This is a bullet point collection of reactions as they come in, it will be updated throughout the day by adding new items to the list. It is also a sticky post – new stories will appear below this one.
My first reaction was: That IPCC had a golden opportunity, and blew it due to being unable to adapt to reality.
My second reaction was due to a tweet from the vice chair of the IPCC, who was so tired, he couldn’t even get the website right:
There’s nothing like sleep deprived group think under deadline pressure to instill confidence, right?
My third reaction after reading the SPM is this: Looking at claims, it strikes me that the damaged credibility of the IPCC remains intact.
When you still push increasing confidence in predictions while the IPCC referenced models fail to model reality, and this has been pointed out worldwide in media, it becomes a “jump the shark” moment where the advocacy speaks far louder than the science.
Here are other reactions:
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Marcel Crok: AR5 gives no best estimate for climate sensitivity; breaks with a long tradition; good news is hidden from policy makers
One of the most surprising things in the just released SPM is the absence of a best estimate for climate sensitivity. The SPM now says this:
The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multi-century time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1°C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6°C (medium confidence)16. The lower temperature limit of the assessed likely range is thus less than the 2°C in the AR4, but the upper limit is the same. This assessment reflects improved understanding, the extended temperature record in the atmosphere and ocean, and new estimates of radiative forcing. {TFE6.1, Figure 1; Box 12.2}
16 No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.
So from a footnote we have to learn that no best estimate “can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”. How strange this is. Climate sensitivity is one of the most important parameters. It determines largely how much warming we can expect. If there is lack of agreement between different methods/studies, we want to know all about it. However, apart from this footnote, the SPM is silent about it. Hopefully the full report, which will be released on Monday, will give all the details.
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2013/09/27/ar5-gives-no-best-estimate-for-climate-sensitivity-breaks-with-a-long-tradition-good-news-is-hidden-from-policy-makers/
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Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill:
Ducking, diving, bobbing and weaving are the general themes of the Summary for Policymakers, just released this morning.
You would imagine that the document would review what was said last time round and how things have changed since that time, but you’d be wrong. This is, after all, the bureaucracy at work: difficulties have to be brushed under carpets and stones left unturned.
…The general theme of obscurantism runs across the document. Whereas in previous years the temperature records have been shown unadulterated, now we have presentation of a single figure for each decade; surely an attempt to mislead rather than inform. And the pause is only addressed with handwaving arguments and vague allusions to ocean heat.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/9/27/thoughts-on-the-spm.html
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Donna Laframboise:
9,000 Nobel Pretenders | NoFrakkingConsensus
The unadorned truth was door number one. Cringe-worthy exaggeration was door number two. The IPCC made the wrong call.
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Bob Tisdale at WUWT:
Regarding the cause of the warming, still living in fantasy world, they write:
Greenhouse gases contributed a global mean surface warming likely to be in the range of 0.5°C to 1.3°C over the period 1951−2010, with the contributions from other anthropogenic forcings, including the cooling effect of aerosols, likely to be in the range of −0.6°C to 0.1°C. The contribution from natural forcings is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C, and from internal variability is likely to be in the range of −0.1°C to 0.1°C. Together these assessed contributions are consistent with the observed warming of approximately 0.6°C to 0.7°C over this period. {10.3}
They’re still misleading the public. Everyone knows (well, many of us know) their models can’t simulate the natural processes that cause surface temperatures to warm over multidecadal timeframes, yet they insist on continuing this myth.
Sorry IPCC – How You Portrayed the Global Temperature Plateau is Comical at Best
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Apart from the usual climate-fixated organs of the MSM, it’s being barely reported. Looks like a dead cat bounce to me …
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/armageddon-report-no-5/
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Jimbo says:
We can’t explain the increase in Antarctic sea ice extent. We have improved models that predict a decrease in extent. We don’t really know why but we will simulate it and create a scary scenario anyway.
D.1 Evaluation of Climate Models
Climate models have improved since the AR4…………..
Most models simulate a small downward trend in Antarctic sea ice extent, albeit with large inter-model spread, in contrast to the small upward trend in observations……
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There is low confidence in the scientific understanding of the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent due to the incomplete and competing scientific explanations for the causes of change and low confidence in estimates of internal variability in that region
http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf
Let’s all hope this is the last IPCC report. There is nothing useful here.
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Dr. Judith Curry:
The IPCC has officially (and anti-climactically) issued the AR5 WG1 Summary for Policy Makers. I haven’t had time to go through the report in detail, I mainly looked for these two statements. Note the changes in these two statements from the final draft discussed last week:
“Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10 –15 years.”
“It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951−2010.”
