Update: the IPCC edifice is crumbling, see The state of climate science: ‘fluxed up’
See also Willis’ article One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, and Lomborg: climate models are running way too hot
This post will be a sticky for awhile, new posts will appear below it. – Anthony
Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change
A forthcoming report points lowers estimates on global warming
by Dr. Matt Ridley
Later this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” part of which will be published on Sept. 27.
There have already been leaks from this 31-page document, which summarizes 1,914 pages of scientific discussion, but thanks to a senior climate scientist, I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one dials back the alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPPC thought in 2007.
Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.
Specifically, the draft report says that “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is “extremely likely” to be above 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), “likely” to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and “very likely” to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was “likely” to be above 2 degrees Celsius and “very likely” to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since “extremely” and “very” have specific and different statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.
Still, the downward movement since 2007 is clear, especially at the bottom of the “likely” range. The most probable value (3 degrees Celsius last time) is for some reason not stated this time.
…
Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC’s emissions scenarios) that there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.
==============================================================
Above are excerpts of an article Dr. Ridley has written for the Wall Street Journal, who kindly provided WUWT with a copy.
Read the entire story here
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
By deduction AR7 and AR 8 – assuming this pseudo-science organisation is not tossed into the dustbin of bad science by then – will be predicting an imminent ice age.
That means they were right to move from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ and we were wrong all along – sarc off.
AR5 – precis: what ifs and buts and not a lot else.
Now then, it seems to me – and way, way past it’s sell by date [by about 25 years] the end of the line has been reached.
And not before time, because personally I believe the mere fact that we’ve reached a fifth assessment was stretching the patience of mankind but particularly the western world to go on funding this ludicrous gravy train junket [UNEP IPCC].
At long last, it’s time to decommission this particular loco-train and shunt it into a siding, with its engine master – where he and it can rust and seize up in perpetuity – and in glorious silence.
Peter Miller:
Your post at September 14, 2013 at 2:40 am says in total
I suggest there is no need for your sarc tag.
Around the turn of the century – when alarmists were still proclaiming the then recent ENSO peak was a sign of things to come – I wrote the following in several places on the web.
“The global temperature fell from ~1940 to ~1970.
Alarmists then claimed emissions of SO2 from power generation were disrupting the climate system so were threatening climate disaster from global cooling.
The global temperature started to rise after ~1970.
By ~1980 it was no longer possible for alarmists to scare about global cooling so they morphed the scare into fear of global warming.
Alarmists then claimed emissions of CO2 from power generation were disrupting the climate system so were threatening climate disaster from global warming.
If global temperature were to cool for a decade then the global warming scare would probably be morphed back to global cooling scare.”
Alarmists always ridiculed this whenever and wherever I posted it.
We have not had a decade of clear global cooling, but global warming has ceased for a decade, and the global warming scare is being reigned-back.
One is often forgiven for being wrong but rarely forgiven for being right. (Sigh)
Richard
The fun part is as the IPCC backs down , the AGW fanatics will turn on them like rabid dogs , as they show time and again how badly the react to ‘anyone’ that dares to question the purity of ‘the cause ‘
Popcorn futures just went up as the left does want it does so very well , step itself in the back,.
So now perhaps the IPCC would care to explain the Minoan and Roman Optima, both of which were (if GISP2 data is to be believed) rather warmer than today, by about 2 degrees C…..
Thought not.
It looks like we’ll hit the 2C target without any action. 🙂
There will surely be a statement for policy makers at the end where they will state that the need for anti co2 measures are more urgent than ever and that policy makers should seize the opportunity afforded them by the pause to build windmills and destroy the economy. Also implying that governments keep funding the gravy train.
I feel that if they make no mention of the possibility that cooling is possible, then they will have painted themselves into a corner with no available exit strategy. The writing is on the wall, after 23 years of no significant warming and the last 8 years showing a slight cooling trend, there is every chance that we could see a steeper cooling trend arrive, PDO, AMO, Livingston and Penn (ap ?).
“very likely be less than 6C” – clearly for the benefit of those that preach the “precautionary principle”.
For the US, what will the EPA’s response be to lower climate sensitivity?
>> The AGW-scare was killed at the failed 2009 IPCC Conference in Copenhagen.
I believe the fatal wound was the 97-0 no confidence vote Al Gore received upon his return from Kyoto in a Democrat controlled Senate. Without the US economy bleeding into the carbon markets, the whole charade didn’t make sense.
