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
Further to my last post (1.07am) and the point raised by stephen regarding reflectivity off the albedo.
Perhaps I should have mentioned two points.
Firts, we know that the clouds and atmosphere reflect light back to Earth and this is why one can still see details in shaddow areas. If one looks at an area of ground that is in direct sunlight boardered by some land that is in shaddow and which does not receive direct sunlight, the shaded area is not wholly dark and this is because it is being illuminated by diffused sunlight which is the residue of sunlight reflected back to Earth from the underside of clouds and from the general diffusion of the atmopsphere itself. The K&T energy budget only looks at direct sunlight and does not additionally include a component received and absorbed by the ground of refected/diffused solar radiation coming down from above. We know the surface must receive this additional component, indeed, any photographer is familiar with this and before the days when cameras were fitted with automatic light sensors,photographic films gave much information on the light available in different lighting conditions and how the film would respond in various different lighting scenarios so that the photographer could make the appropriate exposure setting. So this is undeniably real,
Second, AGW is all about small quantities of additional energy or missing heat etc. We have been discussing the effect of an additional 3.7w/m~2 per doubling of CO2. 3.7w/m~2 is approximately 10% of the the 30w/m~2 incoming solar which K&T claims that the surface reflects without absorbing. But what if the underside of clouds re- reflect back to Earth 10% of the 30w/m~2 of reflected solar?. That would be an additional 3w/m~2 received by the surface. What if just 1% of DWLWIR were to be reflected by the surface and not absorbed by the surface? That would be 3.42w/m~2 of energy not absorbed by the surface.
So quite small errors in the K7T energy budget could have far reaching consequences. The failure to account for solar energy reflected down from the atmosphere back to the surface of the Earth (a process that we know must be happening since we witness this with our own eyes every day) and the possibility that some part of the DWLWIR is not infact absorbed but is instead simply reflected back to space without absorption at the surface could be very significant and has not, in my opinion, been adequately adderessed.
Am I or have missed the point here. The premise is that man made submissions will double atmospheric carbon dioxide. Matt Ridley does say this will take hundreds of years but maybe this should be shouted out loudly.
Is there any quantative research that shows that industrial production and energy use will increase to such levels that it will double the CO2 in the atmosphere?
The whole theory of CAGW is built on this ridiculous premise.
Apologies in advance if I’ve missed something?
Who’s the “flat-earther” now, Mr. President?
I liked this résumé from Norman Page:
“This is like the Jehovah’s witnesses recalculating the end of the world each time a specified doomsday passes.”
And I can’t wait to see whether there will be another for years generously funded AR6 another x years from now, eventually estimating the cooling rate, eager to see another new set of edifying schtickientific terrories as well as learn the resulting taxrates to fund such fun and redeption from the recycled cool doom they haunted man with in seventies. Thrilled to see the full circle. I bet it would be at least so amusing as the current CAGW horror that my grandgrandchildren could feel 0.x°C warmer if I don’t throw my SUV I don’t have for scrap and stop eating the cows they dangerously fart.
For now I just wonder where they want to get the 670 GtC (an equivalent of roughly 70 years on current rates of fossil fuels consumption) which given the known carbon sinks would be needed to make the anthropogenic CO2 doubling happen. (To rather say nothing about the enhanced CO2 sequestration rates due to flora thriving on its everrising levels…under minor condition it is not under ice) -I’m really quite not sure there’s so much oil, coal and gas left in the ground, nor whether it all burned would really add the ~5.5W per square meter GHE forcing something tells me is needed for the feat of overcoming the Stefan-Boltzman law for their “extremely likely” 1°C surface temperature rise prediction come true. (To say nothing of the “likely” 1.5)
But I must say I’m really frustrated they abandoned the auspiciously looking 6, I always enjoyed so much being entertained by the I. M. Becile type of blokes from the realm beyond lunacy. A slight consolation is they still mention the number in the still apparently deadly serious manner, it is at least LoL…although one could surely deserve at least ROFLMAO for the piles of money they get.
marcjf says:
September 14, 2013 at 12:27 am
Is there any information on what is a climate optimum? Is it better in the 2000′s than the 1970′s for example? Is is better warmer or cooler than now? If so by how much? And why?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hostory (and Archeology) shows Warm is good Cold is bad. SEE:
Of Time and Temperatures: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/of-time-and-temperatures/
Egyptian Dark Ages: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/egyptian-dark-ages/
Great Famine of 1315 vs The Sun: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/great-famine-of-1315-vs-the-sun/
It’s models all the way down, I guess.
Stacey says:
September 15, 2013 at 2:59 am
//////////////////
According to the story, since the industrial era, we have caused CO2 levels to rise from 280 ppm to 400ppm. That is an increase of 120ppm (approximately 40%) and the majority of that increase has occured since the beginning of the 1940s (coincidentally just when temperatures fell – which might be insightful to the claim that CO2 forces temperaturess upwards).
