From Steve McIntyre: Two Minutes to Midnight
There is much in the news about how IPCC will handle the growing discrepancy between models and observations – long an issue at skeptic blogs. According to BBC News, a Dutch participant says that “governments are demanding a clear explanation” of the discrepancy. On the other hand, Der Spiegel reports:
German ministries insist that it is important not to detract from the effectiveness of climate change warnings by discussing the past 15 years’ lack of global warming. Doing so, they say, would result in a loss of the support necessary for pursuing rigorous climate policies.
According to Der Spiegal (h/t Judy Curry), Joachim Marotzke, has promised that the IPCC will “address this subject head-on”. Troublingly, Marotzke felt it necessary to add that “climate researchers have an obligation not to environmental policy but to the truth”.
Unfortunately, as Judy Curry recently observed, it is now two minutes to midnight in the IPCC timetable. It is now far too late to attempt to craft an assessment of a complicated issue.
More here: http://climateaudit.org/2013/09/24/two-minutes-to-midnight/
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Judith Curry: Can science fix climate change?
JC message to IPCC: Once you sort out the uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates and fix your climate models, let us know. Then please do the hard work of understanding regional vulnerability to climate variability and change before you tell us what constitutes ’dangerous’ climate change. And let us know if you come up with any solutions to this ‘problem’ that aren’t worse than the potential problem itself.
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Pat Michaels: More IPCC Misdirection: Its Dodgy Sea Level-Rise Assessment
The leaked version of the AR5 SPM includes this description of sea level rise:
It is very likely that the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm yr–1 between 1901 and 2010 and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm yr–1 between 1993 and 2010. Tide-gauge and satellite altimeter data are consistent regarding the higher rate of the latter period. It is likely that similarly high rates occurred between 1920 and 1950.
Notice that they dropped any statement wondering whether the recent rate of rise was an increase in the longer-term trend or the result of short-term variability or other non- climate-change-related factors—even though the difference between these cases has implications for our understanding of sea level rise and how it may evolve into the future.
We repeat—recent scientific findings argue that rate of sea level rise since 1993 is little different than the long-term (20th century) rate of sea level rise once natural variability and non-climatic influences are accounted for.
More here: http://www.cato.org/blog/more-ipcc-misdirection-its-dodgy-sea-level-rise-assessment
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Donna LaFramboise’s op-ed in the WSJ: Warming Up for Another Climate-Change Report
My own examination of the 2007 IPCC report found that two-thirds of its 44 chapters included at least one individual with ties to the WWF. Some were former or current employees, others were members of a WWF advisory panel whose purpose is to heighten the public’s sense of urgency around climate change.
In a sense, the IPCC conducts the equivalent of a trial. The organization is supposed to be policy-neutral: Its job is to decide whether or not human-generated carbon-dioxide emissions are dangerous to the climate. Rajendra Pachauri is the chief judge.
Mr. Pachauri writes forewords for Greenpeace publications and recently accepted an International Advertising Association “green crusader” award. He is an aggressive advocate for emissions reduction and carbon taxes.
More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981304579079030750537994.html
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Via the Hockey Schtick: IPCC says only way to lower temperatures is NEGATIVE CO2 emissions
According to New Scientist, the forthcoming IPCC report will say, “CO2-induced warming is projected to remain approximately constant for many centuries following a complete cessation of emission. A large fraction of climate change is thus irreversible on a human timescale, except if net anthropogenic CO2 emissions were strongly negative over a sustained period.”
In other words, even if all the world ran on carbon-free energy and deforestation ceased, the only way of lowering temperatures would be to devise a scheme for sucking hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
In essence, the IPCC says we’re doomed no matter what.
Fortunately, any small effect of CO2 on the climate is overwhelmed by natural variability, thus nature will do what it wants regardless of man’s attempts to control the weather with the harmless, essential, trace gas CO2. And even if you think CO2 has a significant climate effect, the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is only about 14 years, not the hundreds claimed by the highly flawed IPCC Bern model.
More here: World won’t cool without geoengineering, warns report
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Bishop Hill: Met Office concedes the error
Over the last day or so, Julia Slingo has sent a polite, but somewhat evasive response to Nic Lewis regarding his critique of the UKCP09 model. It can be seen here.