These changes as a result of the ‘conclave’ this week totally dissonates my cognitives. Well, IPCC has thrown down the gauntlet – if the pause continues beyond 15 years (well it already has), they are toast. Even though they still use the word ‘most’ in the attribution statement, they go all out and pretty much say it is all AGW: ”The best estimate of the human induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, ‘extremely likely‘ in the attribution statement implies 95% confidence. Exactly what does 95% confidence mean in this context?
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Douglas Fischer – The Daily Climate What we’re seeing now: Climate scientists get Swift-boated
Six years after the IPCC’s massive Fourth Assessment Report was excoriated for a handful of errors, four years after the uproar over leaked emails put scientists on the defensive, the climate denial camp still controls the message.
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2013/09/swiftboating-climate-scientists
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Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger – Band-aids Can’t Fix the New IPCC Report
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today released the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the physical science volume of its Fifth Assessment Report. The SPM is the most widely-read section of the IPCC reports and purports to summarize and highlight the contents of the thousand-odd pages of the full report. The SPM is agreed to word by word by the international attendees of the IPCC’s final editorial meeting which concluded as the SPM was released.
The Humpty Dumpty-esque report once claiming to represent the “consensus of scientists” has fallen from its exalted wall and cracked to pieces under the burdensome weight of its own cumbersome and self-serving processes, which is why all the governments’ scientists and all the governments’ men cannot put the IPCC report together again.
http://www.cato.org/blog/band-aids-cant-fix-new-ipcc-report
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Climate panel: warming ‘extremely likely’ man-made
By KARL RITTER
Associated Press
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Scientists now believe it’s “extremely likely” that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming, a long-term trend that is clear despite a recent plateau in the temperatures, an international climate panel said Friday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used its strongest language yet in a report on the causes of climate change, prompting calls for global action to control emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
“If this isn’t an alarm bell, then I don’t know what one is. If ever there were an issue that demanded greater cooperation, partnership, and committed diplomacy, this is it,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CLIMATE_CHANGE?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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Models of misinformation — climate reports melt under scrutiny
A last-ditch effort to refute climate “skeptics”—people unconvinced that we need to spend trillions to reshape our economies to halt or slow “climate change”– has failed.
Last week, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a study by 13 prestigious atmospheric scientists that supposedly provides “clear evidence for a discernible human influence on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.”
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/26/dont-be-fooled-latest-attempt-to-discredit-climate-skeptics-flops/
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Stefan Rahmstorf – Man’s role in global warming is rock solid, and natural variability’s role is close to nil.
“Natural internal variability and natural external forcings (eg the sun) have contributed virtually nothing to the warming since 1950″
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/the-new-ipcc-climate-report/
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Simon Donner
“It is probably the largest, most comprehensive scientific assessment in history. Not just of climate change, but of any scientific subject”
http://simondonner.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-pause-in-public-understanding-of.html
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Brenda Ekwurzel, UCS
Warming has slowed in the last 15 years, but not stopped. (If the slow down in warming persists, it would suggest a problem with the models.)
“The global average surface temperature trend of late is like a speed bump, and we would expect the rate of temperature increase to speed up again just as most drivers do after clearing the speed bump.”
(Kenji asks: so, when then?)
http://blog.ucsusa.org/hot-topics-for-ipcc-release-surface-temperature-speed-bump-and-the-latest-on-extreme-events-253
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Dr. Roy Spencer: IPCC: “We don’t need no stinking climate sensitivity!”
The newly-released Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s Working Group I for the AR5 report reveals a dogged attempt to salvage the IPCC’s credibility amidst mounting evidence that it has gone overboard in its attempts to scare the global public over the last quarter century.
The recent ~15 year lull in warming is hardly mentioned at all (nothing to see here, move along).
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It’s been six long years of relentless torment inflicted by Neanderthal skeptics. Worse, the public was even starting to become hopeful about the future once again, and were becoming less afraid of climate. For the climate catastrophe everything had been looking so bleak as the pesky real observations kept glaringly contradicting the modeled catastrophes 15 years long.
But happy days are back again – the catastrophe is coming, the UN reassures the world. The 15 years of model failure are not significant after all. In fact the UN now says the models are better than ever and the climate scientists are now 95% confident that the climate catastrophe is coming and that our living standards are responsible for it. Never before have scientists been more confident.
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Climate skeptics have seized on the fact that the rate of warming over the past decade or so has been less than climate scientists predicted given the continued increase in carbon emissions. The IPCC report address the warming “hiatus,” as it’s been called, raising a number of possible explanations—the ocean absorbing the warmth, changes in the solar cycle, volcanic eruptions that cause cooling—without pointing the finger at a single one. Which just underscores how complex the climate system remains, even as we keep experimenting on it. The scientists will keep working on those questions and others…
Climate Scientists Issue Their Report. Now It’s Our Turn | TIME.com
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MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen Rips UN IPCC Report:
‘The latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence’ — ‘It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going’
Updates will follow, readers are welcome to point out other reactions in comments.
