There’s so much to talk about in the IPCC AR5 report, and I have other obligations this weekend. So, it seems time for an open thread on the subject.
A few starting thoughts:
1. It seems news coverage is rather muted. Google News says there are 1087 news media articles that use the phrase “IPCC AR5” as of this writing. That’s low. Typically a major story will get from 2000-4000 stories. Many of the 1087 are blog posts from new media outlets like Huffington Post. The typical outlets like NYT and the Guardian have their obligatory boilerplate coverage, but it doesn’t seem to have much trickle down. The phrase “It doesn’t play in Peoria” might be an apt description of the news coverage.
2. It seems the climate skeptics have landed and have obtained a beachhead. Many stories I’ve viewed contain skeptical opinions, far more so than in 2007 with AR4. Even the NYT in this story U.N. Climate Panel Endorses Ceiling on Global Emissions mentioned the Heartland Institute’s opinion about how many degrees of warming might be expected.
3. The science is apparently not settled at all. The failure of the IPCC to give a “best estimate” number for climate sensitivity, which breaks with tradition in the previous four reports, is remarkable. In a footnote at the bottom of page 11 of the SPM, it seems that there is dissension in the science, and in the ranks:
![nobest-estimate-sensitivity[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/nobest-estimate-sensitivity1.jpg?quality=83)
So much for the much ballyhooed “consensus”.
Dr. Roy Spencer sums it up:
A best estimate for climate sensitivity — unarguably THE most important climate change variable — is no longer provided, due to mounting contradictory evidence on whether the climate system really cares very much about whether there are 2, or 3, or 4, parts of CO2 per 10,000 parts atmosphere.
YET…the IPCC claims their confidence has DOUBLED (uncertainty reduced from 10% that 5%) regarding their claim that humans are most of the cause behind the warming trend in the last 50 years or so:
“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.”
4. The things that we saw with the leaked SPM draft that suggested a more moderate approach, seem to have been disappeared. For example, Bob Tisdale has done a before and after comparison here: Side-By-Side Comparison of Draft and Final IPCC AR5 SPM on Warming Plateau and Attribution and noted that “It appears the politicians agreed to delete the attribution discussion of the warming plateau.”
You can do your own comparisons with the two documents:
the final draft (7Jun2013) and the approved final version (27Sep2013)
5. Dr. Richard Lindzen has made a statement, via Climate Depot, that sums up what many of us think, and why AR5 SPM is a credibility train wreck:
I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence. They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.
Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean. However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans. However, it is this heat transport that plays a major role in natural internal variability of climate, and the IPCC assertions that observed warming can be attributed to man depend crucially on their assertion that these models accurately simulate natural internal variability. Thus, they now, somewhat obscurely, admit that their crucial assumption was totally unjustified.
Finally, in attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about. It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.
6. On the plus side, contrary to ongoing claims from that alarmist media mill side there are no mentions of tornadoes and hurricanes in the extreme weather events section. They give low confidence to tropical storm activity being connected to climate change, and don’t mention mesoscale events like tornadoes and thunderstorms at all. Similarly, they give low confidence to drought and flood attribution.
They’ve only talked about heat waves and precipitation events and being connected. From Page 4 of the SPM:
This is consistent with what was reported last year in the IPCC SREX report ( IPCC Special Report on Extremes PDF)
From Chapter 4 of the SREX:
- “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
- “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
- “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
Let’s hope this lack of attribution of severe storms to “man made climate change” in AR5 finally nails the lid shut on the claims of Hurricane Sandy, tornado outbreaks, and other favorite “lets not let a good crisis go to waste” media bleatings about climate change.
Now with two IPCC reports making no connection, and with Nature’s editorial last year dashing alarmist hopes of linking extreme weather events to global warming saying:
Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
…we can finally call it a dead issue.
There’s simply no connection between droughts, hurricanes, thunderstorms, flash floods, tornadoes and “climate change”. Note to Brad Johnson of “Forecast the Facts”, and Bill McKibben of 350.org, both of whom daily try to link weather events to climate change: IPCC says STFU.
There are many more things of interest to discuss, but this should provide a good primer. – Anthony
Jeff Mitchell:
At September 29, 2013 at 12:19 am you link to a Daily Mail report of a weatherman who is considering a vasectomy to avoid having offspring who will suffer from global warming.
This seems to be a good example of the Darwinian selection which has provided humans with intelligence.
