO2 is evil.”, “Return to the stone age, without fire or light”, fact deficient MSM announcements.
polly* – simplification for describing mantras and promises politician’s repeat endlessly.
Much like the infamous “Polly want a cracker” line repeated to parrots until the poor birds are brainwashed into also repeating inane lines. A process that has proven quite effective on the CAGW groupies.
It’s really incredible. Some comments of mine about this proposition and the comparison of the confidence-level standards in climatology on one side and hard sciences on the other side:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/08/95-percent-confidence-in-hep-vs-ipcc.html?m=1
There is an inverse relationship between their confidence in themselves and the data. That’s not just correlation. I’d not jump on this too hard at this time lest they drop it from their report. Let them go on record first.
So what they are saying, if you read between the lines, is that they are 95% certain that the models are incapable of capturing all the factors listed that they think responsible for the warming pause. To put it bluntly, they have admitted, with 95% certainty, that their models are junk. Do they not know about the after affects of spin? Spin is what you say as you pee in the wind.
I’ve got a feeling that with the pause in warming, the Arctic looking as though it will freeze earlier this year and no major melt in the Arctic yet that this IPCC report will be the biggest publicly funded Omelette ever.
How can they be 95% confident when they have no clue what caused the last 17 years of (close to) no warming?
Its completely irrational. This ninety-something percent has been drilled into their conscience so many times that they can’t even look at the reality. It would have to be down to 50% in a real world statistical analysis.
Rule 1 . go back to to the original source and check it !
“From Reuters: Drafts seen by Reuters ” emm Reuters, why’s the link go to http://www.trust.org
h/t Tim_channon over on Bishop Hill
– I checked Yep Alister Doyle wrote a a Dec 2012 95% story , which was closed down in the 2nd comment”
– Then Alister Doyle wrote the Aug 2013 new longer story 95%, but mostly the same.
– anyone detect any NEW evidence ?
apologies if the language is too strong. why anyone would place any confidence in anything that comes out of the International Panel of Clueless Cunts is beyond me. surely with each of these reports the fantasy evidence is increasing and factual observation contained within the report is decreasing.
it really is getting to the criminal deception stage,and extremely worrying that not a single public body in any country is doing anything to challenge it.
“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. ”
Anybody got the link to this?
@bit chilly .. Agree, but I believe you mis-spelled “cults”
– I forgot to say the Dec 2012 Alister Doyle contains the phrase “The draft was shown on a climate change skeptic blog” ..surely he means here or on Donna’s blogs when the AR5 memory sticks were leaked.
– so actually what here on WUWT we are talking about a report based on a leak published here on WUWT in 2012
– Maybe WUWT should have a new thread about AR5 pre-releases Sensitive information
– here’s a Jul 20th 2013 piece from the Economist ” A peek inside the next IPCC assessment“
– Ah “the study by the U.N. panel of experts… say it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities”
– notice the strange words “experts” .instead of scientists & “likely” instead of certain
There is a standard MO of activist PR agencies.
– The activists standard technique is “framing” by planting a meme in the minds of journalists not educated in science (hence pre-releasing stuff before it can be debunked)
– The reports will, be big on “Scientists say” rather than actual “Science says”, cos such journalists easily mix up Opinions with Validated Scientific Evidence.
(The first you can take to the pub, the second you can take to the bank)
Dear IPCC,
Al Gore told me I was going to hell, but, am comforted in the fact that I will be too busy shaking hands with all my friends too notice the heat.
When it finally freezes over, I will be too drunk and have a pretty woman in each arm to feel the cold.
Yours in eternal damnation;
John
Cui Bono, “What volcanoes?”
Very good point.
And while we are talking about things that haven’t any evidence for having happened… did they explain why certainty on man causing global warming rose from 50% to 90% in the doze years from 1995 to 2007?
I mean, that is a major change in confidence. Why?
kramer says:
“Anybody got the link to this?”