We are currently adding CO2 at the annual rate of about 1.5 ppm (in the 50 years between 1960 to 2010, CO2 emissions rose by about 75ppm from just over ~320 to ~395ppm). See :http://s1136.photobucket.com/user/Bartemis/media/emissions.jpg.html?sort=3&o=6#/user/Bartemis/media/CO2GISS.jpg.html?sort=3&o=7&_suid=137924939711805379602833706999
Accordingly, should we continue to add CO2 at that rate, it would take about 266 years (ie., 400/1.5) to double current CO2 levels from today’s level of 400ppm to 800ppm, but it would take just ~106 years from now to double CO2 levels from the pre-industrial figure of 280ppm to 560ppm (ie., [560 -400]/1.5).
So it depends upon how you look at it. If you are looking at doubling CO2 from the pre-industrial levels to 560ppm then this may well happen in a further ~106 years. Of course even if Climate Sensitivity is say 2degC that will not result in a rise of 2 degC from today’s temperature level but rather a rise of 2 degC from pre-industrial levels. That begs the question of what were temperatures back in pre-industrial levels and how much rise have we already seen?
Some people suggest that we have already seen a temperature rise of about 0.8degC. If that is so, then the future rise (on a climate sensitivity figure of 2degC) would be a further 1.2degC.
However, there are problems with that claim. First the logarithmic effect of CO2. We have already raised CO2 levels by more than 40% and this should therefore represent closer to 50% (rather than 40%) of the perceived warming. Accordingly, this would suggest that Climate Sensitivity is no more than 1.6degC, and not 2 degC. Second, the 0.8degC rise in temperature anomaly is from around the mid to late 19th century, whereas pre-industrial times were somewhat earlier.
Anyway, there is not much future warming to come since we have already experienced about half the warming associated with a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial imes.
If you look at it as from today, ie., one is fearful of a further 2degC warming from today’s temperatures, then this will not occur for about 266 years (at the current rate at which we are adding CO2). So any perceived problem is well into the future.
One of the rediculous things about the scare is that however one looks at it, the scary scenario does nott unfold for 100 may be 260 years time, and no account is taken of the the extreme likelihood that we will not by then be using fosil fuels to generate energy. In 100 years time, the prospects that we will have solved the problems associated with say nuclear fusion are high. It is almost certainly the case that we will be using different means of energy production and that fosil fuel usage will naturally decline (irrespective of peak oil and/or the need to embrace green renewables) as the future unfolds just because of technological advances which will almost certainly ensue.
Of course, one further issue is whether warming would be bad. I am repeatedly pointing out that history tells us that cold is bad and warm is good. I have repeatedly commented upon man’s aquisition of techology and the global spread of the iron age and bronze age being temperature/warm climate dependent. So personally, i wouldn’t worry if there was some warming of a few degrees. It is likely that that would be a godsend.
PS. When I use ‘we’ I do not seek to imply that man is responsible for the rise in CO2 emissions. This rise may be natural (perhaps temperature related since it appears that temperature leads CO2, and not the other way around, or it may be due to some other natural happening, eg., a rise in ant/termite populations since ants and termites emit more CO2 than man and if their numbers are growing then one would expect global CO2 levels to rise).
I am not endorsing either that we have already seen a rise of some 0.8degC (whilst I consider there has been a rise in temperature rom the low of the LIA, I consider that fhat the errors associated with the thermometer record are large and I would not like to say whether we have seen a rise of 0.8degC or 0.6 or 0.4degC from pre-industrial times, we just don’t know), nor that all of the temperature rise is due to CO2, rather than some, most or even all of it being the result of natural variation (I hold to the null hypothesis position that unless there is clear evidence to displace the null hypothesis, the rise in temperature is natural – although I consider it likely that there has been some rise in temperature on a local basis due to land usage changes but on a global level the effect of this is modest)
For British readers, I note that Ed Davey is still sprouting his usual nonsense. He is argue that the climate can’t wait for Tory unity on green issues. I guess that he is not aware that the IPCC are rolling back on Climate Sensitivity and that accordingly matters are less urgent, and the one thing we can do is wait a bit.
The prudent thing would be to immediately halt or green initiatives. After all the USA has been the most successful country at reducing its CO2 emissions and it did not sign up to Kyoto. The experience of the USA strongly suggests that if you are serious about reducing CO2 then the best way to achieve this is to increase dependancy on gas. The case ffor shale in the UK is overwhelming if one wishes to reduce CO2 emissions.
However, given the pause we ca now afford to delay taking action, and insead wait and see what the next 10 years informs us. If temperatures do not increase, even more so should they fall, we will know that the case for AGW has been very much over hyped and that Climate Sensitivity is even lower than even the latest papers are suggesting such that the need to take any action is unlikely.