Richard
No intelligence in the report on Television New Zealand – 95% certainty, rising sea levels drowning Pacific islands, rapidly melting ice, increasing floods and hurricanes, and threats to many animal species – including (sob, sob) that polar bear floating on a chunk of ice! Same thing reported in the New Zealand Herald, which rarely prints anything except the warmist view. Then, interviews from Greenpeace and a spokesman for the wind power association. Not that either of them had an axe to grind, of course!
Here in Germany, the left-listing media are literally going off over the new IPCC-report, hysterically claiming “The science has settled”, “We’re all doomed” and “Burn the heretical deniers at the stake” – crap 24/7.
Proposals for a swift relocation taken.
Yep, make up for the omission by his father.
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Theo Goodwin,
Thanks for your comment.
I agree that people use what Hegel and Kant and their intellectual successors wrote to justify their irrational crusades and illogical movements. Their justifications work because there seems to be a mantle of academic respectability. We have seen it happen with the IPCC centric AGW crusade / movement.
John
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DirkH,
Thank you for engaging. Appreciate it.
Yes, it is amazing what irrationality in science and society can be released by someone like Kant (and his intellectual heirs) through his surprising popularity in philosophy departments in major universities.
John
@mikelowe2013
Investigative journalism is almost dead in New Zealand.
Television in NZ only covers the news from a left wing (Labour-Greens) ,’progressive’, alternative side.
They support the Labour-Greens answer to every problem which is more bureaucrats, more politicians, more committees, more laws, more restrictions of personal freedom, more state interference and, above all, more taxes.
Barbara Dreaver and Jack Tame from TV1 haven’t got a clue.
TV3 (Now owned by Ironbridge Capital) is, for all intent and purposes, the de facto media arm of the Green Party.
As for the New Zealand Herald, they moved to the same political side (Labour-Greens) in 1996 when they were taken over by Independent News & Media .
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DirkH,
I think Judith Curry is saying there appears to be generally something going on with the gov’ts being so generically susceptible.
You are specifically stating your view in detail what is going on.
It looks not inconsistent.
John
Hi All,
I have a friend who engages me in climate science debates via Skype chat. He is not a scientist and likes to make his points by blustering. I told him that I didn’t think the heat was being hidden in the oceans. He came back with the following (obviously cut and pasted from an alarmist site). Could anyone please tell me if this is wrong and if so, where (preferably in layman’s terms)? Many thanks for bearing with me.
Steve
“A thought experiment (or one you could actually do if you have a small camping stove handy) shows this.
“You have an enclosed well-insulated pot half-filled with water with an electric heating element suspended in air near the top. The element is shielded from direct line of sight to the water by a white metal sheet, which leaves air gaps near its edges to allow convection. Eventually the air above the water exceeds 100 Celsius. Evaporation will commence long before this temperature is reached and were it not for the water vapour condensing on the inside of the container you would have clouds. Yet all the time there is a net transfer of energy from the mini-atmosphere to the mini-ocean. While the real atmosphere is not beset by giant electrical coils, it does (in theory) have infrared emitters (GHGs) which alter the equilibrium temperature of the ocean surface, so the thought experiment is enough to show that the line of reasoning you presented is unphysical.
“Now back to the real ocean. If the surface experiences some extra downwards IR flux, surface temperature increases, the temperature gradient increases, so the heat moves quicker until the total heat transport away from the surface (in all directions, heat is not partisan) equals the new total power being input to it. So for some time even while surface temperatures are constant the deeper ocean can be warming. Yet all the time the power level of evaporation and conduction into the atmosphere may be larger than the power being sent downwards.
eg if transfers happen at these powers: Space–>Ocean = 240, Ocean–>Air = 240, Air–>Ocean = 5, Air–>Space = 235.
Then temporarily the net fluxes are: Space–>Ocean = 240, Ocean–>Air = 235, Air–>Space = 235.
The delta heat content is: dSpace/dt=-5 (thanks Sun), dAir/dt=0, dOcean/dt=+5.
The energy all balances, the ocean heats, the clouds still formed, no laws got broken.
Where is the trick? The trick is that you cannot think of the ocean and air in isolation because they are not a closed system, the Sun is putting in energy to the ocean all the time and that is ultimately the cause of warming the ocean. Fiddling with GHGs changes the distribution of the Sun’s energy until a new equilibrium is reached.
“No NET transfer from atmosphere to ocean is needed for ocean warming. A slight reduction in the rate of transfer from ocean to air courtesy of more IR returned from the air is sufficient to force a higher surface temperature.”
