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.
Should be:
“It seems they are only good at proposing taxes based on hot air.”
Unfortunately, in responding to the fallacies, lies and other garbage in the IPCC report, we are unlikely ever to change minds whose first tenet of belief is to ignore anything that differs from or contradicts their own meme. In other words, nobody’s listening to our objections, because their ideology forbids them to.
Lars P. says:
September 29, 2013 at 10:19 am
Phil. says:
September 29, 2013 at 7:02 am
I’m sure that anyone living on ‘Doggerland’ 6,000 years ago would disagree with you about a catastophy!
http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/title_89282_en.html
Those living around the Black Sea might well agree with them!
Well Phil, thanks for the answer, interesting points, however the Doggerland and Black Sea events happened before the 6000 years ago timescale.
But so did the melting that led to the ‘Ice free Arctic’ and the corresponding sea level rise which I submit did have catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of those locations.
Doggerland was submerged about 8500 years ago until about 7000 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
Also the Black Sea deluge hypothesis is putting it at about 7500 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory
My point was that even with the greenhouse gases increasing in the atmosphere, the thawing of the arctic, with all that CO2 and CH4 released, what happened 6000 years ago was not further increase of the temperature but gradual cooling which led to the formation of the Sahara desert:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data6.html
OK but those aren’t the only possible catastrophes associated with the ice melt as I’ve shown..
The high traffic gadget blog Gizmodo is parroting the IPCC narrative today:
http://gizmodo.com/how-much-global-warming-will-happen-before-you-kick-the-1421324180
“On Friday the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put its collective foot down about global warming. It’s happening and it’s our fault. But as with any issue that affects all of humanity, the most important question is what’s gonna happen to you? Will you have to give up air conditioning? Will the song “White Christmas” become completely irrelevant? Will you have to feel guilty about how your generation is leaving things for your children’s generation? The Guardian has a way for you to check.”
For an over-the-top emotional reaction to the report Eric Holthaus (meteorologist famous for his WSJ coverage of hurricane Sandy) deserves a prize. His Twitter account tells all: … he broke out in tears, vowed to stop flying, is considering having a vasectomy “… happy to go extinct” … …
One of his fans Tweeted a compliment saying that for his brave stand Holthaus has earned the title “weather hawk”. “Weather loon” would be closer to the mark. I recommended he seek therapy from Anthony Watts.
http://www.businessinsider.com/meterologist-eric-holthaus-quits-air-travel-2013-9
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/28/vegetarian-weatherman-so-devastated-by-climate-change-report-that-he-vows-to-never-travel-by-plane-again-but-that-aint-the-half-of-it/
“… the melting that led to the ‘Ice free Arctic’ and the corresponding sea level rise which I submit did have catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of those locations.”
Oh, don’t be silly. What happened was a small rise in sea level each year. Over an extended time, the population naturally meandered to higher ground. There was no “catastrophe”, except in the deluded minds of catastrophists.
When the alarmist cult tries to falsely make it appear that the ocean suddenly inundated long established villages, causing a “catastrophe”, we know they are grasping at straws. They make it sound like it happened overnight. All of their other arguments have failed completely, too, so now a perfectly natural — and very slow-moving — event [on human time scales] becomes a “catastrophe”. I suppose a grandfather might have told his grandkids’ that the ocean used to come only to here fifty years ago, but now it’s a foot or two higher. But that is hardly a “catastrophe”, and to label it as such is merely self-serving, dishonest propaganda.
That wild-eyed Chicken Little fright story is based entirely on the fear of losing the easy grant loot, and the all expense paid jaunts to exotic locales for ‘climate conferences’, which are nothing but get-togethers to party on someone else’s dime; and the likelihood of getting passed over for the next promotion if someone actually spoke and wrote as a true scientific skeptic.