At the bottom is is a link to the FAR. In the summary for policy makers, they drop a footnote explaining that the terms “high confidence” etc. are defined in a box in the introduction to the report itself. Going there, you get to the following quote:
Where uncertainty is assessed more quantitatively USING EXPERT JUDGMENT OF THE CORRECTNESS OF the underlying data, models OR ANALYSES, then the following scale of confidence levels is used to express the assessed chance of a finding being correct: very high confidence at least 9 out of 10; high confidence about 8 out of 10; medium confidence about 5 out of 10; low confidence about 2 out of 10; and very low confidence less than 1 out of 10. Where uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results), then the following likelihood ranges are used to express the assessed probability of occurrence: virtually certain >99%; extremely likely >95%; very likely>90%; likely>66%; more likely than not > 50%;about as likely as not 33% to 66%; unlikely <33%;very unlikely <10%; extremely unlikely <5%; exceptionally unlikely <1%
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm
—-
SEA LEVELS
“Overall our understanding has strengthened,” said Michael
Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University, pointing
to areas including sea level rise. An IPCC draft projects
seas will rise by between 29 and 82 cm (11.4 to 32.3 inches)
by the late 21st century – above the estimates of 18 to
59 cm in the last report, which did not fully account
for changes in Antarctica and Greenland.
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/1875410/report-experts-surer-of-manmade-global-warming-but-local-predictions-elusive
Previous Prediction:
18cm to 59cm
1.8mm to 5.9mm trend.
“Full account of Antarctica and Greenland”
Latest Prediction:
29cm to 82cm.
290mm to 820mm
/ 100 years
2.9mm to 8.2mm trend.
However:
1mm mass, trend. x 100 years = 100mm,10cm, 4inches.
http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2012.pdf
stewgreen says:
“Ah ‘the study by the U.N. panel of experts’ . . . notice the strange words ‘experts’ instead of scientists . . . ”
An “expert” is someone who has some demonstrable skill in a subject much greater than that of the average person, with an emphasis on the word “demonstrable.” My opinion is that the term “climate expert” is an oxymoron – kind of like assuming that Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking are experts in extraterrestrial life and therefore giving their pronouncements as to whether they think intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe special weight. Merely studying a subject or writing scholarly papers on a subject does not make one an expert, else we would all simply defer to theology majors on the existence of God. To be an expert, you have to practically apply what you think you know of a subject in a way that SHOWS that you know what you are talking about, and the only way for climate scientists to do this is to develop an accurate track record of future predictions measured against UNADJUSTED data (because adjusting temperature data begs the question of whether the adjustments are quantitatively accurate.) Meeting this standard is theoretically possible, but it would likely tale the better part of a century.
For myself, I have no problem with the qualitative theory behind CO2 warming the planet – it’s the quantitative part of it where I jump ship.
Hold on a minute, the article says “The panel will try to explain why global temperatures, while still increasing, have risen more slowly since about 1998”.
I’ve read elsewhere that there has been no statistically significant global warming (man-made or otherwise) for 17 years and 6 months.
I wonder what the actual truth is…
Dreadnought, you can view, for example, RSS satellite data for global temperature over the past 15 years here:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Some would attempt to claim that such should be discounted because there was an El Nino then. But El Nino / La Nina events are a large part of how warming or cooling is expressed.
In fact, back at the time, the activist line was:
“Friday, November 7, 1997 […]
El Nino events normally occur roughly every 5 years, and last for between 12 and 18 months. However […] “It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they’re going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we’ll go into a permanent El Nino.” […]
“So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we’ll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you’ll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” he said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/25433.stm
(That didn’t happen of course).
For just about anything of major importance to political battles over climate, though, there are publications with prior history changed, like the examples discussed within http://s24.postimg.org/rbbws9o85/overview.gif (enlarging on further click), so activist groups have graphs where temperature instead rises over the past 15 years.