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.
@ur momisugly Bruce Cobb: So you have to insult people who don’t see things the way you do to make your point? And again, why are studies, papers, data, and articles by some of the world’s top planetary scientists “nonsense”? And if they have been debunked, why does 97% of the peer-reviewed science support this position?
Just because fossil fuels got us the standard living we have today does not mean they aren’t doing damage to the environment. If you actually read the Stanford Study, you’ll see that clean energy is not expensive anymore, and since it doesn’t damage the environment, is actually much cheaper than fossil fuels.
I was 90% sure the Padres would win the world series this year. Next year I am 95% sure.
Is your take:
1. I am a terrible prognosticator.
2. Confidence in the Padres more sure now than ever.
Andrew Bolt, journalist down-under, has a cogent report in non-Warmista, but still hot, Australia.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ipcc_report_very_confident_our_gasses_havent_been_that_bad/
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 3:59 pm
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about the North Pole being half the size it was. I think it’s always been about 6 feet tall:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jHmljQu9Fr8/UQFbvuJZ0uI/AAAAAAAAAc4/zMc4FFrYYWs/s1600/8.c.++COB+&+North+Pole+(1).JPG
@ur momisugly Gunga Din: 97% of the worlds scientists agree that the world is warming and that mankind is responsible for most of it. So, you really can’t say that the remaining 3% are the world’s top scientists. There is natural variability, but the world is warming far too fast and without anything else to account for it for that to be attributed to natural causes, whereas, we know these specific gasses in the atmosphere change the makeup of the atmosphere and trap heat. And I think man is part of nature, and I also think global warming is a natural outcome of what’s gone before, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t thwart it and stop the destruction of all life on Earth.
Grey Oz on September 27, 2013 at 4:03 pm says:
Gotcha. I forgot how it works. You come and self-righteously post your articles without bothering to look at the plethora of data WUWT has that debunks practically every one of your (endlessly repeated) claims. Forgot that bit. Apologies.
I should listen to the experts more who tell me that hurricanes are increasing in number and intensity, even when the facts are quite the opposite. Perhaps you should go check the ACE figure and flip through a calendar to see the last time a major hurricane made landfall in the US. It would be the last day you marked with a big smiley face. (And please spare us the ‘fish storms’.)
It was smart of you, though, to leave ‘tornadoes’ off your shopping list (read: talking points) of horrors. Seems that gets left off a lot lately now that even the MSM has to admit their intensity and frequency has been in the basement for two years. But then again, models predicted that, right? Right? *wink wink*
And for the record, I’m a lukewarmer. I believe we are having some (to be determined) effect on temps. However, it’s carpetbaggers such as yourself that have shifted the environmental movement into a political one. It has been more counterproductive than you could ever imagine. We could be productive and clean rivers and tackle nuclear waste disposal but instead we’re scaring children to death. How wonderful.
Troll, smart stock-picker aside.
Grey Oz is dillusional or a liar:
… clean energy is not expensive anymore, and since it doesn’t damage the environment, is actually much cheaper than fossil fuels
Grey Oz,
Please respond with specifics to
richardscourtney says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Grey Oz:.
What magnitude is this “increase in temperature in the oceans”?
How was it measured and with what accuracy and precision?
Where in the oceans is this “increase in temperature”?
Which “top planetary scientists” did the measurements?
Where did these “top planetary scientists” publish there measurement results?
In other words, “I don’t know where you are getting your data from”. Do you?
Richard
Mr. Oz, you wrote, “with all ten of the warmest years on record occurring in the last twelve years”.
(without conceding the basic point of that statement)
That would be great for your side if your side said, “temperatures will rise for a while and then very slowly cool again”. They didn’t. They said temperatures will continue to rise. They didn’t.
@ur momisugly Billy Liar: On Sept.16, 2012, Arctic sea ice reached its smallest extent ever recorded by satellites at 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers). That is about half the size of the average extent from 1979 to 2010.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-update-unlikely-to-break-records-but-continuing-downward-trend/#.UkYXFKywnTo
From Colorado State University Forecast of Atlantic Hurricane Activity September 27-October 10, 2013 (.pdf, September 27 ’13):
We believe that the next two weeks will be characterized by activity at below-average levels (<70 percent of climatology). The average ACE accrued during the period from 1950-2010 from September 27-October 10 was 12 units, and consequently, our forecast for the next two weeks is for less than 8 ACE units to be generated.
The most recent seasonal forecast called for an above-average season. Obviously, at this point, we realize that the seasonal forecast was a significant over-prediction, and we therefore do not expect to see the levels of activity this year that we earlier anticipated.
See http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Two_Week_Forecasts/september_27_2013.pdf
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:42 pm
I can tell you’re from the Warmish because you’ve got no sense of humor.
PS what was the minimum extent this year?
Aztecbill says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:33 pm
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So what you’re saying is I should bet heavily on the Padres?
@ur momisugly HGW xx/7: Why is posting articles that you disagree with self righteous? And if it’s so debunked, why aren’t the world’s scientists on it? Also, why do you have to insult me when discussing a subject we have different points of view on? And last, no one wants global warming, it’s a result of our technologies that no one could have foreseen enough to stop back then. But to ignore it now, that would be a crime, as we will make the planet inhospitble to life in a very, very short amount of time if we do.
i read somewhere that Pachauri will soon leave his position as head of the IPCC. Dishonest yes, but Pachauri is no fool. The jig is up and he knows it. He is looking for a soft landing.