The fact is that on net balance, an ice-free Arctic is desirable. It would sharply reduce transit times, and thus reduce fuel use. An ice-free Arctic has happened before, naturally, and without “catastrophic” results, and it will happen again — hopefully soon. Human CO2 emissions have nothing measurable to do with Arctic ice. That is a baseless conflation of two unrelated events, an assertion that is made all the time with no empirical evidence or measurements to support that belief. In fact, real world measurements show the opposite to be the case: as CO2 rises, temperatures decline.
The climate alarmist crowd has lost every argument, and they have been wrong on every prediction they have made. In any other field of physical science, such a record would require the purveyors of the CO2=CAGW conjecture to man up and admit that they were completely wrong.
But in climatism, the Scientific Method does not apply. It is completely ignored, as is the Null Hypothesis, Occam’s Razor, and every other scientific precept that gets in the way of the climate cult’s True Belief.
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Chad Wozniak,
Yeah, true for those who are the intellectually inert part of the activist community. So it is easy to maneuver intellectually around them.
Their intellectual leadership on the other hand, who I think are less likely to be fervent believers and more likely to be pragmatic, will shift to survive and will try to maintain a simple palatable story change narrative for their intellectually inert followers.
Perhaps the skeptical community need only focus intellectually on the activist intellectual leadership in the IPCC Bureau to be most effective in achieving needed balance and openness in the climate discourse.
John
There was a debate today about the IPCC’s report in the (French language) TV in Belgium (“Mise au Point”, Sunday midday debate at RTBF), including the head of the (French) skeptics in Belgium István Marcó (Chemistry), an academic colleague of Van Ypersele, vice president of the IPCC.
To begin with, Van Ypersele refused to debate with Marcó, prabably because he completely lost the debate on an earlier public confrontation, but was intervieuwed before the public debate started. His main reason to refuse any debate with Marcó was the known excuses like flat earthers, tobacco-cancer deniers, etc… Not the first time that Van Ypersele refused any debate and even used all his (political) power behind the scenes to get no skeptic voice heard in newspapers and on universities. He could prevent an open discussion with Fred Singer and Claes Johnson at the Free University of Brussels last year, which had to move to a private place.
Anyway, the debate was quite balanced with pro’s and con’s of both sides. Only the “background” cartoons, texts and pictures were disturbing and largely negative. No wonder as the RTBF normally is worse than the BBC in the UK about AGW… But the journalist who led the debate was quite good and had done his homework: asking thorny questions to both sides.
There were no similar debates in the Flemish part, where the MSM is even more pro-AGW, while the general public is largely skeptic (especially since it costs them more and more money!). Most of the MSM have shut off any reactions of the public, after floods of skeptic reactions on nonsensic AGW articles. Others rigourisly censor reactions, including mine. And there is no skeptic group in Flanders like there is in the French part of Belgium or in The Netherlands, where the skeptics are very active.
Skeptics in the desert – reactions to IPCC SPM.
Today in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, I was interviewed on radio for a reaction to the IPCC SPM release on Friday (Dubai Eye 103.8 – probably the most listened to current affairs radio channel in Dubai).
FWIW, the brief podcast (< 10 mins) is available here.
https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/7006caf1a9a4ebc519e11e1683944c5520130929181325/e25ec6ec7fc434e0c3894d6b97a36e8620130929181325/91f232
It was the IPCC AR4 summary for policymakers that corrupted the scientific uncertainty of the complete report into sociological certainty that warming is all caused by humans. So waiting to read the proper report when it comes out later.
dbstealey says:
September 29, 2013 at 12:28 pm
“… the melting that led to the ‘Ice free Arctic’ and the corresponding sea level rise which I submit did have catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of those locations.”
Oh, don’t be silly. What happened was a small rise in sea level each year. Over an extended time, the population naturally meandered to higher ground. There was no “catastrophe”, except in the deluded minds of catastrophists.
So you say, however Ryan and Pitman’s account is of a much faster inundation of the Black sea than that! Also the replacement of a freshwater lake with a saltwater sea has implications for crops etc. The idea that even in the case of a slow rise that the locals could just pick up and go somewhere else is rather simplistic, the neighbors would likely resist the encroachment.