Nic Lewis’s reaction is here. I don’t think he is very impressed. The key exchange relates to the following paragraph in Slingo’s paper:
Having said that, it is true that the relationship between historical aerosol forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) depicted in your Figure B1 is based only on the PPE. But we disagree with your assertion that the results from HadCM3 are fundamentally biased. It is certainly the case that versions of HadCM3 with low climate sensitivity and strongly negative aerosol forcing are incompatible with the broad range of observational constraints. But the key point is that the relationship between aerosol forcing and ECS is an emergent property of the detailed physical processes sampled in the PPE simulations.
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The GWPF: Most Climate Sceptics Are Also Environmentalists
A paper published today in Global Environmental Change finds that “a central organising idea for climate change sceptics” is that climate change is governed by natural cycles, such as ocean oscillations and solar activity, and that “‘sceptics can have pro-environmental values similar to climate change believers.“
According to the authors, “In contrast to other studies that postulate scepticism and denial as individuals’ fear management strategies in the face of climate change threat, we found that the natural cycles view is founded on a reassuring deeper conviction about how nature works, and is linked to other pro-environmental values not commonly found in sceptical groups. It is a paradox of natural cycles thinking that it rejects the anthropocentrism that is at the heart of science-based environmentalism. By contrast, it places humans as deeply integrated with nature, rather than operating outside it and attempting with uncertain science to control something that is ultimately uncontrollable.”
Quite true, most skeptics I know are pro-enviroment for things that actually matter, such as water quality, toxic pollutants, sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, atmospheric particulates, etc., but opposed to wasting the majority of environmental efforts on trying to control the weather with the harmless, essential, & trace gas CO2.
http://www.thegwpf.org/climate-sceptics-environmentalists/
Note: I’m guilty as charged – Anthony
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Dennis Stayer writes:
The DNS server OpenDNS has blocked the web site ClimateDepot.com claiming it is a Phishing Site. I have responded to OpenDNS that this site has never requested any information personal or otherwise!
If phishing is occurring I suspect a “Warming Hacker”.
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The SS Global Warming:
James Delingpole writes:
Al Gore’s “consensus” is about to be holed below the water-line – and those still aboard the SS Global Warming are adjusting their positions. Some, such as scientist Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, have abandoned ship. She describes the IPCC’s stance as “incomprehensible”.
Others, such as the EU’s Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, steam on oblivious. Interviewed last week by the Telegraph’s Bruno Waterfield, she said: “Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said: ‘We were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of the things you have to do in order to combat climate change?” If she means needlessly driving up energy prices, carpeting the countryside with wind turbines and terrifying children about a problem that turns out to have been imaginary, then most of us would probably answer “No”.
More at Deligngpole: Global warming believers are feeling the heat
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Shock, awe: I get a mention in the BBC with Andrew Montford.
BBC stops short of calling the Principia zealots out for being the irrational nutballs that they are, but I think readers can figure it out for themselves once the visit the Principia website.
Read it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24233643
“German ministries insist that it is important not to detract from the effectiveness of climate change warnings by discussing the past 15 years’ lack of global warming. Doing so, they say, would result in a loss of the support necessary for pursuing rigorous climate policies.”
Which Ministries and which people, I want names so we can address them in person.
In terms of surrendering to Ideologies Germany has an historic obligation not to make the same mistake again.
The fact that warming has stalled over the past 15 years should be celebrated, especially now the Energiewende is a complete faillure.
I’m worried by the German response but we should give the German people a fair chance.
They wil pay the price and all that was served until now is the lies from the political establishment and the endless stream of alarmist propaganda in the media.
sergeiMK says:
“recently roy spencer has claimed 50% of warming is due to uhi.”
UHI is not global warming. It is an artifact of localized human activity. The fact that temperature measurements are taken in inappropriate locations such as airports indicates a serious problem with the methodology. It does not mean the global warming is as real as is claimed.
AGW refers to global warming — but there is no testable, measurable scientific evidence proving that human activity contributes anything at all to global warming.
[Disclaimer: it is possible that human activity does contribute something to global warming, even though there is not a shred of measurable evidence to support that conjecture. But if it is true, then the warming caused is so minuscule that it can be completely disregarded for all policy decisions. It is just too small to matter.]
sergeiMK:
My post at September 26, 2013 at 5:34 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/26/the-wuwt-hot-sheet-for-sept-26th-2013/#comment-1427171
referenced and quoted your original post in full then refuted every part of it.
