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.
Paul Homewood says:
September 27, 2013 at 6:07 am
Exactly Paul, – but like all LIARS, the web of deceit they weave will come back and bite them eventually!
I liked the graph in this piece (third one down IIRC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24021772
as far as I can see this shows basically what we all keep saying -that earths temps go up and down and certainly over the last 100 years it doesn’t look like particular ominous warming!! And the graph is from the MetOffice too!
Twitter doesn’t care, no AR5, IPCC, climate change or whatever. At least it’s not trending Worldwide or in the US and UK anyway. I’m sure it’s trending somewhere. Maybe on a few Pacific islands needing some funds for completion on future building projects?
When the data is outside the 95% confidence bands of the models, shouldn’t you be saying something like “we are 5% confident….”
On the date of the release, it is only fitting that the Atlantic is having a mild year. On this date, 2013 is the 5th lowest year since 1950 in ACE. Here are the top 10 years…
DATE 9/27/2013
1962 9.2925
1994 12.7625
1983 13.9575
1977 18.355
2013 23.055
1968 23.95
1970 25.335
1982 26.815
1959 26.9825
1991 27.2625
To go with the report findings: Increases in intense tropical cyclone activity – Assessment that changes occurred (typically since 1950 unless otherwise indicated):”Low confidence in long term (centennial) changes, Virtually certain in North Atlantic since 1970″.
Unless i read the chart wrong. It is not clear IMO what is this reports prediction.
\\ AR5 gives no best estimate for climate sensitivity //
When today’s best estimate is below the published minimum the the previous assessment, it tends to generate questions even from people not really paying attention.
“Hide the Decline” of the Best Estimate.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11131126
One of the most controversial subjects in the report was how to deal with a purported slowdown in warming in the past 15 years. Climate skeptics say this “hiatus” casts doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change.
Many governments had objections over how the issue was treated in earlier drafts and some had called for it to be deleted altogether.
In the end, the IPCC made only a brief mention of the issue in the summary for policymakers, stressing that short-term records are sensitive to natural variability and don’t in general reflect long-term trends.
About what I expect from the Herald here, it’s slightly biased
Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
So the “experts” in 2007 (AR4) were 90% sure human’s were causing climate change (aka global warming). Now with a further six years of zero surface warming totalling ~15 years, the “experts” are now 95% certain that human’s are causing climate change/global warming or whatever they now call it.
As well, IPCC now recognise (taboo) ‘natural variability’ as influencing the current 15 year warming ‘pause’, 98% of climate models failing to model observed reality and no confirmation on climate sensitivity ~ would have thought their confidence level would have dropped not increased.
i.e “we actually have no idea what’s going on.”
Realistically, they were never going to be ‘less’ confident. That wouldn’t fit the political MO of the IPCC, who’s job after all, is to find and prosecute only the human influence on climate.
Politics still far more important than the science for the United Nations’ IPCC bureaucrats.
The sad part is most of the policy makers that will read this are going to fall for it. How long can this lie last and will anyone be held accountable when the jig is up?
Don’t know if it means anything, but the USAToday.com site has “UN: man to blame for climate change,” as a headline. Referring to the UN instead of the IPCC is a huge step down since the average person here would associate the IPCC with science geeks, and the UN with liars and politicians (sorry, redundant). Anything from the UN is something that can safely be ignored.
Note to fellow Policy Makers.
Ignore the summary and read the Science.
Ross McKitrick says:
September 27, 2013 at 5:32 am
SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.
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Brilliant – and the Arctic may not be cooperating soon either.
It still won’t stop the people with lame lives pretending to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere though. I wonder if they ever even look at the Keeling curve ?
I suppose the pay’s better these days though for digging ditches and filling them in.
Weather.com’s homepage has this in their rotation: “It’s Only Getting Worse” accompanied by various photos of melting ice, retreating glaciers, etc. Subheadlines offer Expert Analysis, etc.
I see this and think, if I were relying on this for information, I wouldn’t have a clue about the pause. I wouldn’t guess that the Arctic ice minimum area, while still rather low, is up 60% from last year. I would believe that having most of the ten warmest years on record recently somehow contradicts the assertion that temperatures have leveled off lately.
But I suppose that headline is a fair summary of the IPCC’s latest.
The earth appears to be a self correcting system governed by energy transfers larger than the total human output… How do you determine human influence on a system like that without knowing all of the conservation factors?
Look at Figure SPM .10 (last one of the SPM)
It displays the temperature anomaly as a function of cumulative CO2 emissions, with black points being “historical”. The black point “2010” shows an increase of around 100 GtC with respect to 2000 (which is correct) but also an increase of 0.3 °C with respect to 2000 … which is “technically” correct, but misleading : 2000 was a La Niña year after the strong 1998 El Niño , and 2010 was a rather strong El Niño year. Statistically speaking, we all know that there has been no significant warming for 15 years. Yet another “trick” ….. (had they taken the “*8” years the graph would have looked totally different of course).
philincalifornia:
“It still won’t stop the people with lame lives pretending to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere though.”