I suppose a grandfather might have told his grandkids’ that the ocean used to come only to here fifty years ago, but now it’s a foot or two higher. But that is hardly a “catastrophe”, and to label it as such is merely self-serving, dishonest propaganda.
That’s not exactly how Noah and Gilgamesh told their stories though is it?
It is the assumption that there were no catastrophic consequences when the Arctic melted last that is baseless.
In case you have not seen this, the following is the National Geographic pathetic belief in AR5 propaganda: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130927-ipcc-report-released-climate-change-global-warming-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change/
Phil. says:
“That’s not exactly how Noah and Gilgamesh told their stories though is it?”
See? It’s religion, all the way down. ☺
29 Sept: Japan Times: Process to assess data on climate change is slow, outdated
IPCC report may be ditched
by Richard Ingham and Anthony Lucas
AFP-JIJI
STOCKHOLM – Top U.N. experts have just delivered the first volume of a massive new climate change report, but already whispers are starting to be heard: Will it be the last such review?…
To supporters, these massive “assessment reports” play a vital role in stoking awareness…
Not only do they condense the findings of thousands of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, in a transparent process in which the text is vetted twice over, they also carry the approval of governments…
This dual-track approach, say supporters, yields a fantastic tool for politicians who want to tackle climate change: they can tell the public that the need for reform is clear as the evidence comes from neutral and impartial sources.
Conversely, if politicians prevaricate on climate change, the public can challenge them on facts that they themselves had endorsed…
Jean Jouzel, a French scientist who is vice chairman of the group that issued Friday’s report, said that though the technical text is authored by scientists “it is the adoption of the summary which gives the IPCC its success, and enables it (the summary) to be used by governments.”
But some critics say these mega-reviews spanning thousands of pages belong to the past…
***“The question of whether the exercise is worthwhile is logical,” said a European delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that “things have changed substantially since the first report” in 1990…
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/09/29/environment/ipcc-report-may-be-ditched/
*** i swear that is all Anonymous says in this article! what does it mean?
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Since the SPM was released Friday I’ve put together three in-depth articles analyzing specific aspects of the 36-page SPM itself. The newest:
“IPCC SPM: Bye to Extreme Weather”
http://informthepundits.wordpress.com/2013/09/29/ipcc-spm-bye-to-extreme-weather/
You may find this and the others interesting. They dig deeper than most articles.
darriulet pierre. Thank you for your post. Certainly humans in the past 100 years have changed the landscape and the lower atmosphere with pollution. Dangerous smogs in London in 1950s, that killed thousands of people. This let to a smoke free zone, and the air became far better, the Thames welcomed dolphins and whales within 10 years. Cutting down large tracks of rain forest, did shift the precipitation patterns not only locally but up to 200 miles away. The cloud cover was higher because there were no trees transpiring. Now they tend not to remove large tracts of trees, leaving the rain forest intact in areas, and this has partly solved the problem. The damming of the Nile at Aswan, ruined the Delta fishing industry for 30 years, increased malaria, and the parasitic snail that killed people, but they invented a vaccine. The fishing industry eventually recovered. And Asswan hydro station and Lake Nasser provide electricity to people that before had non. Look at Beijing, when people had cycles they had no pollution, now they have as they use motor cars. Surface coal fires that are still burning in Indonesia, China and India, cause more pollution than all the trucks and cars in North America.
But the UN has to appear sympathetic to the third world countries, who blame the industrialised countries for their environmental damage.
In 1969 I lived in Bermuda, and when we were flying either over Tahiti or Fiji, I can’t remember the Captain pointed out an atoll that was sinking into the sea. Atolls do sink as they are generally not high above sea level. Bermuda has not sunk and it is also very low too. But it is a large coral island protected by a surrounding reef, and there is only one break to get near the island. Many ships have floundered there, including the first inhabitants who were on their way to Virginia.