But you continue with your post at September 26, 2013 at 9:12 am. I quote it here in full
OK, so you have conflated the opinions of two different people to obtain an assertion.
So what? If those people have said what you claim that indicates nothing.
Firstly, the so-called “measurements” are nothing of the sort. They are estimates which are changed in most months. For example of how they change then see this
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
And if you want know how meaningless those estimates are then read this, especially its Annex B
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
However, global temperature certainly did rise over the last century. It has been rising from the Little Ice Age (LIA) for ~3 centuries. The rise has not been constant. The recovery from the LIA seems to consist of alternate 30-year periods of global warming and no warming (or slight cooling).
Do I know what effect caused the Minoan, Roman, Medieval and Present warm periods?
No, nobody knows.
Do I know what caused the cool periods between those warm periods?
No, nobody knows.
Do I know if why the recovery from the LIA has alternative ~30 year periods of stall and warming?
No, nobody knows.
Do I know if the end of the existing stall (known as the “pause”) will be followed by warming to temperatures similar to the Medieval warm period or cooling to temperatures similar to the LIA?
No, nobody knows.
But some people pretend to know answers to these questions, and they are believed some gullible fools. Meanwhile, people who have not been duped by the now falsified AGW-scare continue to seek answers to these questions.
Richard
Sasha says:
September 26, 2013 at 5:38 am
Ypersele has a completely closed mind on AGW, and why any one would believe anything he says about the climate is beyond me.
Completely agree with that. I have heard a speech of him for students at the University of Anywerp. Avoiding any answer to pertinent questions like about the current “hiatus” in upward temperature trend. And acting in the background to excert pressure so that a meeting of skeptics at the Free University of Brussels with Claes Johnson and Fred Singer was cancelled and had to move to a private place. Shame on him…
GeeJam says:
September 26, 2013 at 4:40 am
This leaves CO2 at just 0.040%
Right but irrelevant argument. No matter how small the amounts are, it is about its effect. 0.0001% of HCN in the atmosphere is enough to kill you…
Not that I think that even a doubling of CO2 is a problem (to the contrary, possible more beneficial than problematic). But (relative) concentrations can’t be used as argument.
There are two types of CO2 – ‘naturally occuring’ and ‘man-made’. 96.775% of CO2 is naturally occurring, thus leaving man-made CO2 @ur momisugly 3.225%
Again irrelevant and wrong this time: the emissions are 3% of the total emissions, but additional, the natural emissions are more than compensated by the sinks which are at about 98.5%. Thus more sink than source. Thus most of the natural emissions are simply cycling in and out and the human contribution is largely responsible for the 30% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.
And my point is . . . . how can such a minuscule amount of man-made gas be responsible for a 1 degree C temperature increase in the last century
Good question and probably only for a small part. But still not zero. And IF there is a substantial part of the warming caused by CO2, then humans are near fully responsible for it…
fhhaynie says:
September 26, 2013 at 7:42 am
If atmospheric CO2 concentration follows temperature, we should expect a maximum CO2 within the next thirty years.
It doesn’t look good for your theory: despite a flat trend, the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up at a near constant ratio with human emissions…
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
This thread is in danger of being side-tracked onto debate of the carbon cycle. I write to make one point in hope of diverting the discussion back to its mainline.
At September 26, 2013 at 12:10 pm you write
If you were right that “the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up at a near constant ratio with human emissions” (the meaning of “near constant ratio” is debatable) then it would not say anything about the statement of fhhaynie.
Richard
The Guardian’s latest ‘thesis’ is that we’re all hard wired ‘not to do anything about climate change’.
You’ll not be surprised to learn that no evidence was provided to back up this ‘assertion’, but 500 eco-hippy bloggers all agreed that skeptics knew nothing about science.
I have challenged one blogger to demonstrate that his credentials match or exceed those of Bob Carter (Professorial rank achieved) and John Christy (regular testimony on Capitol Hill)….
1) F. Englebeen: “the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere goes up at a near constant ratio with human emissions”
So? BOTH human and natural CO2 correlate strongly with temperature increase — delayed by a quarter cycle.
2) F. Englebeen: “IF there is a substantial part of the warming caused by CO2, then humans are near fully responsible for it… .”