Heh. I do CO2 chemistry for a living – but I don’t fool myself that I’m going to have any significant effect on atmospheric CO2 levels, and I’ve never yet tried to sell it as offering hope in the crucial battle against CAGW.
The official mouthpiece of the warming craze–The Weather Channel–is all over it this morning. It’s all propaganda, all the time, in your face, in your homes! Tune in to have your brain pelted to mush with all the silliness. I’m 95% confident they are 100% full of it.
Summary of the summary:
Our models are correct. We can’t explain why the climate refuses to comply with them. The only logical course of action is to continue on the established path until the climate succumbs. Any deviation from this doctrine would be disastrous to our funding stream.
“The religious analogy is appropriate because belief in global warming has taken on the trappings of traditional religion. Alarmists like to say the science is settled — which is nonsense, since science is a series of theories that can be tested by observations. When Einstein presented his theory of relativity, he showed how it could be tested during astronomical events in the next decade. The theory passed. Saying the science is settled is like demanding what religions demand — that you have faith.
Religion has ritual. Global-warming alarmism has recycling and Earth Day celebrations. Some religions persecute heretics. Some global-warming alarmists identify “denialists” and liken them to Holocaust deniers. Religions build grand places of worship. Global-warming alarmists promote the construction of windmills and solar farms that uneconomically produce intermittent electricity. Global-warming alarmism even has indulgences like the ones Martin Luther protested. You can buy carbon offsets to gain forgiveness for travel on carbon-emitting private jet aircraft.
Some religions ban vulgar pleasures, as the New England Puritan sumptuary laws did in banning luxuries. Some global-warming alarmists want to force most Americans out of big-lawn suburbs and into high-rise apartments clustered around mass-transit stations. This last element seems to be dominant among many global-warming alarmists. Stop the vulgar masses from living their tacky lifestyles of driving those horrid SUVs. They must be made to repent, conform, and then be saved.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359641/great-global-warming-disappointment-michael-barone
Scenario:
A group of the world’s top butterfly experts project with a 90% confidence level that Bermuda will see an increase in the total number of butterflies over the next 15 years. Fifteen years later there is no increase. The butterfly group issues a report and says that they are 95% confident and it is unequivocal that there will be an increase in the number of butterflies in the next 15 years. It’s like a Zombie.
The jig is winding down, the fat lady wants to sing, the ref is putting the whistle to his lips, the game is into stoppage time, the parrot is almost dead.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/09/ipcc-we-dont-need-no-stinking-climate-sensitivity/
Phil’s Dad says:
September 27, 2013 at 8:07 am
Note to fellow Policy Makers.
Ignore the summary and read the Science.
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Where’s the science?
There are lots of models, some charts and graphs and things – all doubtless massaged to make the 1930’s look like a wet weekend in somewhere irredeemably dismal. Is that science?
Models [of the mathematical kid, not Airfix ones] re GIGO – especially if the model is a Mannian-type, that produces a hockey stick, even if a list of cricket scores is pushed through it.
And the model projections are that it may get a bit warmer – but ‘we’ don’t know what caused the current hiatus [over twenty years on some data sets], so ‘we’ are a bit vague on those cause thingies.
Ummm – yes, ‘we’ are 95% certain [although we were 100% certain] that the climate, it’ll change.
Auto
I have been watching something interesting happen all morning. Bloomberg posted the following article on their homepage this morning
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/global-warming-slowdown-seen-as-emissions-rise-to-record.html
The comments have been mainly pro-skeptic/anti-ipcc.
It was front and center with a picture to go along with it. About 20 minutes later I went back to the home page and it was now down toward the bottom of the page as the first link under “Sustainability”. 10 minutes later it was the third link. Now, an hour later it is gone off of the front page completely and can only be found after clicking on “More Sustainability” and looking under the “Energy” heading…
The front page now only contains the following links:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/climate-deniers-misinterpret-data-un-s-figueres-says.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/fossil-fuels-need-to-stay-unburned-to-meet-climate-target.html
Very interesting….
My bullet point on the IPCC report: They washed a very dirty hog (and didn’t get it clean) and are trying to sell the wash water as Champaign The usual suspects (BBC, CNN, etc..) are buying. I wonder how it’s going to taste..
Whoa, I searched BS for something apt and struck pay dirt.
It reads like a psychoanalysis of the alarmist.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/bullshit
“The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These “anti-realist” doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry. One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature. It is as though he decides that since it makes no sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be true to himself.
But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them. Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.”
― Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit
To all Brits and EU citizens.
In the UK the lights may well go out and electricity prices are going upwards fast.
The BBC and MSM will not be able to hide the pain of no electricity if the World doesn’t warm up soon because more and more people will notice that they undergoing hardship for no apparent reason.
I guess that the S”””storm that followed the last IPCC report wioll be nothing compared to what’s coming soon. I would like to see an investigation in the UK of the Met Office’s models, which are driving our energy policy and every UK contributor to the IPCC put under really hostile questioning.