Steve,
If heat was traveling downward through the oceans [aside from the fact that it would violate the 2nd Law], the ARGO 3,300 buoy network would have detected it.
But ARGO shows no rising deep ocean heating. So, who to believe? The real world? Or alarmist speculation claiming — with zero empirical, measurable evidence — that hidden heat is collecting in the deep ocean? Tell your pal: put up your proof, or shut up.
ARGO
[Don’t let him say that ARGO data is no good. Even after ‘readjustment’, ARGO cannot locate any supposed deep ocean heating.]
Here is another chart by Bill Illis, showing the natural warming since the LIA. The supposed human component is just not there.
The planet has been warming at the same rate since the LIA. There has been NO acceleration in global warming [which has, in fact, stopped for the past 17 years].
Warming has not “paused”, either. To pause, it would have to resume. But warming has stopped as of about 1997, contrary to every alarmist prediction ever made, and despite the fact that [harmless, beneficial] CO2 continues to rise, greatly benefitting the biosphere.
They were completely wrong, all of them. Now, all they have left is bluster.
Jeff Mitchell says:
September 29, 2013 at 12:19 am
“I don’t know if this has been posted yet, but this article in the Daily Mail seems to treat the report as gospel and tells of this weatherman who is breaking down because he believes the trash they are spreading.”
Best part is, if he refuses to fly in the future and takes the car instead, he will be using MORE fuel.
henry@Steve
I have tried to make things clearer for people who have problems understanding how the GH effect really works in the atmosphere.
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/
@richardscourtney says: September 28, 2013 at 2:24 pm
@dbstealey says: September 29, 2013 at 3:02 am
If heat was traveling downward through the oceans [aside from the fact that it would violate the 2nd Law], the ARGO 3,300 buoy network would have detected it.
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Thank you guys. Pretty much what I thought to be the case. There has to have been some detection of temps rising and then falling – and as dbstealey notes, rising again. The assertion that the heat is hiding in the deep oceans is preposterous, and only serves to indicate just how desperate those who follow “the cause” have become.
Regardless, as many have pointed out, governments and media press on regardless. The IPCC could have blamed whatever on whoever and it would be accepted as further proof of the forthcoming EcoApocalypse.
We can all do our bit. I’ve nagged two friends who were committed warmers with even less knowledge o climate than I (I have tried to educate myself, reading Lamb, Montford’s books, Ian Plimer’s book, Chill by Peter Taylor and so on), and have suggested them that to take a position on something you know nothing about is not a good thing. One is turning, and the other just starting to do so.
We can all do our bit.
It has often been claimed that many earlier temperature records, before satellites kept them honest, were adjusted by making the early years colder and the recent years warmer.
It seems to me that any type of modelling that uses such records for either calibration or verification would run into problems that could not be reconciled.
Maybe some part of this reasoning influences the common use by the IPCC of records later than 1950; and maybe it as explanation for the poor fit of some models. Is this part of a reason why GCMs run hot?
If there is a better, less adjusted temperature record, then it should be used for calibration of proxies for temperature. In turn, this should affect the visibility of features such as the MWP and LIA.
So, much as I hate beating a drum, over and over, should there not be much more analysis of the GISSs of this world? To my knowledge, adjustments such as TOBS are applied in many cases when there is alternative evidence that it is inapplicable.
Seems to me that even before 1950 there were appreciable amounts of CO2 going into the air. People tend to require a minimum amount of heating, like from burning dung or twigs or other biomass. I’d expect CO2 to be part-related to global population pre-1950. It follows that when the IPCC uses “pre-industrial” for calculating ECS, they don’t have a good basis for setting a pre-industrial CO2 level.
Henry@Geoff Sherrington
try looking at the average change in temperature per annum , over time, especially maximum temperatures
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
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Dodgy Geezer,
Hey, thanks for the comment.
I do not disagree with your view of the IPCC situation.
You ask me if you captured what I meant? It is, at that level. But that level of view prompts more questions about why. I am trying to look at more fundamental levels.
When some IPCC Bureau intellectuals choose to act irrationally, I ask why. And I keep asking why until I see if there is(are) premise(s) they start with. Do they start with endorsement of one of the main philosophical systems that historically have given handy justifications for broad irrationality in our culture for the last 100 or so years?
It is a philosophical detection case.