Those models are really starting to take quite a beating from reality
By not stating a “most likely” number, they are consciously obscuring the fact that climate sensitivity has been climbing down.
They also refuse to describe 4-6 degrees as f. ex “unlikely”, even though this would be a natural thing to do according to how they deal with the lowest numbers.
Here we see IPCCs bias in reporting the science quite clearly. Always maintaining the threat, never admitting to any positive scientific developments.
It is politics in its purest sense.
The IPCC is making progress. It will be interesting to listen to the explanation for cooling.
All this despite empirical evidence that it is temperature that drives CO2 not the reverse as assumed by the IPCC.
The IPCC will morph into global cooling concernism, it will suggest then a policy for a world government to enforce a mandate to increase release of ghg into the atmosphere to mitigate cooling.
When asked why the models of the previous 20 years did not predict climate cooling then the IPCC will say the cheapskate US government never provided enough funds for modeling to achieve accuracy.
John
Jean Parisot:
At September 14, 2013 at 3:23 am you quote my having said
lemiere jacques says:
September 14, 2013 at 1:15 am
====================
I expect the same. There will likely be much appeal to the timely installed precautionary principle. The probability of dangerous warming may be smaller (reduced climate sensitivity), but the consequences of it will be stressed as disastrous. Risk = Probability x Consequence. Alarmist governments will persevere in very expensive mitigation measures to try and avoid this risk. The amount of warming c.q. climate sensitivity will not much interest politicians, until they understand that it’s very very very probable that it will remain below their self-defined danger threshold of 2 C.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/29/climate-science-exploited-for-political-agenda-according-to-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons/#comment-1402931
I apologise for the formatting errors in my above post.
Richard
I admit I am surprised by this development and sure hope it comes to turns out to be the case.
Other than the 6.0C outlier, the numbers quoted in the article are much closer to what appears to be the reality. Didn’t think we would see this happen at this time.
Bill Illis says:
September 14, 2013 at 4:22 am
Other than the 6.0C outlier, the numbers quoted in the article are much closer to what appears to be the reality. Didn’t think we would see this happen at this time.
———————————————————————————-
I think they have no choice but to give up the warming aspect of CAGW. Instead they are concentrating all their political force on “extreme” events. Of course there is no increase in extreme events, but an increase in reporting said events can keep the funding going, and can be used as an excuse by political hacks like Obama to attack the coal industry. The C the G and the W are MIA from CAGW.
…Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC’s emissions scenarios) that there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm….
So there is a gap in the market place for ‘expert’ opinion that warning of LESS than 2 deg could be dangerous?
Look for a new generation of ‘climate experts’ to fill that gap over the next few years….
@richardscourtney
…I apologise for the formatting errors in my above post….
“It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
And so the climb down begins…… Has there ever been a finer quango than the IPCC?. I would have preferred my tax dollars went to those that truly needed them but then I suppose all bets are off around the dog bowl at feeding time.
Bill Illis:
Your post at September 14, 2013 at 4:22 am says
Well, I am not “surprised” and I suspect many others are not, too.
The ‘pause’ makes a reduction of climate sensitivity necessary if the scare is to be kept staggering on. When asked,
“Why does the pause exist?”
they can answer with words to the effect,
“We slightly overestimated climate sensitivity, but as the science has progressed so we have corrected that in the light of new knowledge. We are 95% certain that AGW is real and we need to prevent the horrors it threatens.”
It is hard to see an alternative tactic which would keep the scare going in the light of the ‘pause’.
Please note the careful nature of the new statement.
A climate sensitivity is “likely” to be above 1.5°C and “very likely” to be below 6°C. Thus, they can claim to be making a conservative assessment because they refute the most extremist – and ridiculous – alarmist claims but keep the scare alive.
Also, importantly, they do not withdraw (because they do not mention) their assertion in the AR4 that the “most likely” value is a scary 3°C. If they were being honest then THAT is the value they would have most considered.
Richard
Don’t be confused by the 1980s and 1990s warming. Much of that was natural (ENSO) but some was from Asian aerosols reducing cloud albedo, a process that saturated in about 2000.
The reason is that Sagan’s aerosol optical physics is wrong – he missed out a second optical process. The result of this is that the sign of the effect is reversed. There was no significant CO2 warming.