As far as the deluge is concerned, after the melting of the ice a land bridge collapsed from the Black sea and flooded with sea water the area around a fresh water lake. Yes, Noah’s soup is still used in celebration in the area. Archaeological evidence is this happened around 6,500 years ago. The volcanic island of Thera, had a massive explosion, around 3,500 BC. Santorini is still surrounding a volcanic active core. It is believed that it killed thousands of people and was 4 times larger than Krackatoa. We’ve all heard of Vesuvius and Pompeii. But the western end of the med off Italy, is sinking too, and evidence shows it was a holiday spot for Julius Caesar and there are sunken villas and statues still evident. So look at history and prehistory then see we are vulnerable as humans from natural forces we can not control. Forget the term climate change, it is the weather that kills us. Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. Sorry to be so long a post, but pollution can be adjusted, but it won’t change the weather.
bushbunny, thank you very much for this reply, I have no comment on it, it is mostly factual; but I am not clear about the relation with my post: I was making the parallel between public attitude to climate and to nuclear; I was expressing my fear that both lead to irrational and emotional irreversible decisions that, at the end, deserve the cause of those (the environmentalists) who have been pushing toward these decisions.
bushbunny, thank you very much for this reply, I have no comment on it, it is mostly factual; but I am not clear about the relation with my post: I was making the parallel between public attitude to climate and to nuclear; I was expressing my fear that both lead to irrational and emotional irreversible decisions that, at the end, deserve the cause of those (the environmentalists) who have been pushing toward these decisions.
Hi darriulat pierre. I really was not relating to your post I am sorry, but it was refreshing to see your argument taking on a new perspective. James Hansen was pushing for nuclear energy for Australia when he visited here several years ago, stating clean or green energy was no good. We could use sea water (rather than land surface water) to cool the reactors. We have no
specialised nuclear reactor technicians in Australia, and only one reactor near Sydney which sterilizes instruments I believe, I went there years ago. But we could invest in solar thermal?
And really the environmentalists or warmists are arguing about irrational scenarios and to me it has strong ideological and political hidden agendas. And possibly financial gain regarding carbon trading, and clean energy projects that do not cut carbon emissions and push up the price of electricity for those who can’t afford to invest in them.
bushbunny, thank you very much for this information. I am neither pro nor anti nuclear but I understand the issue reasonably well; I gave up more than 20 years ago the hope to see rational decisions be taken on nuclear energy. Unfortunately, I was right, it got worse and worse. My motivation in posting in this blog was to probe your views on how hopeful it is to see the situation improve in the climate sector. The similarity with what happened in the nuclear sector, at twenty years distance, impresses me. Do your people share my pessimism (I do not expect all of you to have a unique view of course!) or do some of you see reasons to hope for an improvement; and if yes, along which path?
Kind regards.
Mindert Eiting, right oh. But only 2% of the models predicted a flattening of the global surface temperature curve as loang as from 1997-2012. From this it can be dervied that 95% of the IPCCs scientists are 2% certain that about 50% of the ‘climate change’ from 1951 to 2012 was man made, and can be predicted by the models produced by the IPCC.
As a consequence, by using the multiplication principle, according to 95% of the IPCCs scientists, the IPCC models can predict man made climate change with about 1% certainty. (2% x 50% = 0.02 x 0.50 = 0.01).
.. for the period 1951-2012. I had imagined that the 5th report would have made the IPCC more moderate, but only 1% probability in the very costly computerized models after all these years and all those billions of dollars?
And since the reverse is true also, we have the same probability for the ability of the models to forecast the natural amount of climate change, namely 1%, This leaves us with this statement: 95% of the IPCCs scientists believe that their climate models had a 98% chance of failing to predict climate change, manmade or other, for the period 1951-2012. I hope they will be able to do better in their 6th report…
Summarizing it all we get this:
In the 6th report from the IPCC, published in late September of 2013, 95% of the scientists claimed that their own climate models had a 1% chance of predicting man-made climate change, a 1% chance of predicting natural cimate change, and a 98% chance of failing to predict climate change, man-made or other, for the period 1951-2012.
That about sums it all up folks.