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Burning fossil fuels creates C02. Increasing C02 in an atmosphere traps in heat. No scientists dispute this.
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and no scientist disputes as CO2 increases, it has less and less of an effect on temperature
Why is it temperatures went down…at a time when CO2 should have had the greatest effect on temperature?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png
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I await the actual AR5 WG1 report to see what to make of that statement in the SPM of WG1.
But right now it is worthwhile to consider the general significance of climate sensitivity to the overall IPCC position. The IPCC Bureau’s ‘a priori’ premise of net harm caused by burning fossil fuel is supported by the following claims (or legs like supporting a stool):
1. In the era where atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel has accelerated significantly compared to previous eras, the IPCC says the Earth-Atmosphere System (EAS) has ‘warmed’ at an unprecedented rate and to an unprecedented level.
2. The IPCC claims unprecedented ‘events’ in the EAS are occurring during the era of accelerating atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel.
3. The IPCC claims there is a crisis in the future that needs to be prevented because atmospheric CO2 is the critical determinate of the EAS behavior and state. (this is the climate sensitivity topic).
With or without SR5, their premise (stool) cannot be supported by those 3 claims (legs). That is because none of the 3 can be reasonably and unambiguously claimed. The AR5 does not change that based on the published science or based on the problematically non-epistemic realm of ‘not-yet-but-soon-to-be-conveniently-published’ science.
John
Kinda right. Some in the environmental media to look at the blogs. WUWT got a mention a few days ago on the BBC with a link! Our message only gets out via either sympathetic or honest journalists and even then slowly. Delingpole and co. also pick up on blogs. The GWPF does pick up on blogs and gets far easier access to the media as some of its members are former cabinet ministers.
My final point is what else can we do? We get heard by proxy.
CORRECTION
Some in the environmental media DO look at the blogs
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PS our host on WUWT has received more media attention in the last year than in say 2008.
For anyone who believes the UN’s IPCC will get its act together and reform their ways, I have one word for you: Vogons. The IPCC will continue to “study”, pontificate, release bureaucratic edicts, proclaim that they possess scientific truth, as well as consume hundreds of millions of dollars annually in order to “do their job.” They are simply Vogons. They possess the soul of Vogons, and they will always remain Vogons.
The IPCC AR5:
1. deterministic political consensus on society behaviour
2. alleged scientific consensus on AGW without scientific evidence
nothing new….
Grey Oz,
You are correct, I should not insult you direct. So I will not insult you myself.
You do a much better job of insulting yourself. Have at it.
fobdangerclose says:
September 28, 2013 at 6:57 am
Now, now. Be nice. 8<)
I am sure that, any day now, somewhere, in some reply above, I will be able to find ONE sentence that the Oz has written that does NOT contain a lie, an exaggeration, or does not require the painful and slow deaths of millions of people. However, since every paragraph he or she has written has been thoroughly debunked as lies, propaganda or exaggerations already, I will admit that the task of finding that one sentence that is correct may be difficult.
Just a thought: if ‘natural variability’ was allegedly the chief influence of the current 15 year warming ‘pause’, couldn’t ‘natural variability’ have been responsible for the previous warming phase, or at least 15 years of it? Or is that too obvious for them?
As I recall, there is a climate widget, a sea-ice page and many other sources of info that come from other sources than this blog at the top right hand side of every single thread here. For those that might wish to do some learning on their own rather than listen to the MSM.
Cheque it out.
Eugene WR Gallun says: “… Pachauri will soon leave his position as head of the IPCC… he will have to set someone up as his “fall guy”… — John Cook-The-Books of Skeptical Science…”
First name that sprang to mind for me was a certain James Hansen. He’s not employed at the moment as far as I know. Or then again Tim Flannery, he needs a job (lols).
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 9:37 pm
@ur momisugly Janice Moore: “There is no evidence that fossil fuels per se are causing “damage to the environment.”
“Burning fossil fuels creates C02. Increasing C02 in an atmosphere traps in heat. No scientists dispute this. It is the increasing heat, i.e., temperature, that will make the environment inhospitable to life on Earth.”
Grey Oz, stop posting, You’re an idiot and your posts are just demonstrating this to a wider audience than your usual circle.
We are not at solar minimum, we are at solar maximum and solar activity will decline over the next few years.
Man’s emissions of CO2 inevitably and directly leads to higher temperatures on the Earth overwhelming does it?
Well Einstein explain this……………
Since the start of this century [2000] man has emitted more than 25% of his total emissions since 1750 and the start of the industrial revolution. Since you are a know nothing this should give you a bit of a surprise. Along with this, comparatively, gigantic amount of CO2 emissions the global temperature has reacted how? Ohh………I know by doing nothing, no rise at all, zilch, nada. Indeed, if you were to be precise, temperatures have slightly declined during this time.