Ed Davey needs to get with the latest research and needs to consider the implications of the pause, or is he just intent on increasing the number of old and vulnerable people killed each year (I would say murdered) as a result of the UK government energy policy and the needless and grossly reckless increase in energy cost pushing millions of people needlessly and avoidably into fuel poverty. When interviewed by Andrew Neil, he suggested that his policies were no regret policies. I take it that he does not regret being a party (indeed a prime mover) to the murder (I will not sanitise it with expressions of ‘collateral damage’ or ‘killing’, when it is the direct and foreseeable result of policy – it is rightly to be clasified as murder and nothing less) of thousands of people who have been forced into fuel poverty.How this man sleeps at night, I do not know.
I’ve thought of a political slogan for the UN and all of this (and unnamed political actors), and in the spirit of community I’m willing to hand it out free of charge (yeah, like I’d get paid for it anyway). So here it is:
“Rearward!”
There is no DWLWIR. That is based on misinterpreting pyrgeometers which measure temperature and output the theoretical energy flux to a sink at absolute zero. In reality ALL that potential energy is offset by the radiation field of the surface.
The only significant surface IR is via the atmospheric window, the self-absorbed ghg bands mutually annihilating as required by Maxwell’s equations.
This is expressed in the standard atmospheric physics qdot = – Div Fv where qdot is the monochromatic heating rate of matter per unit volume and Fv is the monochromatic radiative flux density per unit volume. This is simple conservation of energy and when integrated over all wavelengths gives the difference between the radiation fields.. The climate models are a perpetual motion machine so have zero utility.
When will people who comment or work in climate science use correct bloody physics instead of Sagan, Houghton and Hansen’s miserable cock-up to pretend we might become another Venus!
Too many writers and commenters at WUWT are conceding that both the UN and the IPCC will exist for “the next round”. History suggests that when new sources of energy (the most game-changing element especially in open, intelligent societies) enabling new technological development, enhancing significantly productivity and creativity, and creating heretofore unimaginable wealth by all sorts of different measures, then new social, financial, and economic structures emerge. I might be a optimist because I am an American historian. However, the heaping up of new discoveries and developments is astonishing, including relatively inexpensive desalinization processes — water as an essential natural resource necessary for wealth creation. (How many humans live near coasts of continents?)
Yes, things are pretty rotten now, but this current “system” beginning in the early 1970s, evolved to suck up all the wealth developed by the post-War II generation. That was the time U.S. oil supposedly “ran out”, and so did hope for creating new wealth. That was also the time of success of one of the most remarkable movements in representative democracy — the Civil Rights Movement; in the early 1970s it began to sour and it sold the American (all people’s) dream — 1) freedom, 2) equality-of-opportunity and 3) working-hard-for-one’s-family — for a pot of porridge: special rights and privileges for “victims” over the “victimizer” with everlasting payments from the government. This will not last; entrepreneurs of all colors and ethnic backgrounds who know about developing resources will not stand for it.
Europeans seem not to understand this part; they idealize their governmental institutions and cannot revere institutions of freedom and entrepreneurialism. As we know from history, Europeans appear to have a death wish and Americans have bailed them out many times. Do notice, do remember, that the UN and its IPCC is primarily a European-like institution. Therefore, it can have little to do with science or the scientific method. I think we need to stop giving them any credibility by “assuming” they will exist in the future that they have abandoned.
The Saudis, who had an opportunity for immense wealth development as the next big energy producer in the world after the U.S. and an opportunity to lead the Islamic world, turned to Wahhabism, a fundamentalism requiring closing down the Islamic mind and with it entrepreneurialism and freedom of opportunity. The Saudis also enabled the attacks on American wealth and freedom. (They also appear to have recommended and paid for someone’s tuition at Harvard Law School.) The Islamic part of the world is now involved in internecine battles. We should help them (individual countries or groups) only where they will be helped.
Today, too many and their citizens that honor some measure of human freedom and inventiveness find themselves in possession of immense stores of energy resources. We, they, will not squander them. I predict (even though predictions are useless in the vast chaos of history, e.g., who predicted the end of the Soviet Union) that the UN, including their IPCC, is history, and not in the distant future, thanks to new institutions like WUWT and many others, and thanks to scientists who stand by the scientific method. It won’t be easy, but it is time to think ahead; we know there is absolutely no reason for the IPCC to exist except as a relic of the wealth-sucking institutions built beginning in the early 1970s. We are in a new era.
‘marcjf says:
September 14, 2013 at 12:27 am
Is there any information on what is a climate optimum? Is it better in the 2000′s than the 1970′s for example? Is is better warmer or cooler than now? If so by how much? And why?’
This is a very interesting question which depends on what you define ‘better’ to mean.