To accomplish that, before he goes, he will have to set someone up as his “fall guy” — someone to take over as head of the IPCC who will be so loud mouthed and obtusely committed to ACGW (not to mention “serially dishonest”) that he will become the center of all attention and Pachauri can, like an old soldier, “just fade away”.
The ideal person who meets Pachauri’s needs comes to mind immediately — John Cook-The-Books of Skeptical Science. Can anyone think of a more appropriate person to head the IPCC than John Cook-The-Books? And dimwit that he is John Cook-The-Books will think he is being honored.
Eugene WR Gallun
@ur momisugly Robert of Ottowa: “I’m a delusional liar,” is your case against clean energy? So, anyone who doesn’t agree with the point of view held by most at this site is insulted and dismissed as a liar?
@ur momisugly Mac the Knife: http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/impacts/signs/oceans.html
Ocean Heat Content in the 0-2000 metre ocean is increasing by 0.002C/yr or 0.53 W/m2/yr. The climate models had forecast it would be rising at 0.005C/yr or 1.3 W/m2/yr.
Most of the energy forecast to be there/accumulating in the atmosphere and ocean is actually missing or not showing up.
http://s17.postimg.org/4ts1blb4v/2013_Missing_Energy.png
Oz can ask Hansen what he forecasted it would be. Surprise, Hansen had it at 2.5 times higher than is being measured (but nobody told Oz that because they would prefer he be misled and continue to be a follower).
@ur momisugly aztecbill: Each decade is warmer than the last and when the arctic melts, the carbon and methane trapped in ice, permafrost, ground stores… will enter the atmosphere and double the amount of greenhouse gas concentration we currently have.
We have a 70% chance for rain tomorrow, 90% Sat. nite and Sunday. So had to take off a few and get all the epuipment in out of the dreaded CO2 and acid rain that Al Gore makes when he sweats to much. Now that I am back and have reviewed Grey Oz’s post it seems he came here to get baned and make screen shots of said baning to use aginst this blog.
It can not be that any one is this uninformed. So be careful of this one.
Now if it is this dumb it may set a record for the Guinnes Book of dumb.
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:55 pm
Because the world’s climate so-called scientists are being paid billions of dollars to make CO2 and CAGW the propaganda campaign that it started as, stayed, and will likely remain until those so-called scientists stop denying the science and the measurements. Governments program their money to support the agencies and the scientists and the research that will provide those governments the answers they want and the taxes they are desperate for.
It can be no insult if the statement is true. Show that any of your claims are valid. We do, however, sympathize at the effectiveness of your brainwashing.
False. The current global warming is largely natural and cannot be stopped by denying men life, food, fuel, fodder, feed, and energy for safe water, clean air, and efficient farming. (Unless you, like many in the CAGW sphere DO want men to die a short life of pain, illness, starvation, thirst, and cold.) Global warming has been natural in the past, and was not affected by man either stopping nor starting. In the future, global warming will continue to be unaffected by man’s release of fertilizer for all plants and life on the planet.
And, by the way, the is no threat to life on this planet except from global cooling. There is NO HARM from global warming, but more bountiful life for all, and a more fruitful and productive life by using energy efficiently and effectively. Life on this planet will end when sun expands …. in about 2 billion years.
Grey Oz said:
“…when the arctic melts, the carbon and methane…”
Awww man! 🙁 Don’t tell me the Omaha steaks I’m asking Santa to bring me for Christmas are gonna smell like butt! Bah! Christmas is ruined! D:<
Here’s another Ocean Heat Content energy accumulation chart going back to 1955 for Oz.
As stark as it can get that the theory is screwy.
http://s9.postimg.org/htjhqe98v/Accum_Heat_Content_vs_GHG_Forcing_Accum_Q2_2013.png
***backbone or political masters?
27 Sept: BBC: Matt McGrath: Climate pause takes a wallop as IPCC comes out swinging
Even in the final draft of this report, the IPCC was putting forward a number of theoretical ideas behind the fall-off in temperature rises over the last 15 years, and was sheepishly acknowledging that its models failed to predict the slow-down.
But over the four days of negotiations with governments here in the Swedish capital, the UN body discovered its backbone.***
So the pause was not ignored or buried, but was, in science terms, given a ferocious kicking…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24308509
Grey Oz says:
September 27, 2013 at 4:42 pm
1. So what? What is the problem if the Arctic sea ice continues to decline from its present levels, or from the 2012 levels, or from the 2012 levels?
2. At its present extents at the time of sea ice minimums in the Arctic, more energy is lost by increased evaporation, increased long wave radiation to space by radiation, increased heat loss to the air by convection, and increased heat loss by conduction from lower levels that is gained by solar radiation. Each km of extra ocean exposed cools the arctic even more.
3. Summer, melt season temperatures up where the ice actually is (per DMI 80 north latitude measured temperatures sine 1959) have not only not increased, but have been decreasing since 1998, and are decreasing now faster than recorded earlier.
4. Now, at the time of minimum sea ice extents, the Arctic sea ice is concentrated between 79 and 83 north latitudes. At those latitudes, the sun is not high enough to be absorbed to either the ice or the sea surface. But, the Antarctic sea ice IS at low enough latitudes to receive massively more energy, and the received that energy through thinner air masses and for longer periods of each day. Result?
the record-breaking EXTRA Antarctic sea ice is reflecting 4-8 times more solar energy than the small amounts of Arctic sea receive. But you don’t want to address the new records for south pole icepack and sea ice extents. Those records don’t fit your agenda and biases.