The explanation (backed up by facts and figures on the forcings involved) is………………..?
And don’t give me that guff about it hiding in the deep ocean. It has to get down there somehow and the oceans are stratified warm water cannot [sink] and mix. It has to be pulled or pushed down. The oceans thermohaline circulation that can do this, takes hundreds or thousands or years to achieve this.
Wind driven increase in upwellings only happens in a small proportion of the ocean and if there was some huge increase in mixing in some area or other, we would spot it in the SST as they would cool dramatically in those areas. The deep oceans are at 2-3 C average compared to 18C for the surface layer. We don’t see any such effect in SSTs so it ain’t happening fact.
Even if it was shown that there was a big increase in wind driven upwellings in say the Antarctic how would it capture all the increase energy entering the northern ocean?
If this conjecture is true, that the increased energy is going to the deep oceans, it has to be a very quick process or the surface layer would heat up sharply pending getting rid of it and again we know this is not happening.
So it is all bollocks my friend, just hand waving by the desperate alarmists who have to say something to keep the useful idiots like yourself onside.
They know you will accept anything they say and are not intelligent enough to figure out the utter bollocks that it is.
Alan
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130926-ipcc-report-relevance-2013-climate-deadline/
UN Climate Report Relevance Debated Amid Rollout
Can a long-awaited international global warming report keep up with a fast-changing climate?
Surprisingly balanced report, considering NG’s editorial stance.
Don’t we all???
“JP says:
September 28, 2013 at 6:44 am”
That’s IT! My Playtex 24hr girdle CANNOT take this laughter anymore, in fact, my sides HAVE split!
AR5 Report ???
We’ve seen the SPM and the other versions,
but why not the special “Environmentalists” edition ?
…. because at the last minute of the eleventh hour
someone realised it would be dubbed the …..
“AR5E Report”
hahaha
ye must laugh
😀
What the science says:
1. At all relevant timescales, atmospheric CO2 follows temperature as roughly the integral thereof (see Salby lectures)
2. The effect of anthropogenic CO2 is so overwhelmed by natural forces that its contribution to global temperature is lost in the noise, and in any case, diminishes with concentration to the point of unimportance.
3. The theory of CO2AGW has been falsified in every aspect.
What the Warmist (GreyOZ) says:
“CO2 is a blanket. Give us your money.”
The IPCC SPM has become a parody of itself. Widening the estimate of climate sensitivity from the previous 2 – 4.5c range to a much broader 1.5 – 4.5, is sold as an “increase” in certainty. Same goes for the admission that they haven’t a clue how to derive a central best estimate – “increased certainty” again.
How much longer this chimera can continue to plod on is anybodies guess, but the scales are being to drop from more and more eyes. Judith Curry calls the latest SPM position “incomprehensible” while Richard Lindzen is guilty of an unusual display of deference in calling it merely “incoherent.”
Judging by some comments though (not naming names), there are plenty of gullibles around to keep the show on the road for some time to come.
Vince:
Actually it works for me. I have great confidence that the frequency of an oscillation is somewhere in the DC-to-Light bounds.
Getting specific is hard.
@dbstealey says: September 27, 2013 at 3:18 pm
…
Instead of parroting the nonsense you posted, try explaining in rational terms what you believe — and keep in mind that the planet is thoroughly deconstructing every alarmist claim.
Think for yourself for a change.
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Said the purveyor of the most flagrantly cherry-picked graphics, and disciple of that ultra-scientific “we’re just recovering from the Little Ice Age” crowd … lol
! The Fraudulent Climate of Hokum Science ! says:
September 28, 2013 at 8:32 am
___________________________________________
I’m laughing. Actually, I’m ROTFLMAO!!!
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 3:10 pm
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Seems like someone has bought the super sized bottle of snake oil.. Every single paper listed, blog and proponent has been shown a fraud or debunked as pseudoscience..
This is the same crap the EPA is using as a base for their systematic killing of all things oil or coal based. They have no proof and the pseudo science they do have is crap. Yet they go on with their job killing and economy killing agenda..
The new IPCC report is so veg that it can be shown as a blatant attempt to fear monger without basis in any science.
Just more of the same from the control mongers.. when will people wake up and see they have been duped by these people?
WOW!!! Just read Judith Curry`s latest post where she says, “IPCC must be put down.” Almost like saying a pit bull must be put down when it has gone berserk. This will have major negative consequences for the warming side.
John@EF
You will get much further here in discussion if you state a position and clearly support that position with data / evidence. This is not the Huffington Post.
Most of us here are technically-trained in the hard sciences to one degree or another, as scientists, engineers etc. So, please post, but save the alarmist spam for some other venue.
Julia Gillard is said to be continuing to promote her carbon tax; apparently she likes to blog using the screen name ‘Grey Oz’.