Here are a few questions which may help you to define ‘better’:
1. If farmers can adapt to changing climate by optimising their use of agricultural land, will a temperature increase or decrease increase overall global yields of the foods that are most healthy for human beings, most storable over a few seasons and most capable of being cooked/prepared efficiently?
2. If human beings leave large areas of land for the growth of trees, jungles and other foliage, will temperatures increases increase or decrease the stability of the carbon cycle on earth??
3. If the oceans warm, will this increase biomass in a way which increases biodiversity or decrease it?
4. Given where human settlements are now, will temperature increases cause greater or fewer human disasters due to natural climatic events of unusual extremes?
5. If temperature increases, will overall ability to provide cost-effective energy to humankind increase or decrease?
NO doubt other questions could be added, but the key to note from the questions I have asked is that I assume that human kind adapts suitably to whatever comes along.
It is a wholly different set of questions if humankind attempts to control nature rather than adapt to it, since such questions will have to include the likelihood that human control has beneficial vs detrimental effects in reality as opposed to in conception.
The latest IPCC report will stand firmly like a seawall against the coming waves of criticism, buttressed by the key words which lie at the foundation of all IPCC reports: may, might, could, possibly, likely, probable, projected.
I don’t think he’s a doctor though. He’s a journalist. Still, he might be right.
The part of the erosion of IPCC credibility that occurred on Pauchari’s watch may provide the IPCC Bureau with an IPCC saving strategy. The IPCC Bureau can say that everything is Pauchari’s fault and they will appoint a new leader under a reform banner.
Would that work?
Nah, the IPCC’s problems are inherent to its structure and to its founding framework.
What could extend its life is the start of significant cooling. They would start on a scary Global Cooling exaggeration campaign.
John
Jim Steele says:
September 14, 2013 at 10:48 am
“All the evidence suggested increasing biological benefits. Its about time they admitted it. http://landscapesandcycles.net/less-arctic-ice-can-be-beneficial.html”
So, do you suppose the US EPA will undeclare CO2 as a pollutant? Or admit that wind power’s main contribution to ecology is as a bird and eagle blender? I think not. Since the US federal government is known for paying for litigation against itself for all of the green groups, can we not form an organization or get an existing one that will litigate for economic damages from the EPA. They are already substantial in the coal mining business, just to name one of many. Any ideas out there?
– – – – – – – –
Cooling or Warming?
Remember Robert Frost’s poem ‘Fire and Ice’?
To me it looks like the Earth-Atmosphere System (EAS) is not yet well understood. Get to work on it now that the IPCC centric AGW dogma / myopia is being disenfranchised.
John
It reminds me of a weatherman predicting tomorrow’s high temperature will be between 60 and 90 degrees. The information is about as useful.
IPCC AR5 now says that the temperature rise is lower than the IPCC thought in 2007.
But, but… recently Yvo de Boer said that the next U.N. climate report will “scare the wits of everyone” (WUWT, July 19, 2013).
Idiots.
Thanks for the Frans. My apologies for not being clearer. What I should have asked was what is the science behind concluding for a 2C limit? I think it’s in your last reference.
Now let’s look at the present and way back to a much warmer time.
Jean Meeus
September 15, 2013 at 9:46 am
says:
‘IPCC AR5 now says that the temperature rise is lower than the IPCC thought in 2007.
But, but… recently Yvo de Boer said that the next U.N. climate report will “scare the wits of everyone” (WUWT, July 19, 2013).
Idiots.’
Maybe what de Boer really meant was that the report would “scare the wits” out of all the climate scientists working for the UN since it meant that, assuming they can, they’ll all have to get new jobs; and this time be judged on whether they can provide a valuable service. I’d be terrified too.
Don’t get excited by this. They haven’t written those statements without a backup clause. They are no gone yet. AR6 will begin shortly.
Ralph Kramden says:
September 15, 2013 at 9:19 am
It reminds me of a weatherman predicting tomorrow’s high temperature will be between 60 and 90 degrees. The information is about as useful.
That is exactly what the UK met off does. Look at their 5 days ahead forecast on the BBC site.
LOL. Thanks for the reminder. So it’s going to be more scary than 2007 while not really being scary at all. I’m shaking in my boots already.
pesadia says:
September 14, 2013 at 1:59 pm
The world is a different place today than it was three weeks ago. In my opinion
A better place.
==================================================================
5000 dead in Iraq last month from sectarian violence.
Not for everybody, pesedia. Nor will it be for Syrians until the Jihadis are exterminated – even then, the likelihood is that it will never be the tolerant society it was only three years back. The world can not be a better place until the problem if Islamic fundamentalism is dealt with; the West should start by stopping its policy of appeasement. We all know how that one works out.
Sorry OT, but whilst I wish pesedia was right, he facts suggest otherwise. The Middle East is convulsed, and there is no sign of an end to this.