To me the suspects of the IPCC’s irrational cause(s) / premise(s) are the usual gang of philosophical suspects . . . as I indicated in my comment to JC.
John
About all this supposed heat hidden in the oceans, all poised to belch forth and incinerate us, I just don’t get it. Don’t the global warming computer models incorporate earthly heat sinks over long periods of time .. I know for certain that nuclear plant computer modellers model have to account for all heat sinks when they model the containment building pressure rise following a pipe break. Perhaps the global modellers do not model heat sinks, as that would make their long term atmospheric projections look hotter?
If we had Argo-types probes all over the land masses measuring average land temperatures down six feet below the surface, wouldn’t they also show a slow and steady march upwards over a century, commensurate with the global rise in temperature? No one would be surprised or alarmed by this, that is what the ground temperature profile would be expected to do if the air temperature was getting slightly warmer. This increased ground temperature would just be an artifact of the atmospheric temperature rise. It would represent a tremendous amount of “heat” that would also be “missing” but would be no danger of suddenly reappearing other than maybe to affect the onset of colder winter temperatures slightly. To me the land and oceans are just big heat sinks that get a little bit warmer as global temperatures slowly rise, how can the global warmists complain that the heat should have gone into the atmosphere instead, and how can they say it will suddenly appear it if took a long time to accumulate in the first place?
Here is another version of the Ocean Temperatures chart which now has the proper perspective on the X-axis (showing the 3.25 temp increase predicted by the IPCC in the year 2100 – although the SPM didn’t use this number, it is what the climate models predicted in both AR4 and AR5).
http://s21.postimg.org/6h0l0crzr/IPCC_Prediction_and_Ocean_Temps_L_2100.png
Repost this whenever the pro-warmers bring up the ocean heat accumulation / temperature increase.
Steve,
Your friend (and the IPCC) have put themselves into checkmate with this admission.
For the sake of argument, let us suppose that the heat has somehow sequestered itself into the deep oceans, escaping detection by the argo buoys, as improbable as this may sound.
Because the specific heat of the ocean is hundreds of times greater than air, the “missing” heat would raise the temperature only by the tiniest amount – a few hundredths of a degree. The original heat has therefore been degraded. As professor Cox has described it in one of his science programs, the heat has been degraded from a useful, concentrated form, to a dilute form.
What he meant, was that entropy has increased, and no useful work can be done. If heat is being sequestered in this way, such that a potential temperature rise of 1c has been turned into a rise of 1 hundredth of a degree, that potential 1c rise is gone for good. There is no way that the hundredth of a degree rise can “come up out of the oceans someday” to create a future 1c rise. That would be a direct violation of both the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Well no wonder the heat is missing. Take a gallon of water, no make that 30 gallons of water. Make sure it’s cold. Put a thermometer in it and take its temperature. Now get an eye dropper of boiling hot water. Place one drop on the surface and hope it sinks. After a bit of windblown mixing, measure the temperature of the tank water again. Go screaming into the night saying that the tank of water has warmed catastrophically and we are all going to die!!!!!
Idiots.
Vince Causey:
re your answer to Steve at September 29, 2013 at 8:23 am
You are right but most people will give a ‘glazed look’ as soon as you start to mention thermodynamic laws. So, I respectfully suggest your point should be explained this way.
It takes 1200 times more heat to raise the oceans by 1degree than it does to raise the air by 1 degree. So, if the heat of 6 degrees air temperature goes into the oceans, then the oceans will warm by 0.006 degrees. This is much too small a temperature rise to make the oceans as warm as the air. Hot things warm colder things. How will the heat get back to the air?
Richard
dbstealey says:
September 29, 2013 at 3:02 am
Steve,
If heat was traveling downward through the oceans [aside from the fact that it would violate the 2nd Law]
Explain how heat travelling down this gradient would violate the second law.
In fact such transfer would be required!
http://tinyurl.com/ocanmdg
Heat does not travel from colder to warmer, rather, from warmer to colder areas.
Now, I know there are methods of heat transport that rely on conduction and related mechanisms. But the whole idea of hidden heat hiding in the deep oceans is a bunch of baseless nonsense. It is just more “Say Anything”, trying to explain away the lack of any testable, measurable evidence for AGW.
Believe it if you want, but ARGO disagrees; the Real World disagrees.
Phil.
Explain how heat travelling down this gradient would violate the second law.
In fact such transfer would be required!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well yes, if one ignores that whole warm water being less dense and rising thing….