You have provided no evidence for this conjecture. And you cannot. There isn’t any.
Further, native sources and sinks for CO2 have so much greater a magnitude than human CO2’s that even a slight imbalance in net native CO2 OVERWHELMS any human CO2 component.
Source for above: Dr. Murry Salby, lecture in Hamburg, Germany, April 18, 2013
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@ur momisugly Phil Jourdan, you said it — CONTROL FREAKS.
Has OpenDNS fixed the phishing problem yet?
Believe it or not, it is possible this is an honest mistake. OpenDNS marks most sites a phish site automatically. There have been cases in the past where other sites on a shared server cause multiple sites to be marked as phish sites.
“we’re all hard wired ” (R. T. J. 1211 quoting Guardian).
Yup. (good point) The brains of scientists doing hard science, i.e., doing REAL science using observations to verify or falsify genuine hypotheses, have excellent wiring. Those who are huffing and puffing mere speculation have only straw.
Nothing political in the WG1 report at all. Only science.
John Whitman says:
September 26, 2013 at 7:09 am
Re: AC34 – if you believe the British newspapers, it was mostly down to a Brit!
If Dr. Curry is a hero why doesn’t she just formally denounce the IPCC with a direct statement?
Janice Moore says:
September 26, 2013 at 12:30 pm
So? BOTH human and natural CO2 correlate strongly with temperature increase — delayed by a quarter cycle.
You are looking at the derivative of the increase, which effectively removes the trends. If you look at the trends, then the increase in the atmosphere perfectly matches the human emissions and not the temperature increase:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
Or in ratio:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2.jpg
And indeed, the variability in sink rate is mostly from the variability in temperature, but that is not the cause of the trend.
You have provided no evidence for this conjecture. And you cannot. There isn’t any.
Further, native sources and sinks for CO2 have so much greater a magnitude than human CO2′s that even a slight imbalance in net native CO2 OVERWHELMS any human CO2 component.
I said IF (and only IF) there is a substantial effect of CO2 on temperature, then we are responsible for it, as humans are responsible for the increase of CO2…
While the natural fluxes are huge, the net natural variability after a year (or even over the seasons) is surprisingly small: about 4-5 ppmv/°C, that is all. Humans currently contribute 8-9 GtC/yr. That is about twice the natural variability:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em2.jpg
And Salby is wrong on several counts, but that is a long discussion…
Richard C,
You say:I am getting fed up with misrepresentations of the IPCC on WUWT threads. Yours is merely the latest.
But what followed felt like shouting me down rather than responding to what were quite specific point. My concern was that the original attack were not hitting the target. I am also concerned, and more so after your response, with the shrill rising among otherwise sober commentator such as yourself.
berniel:
I read your post at September 26, 2013 at 3:35 pm.
Your original post at September 26, 2013 at 5:21 am was pure excuse for the IPCC. This link jumps to it for the benefit of others
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/26/the-wuwt-hot-sheet-for-sept-26th-2013/#comment-1427154
My post in reply was at September 26, 2013 at 5:44 am. This is what it said in total
I thank you for giving me a reason to draw attention to it and the important link which it contains.
Richard
Here are two of my definitions which may assist the non AGW in their battle with the nonsense.
Delusional and denial-the modern coping method – you don’t have to cope with reality.
Propaganda-promoting an idea or concept while ignoring the facts of an opposing point of view.
These two fit those who fly the pro AGW flag.
Climatedepot.com looks normal right now, to me.
On Sligo’s “emergent property” dodge: Fuel poverty is also an emergent property of relying on climate models.
Climatedepot.com would look normal. But OpenDNS is still reporting it as a phishing site, which could be picked up by URL Filtering engines. I did submit a report that its appearances is probably a hack and attempt DOS for political reasons.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
September 26, 2013 at 12:05 pm
Ferdinand,
Nicely summarized. As you pointed out with the HCN example, a tiny amount of a substance can have a big effect. Small amounts of erythropoietin in our blood stream maintain our health.
berniel says:
September 26, 2013 at 5:21 am
Bernie, I think the UHI effect continues. Look up discussions of the divergence of surface temperatures from satellite temperatures. Most likely this is due to continuing UHI.
Pristine weather stations report no rise since the 1800s. They are treated as outliers by the weather computers and homogenized with stations in more populated zones. All fiksed!