Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill recently posted links to the AR5 second order draft materials and comments dated March 28th, 2013.
With those available it allows us to begin constructing a timeline of how the finalized documents were hammered out. One of the first things I noticed, was that the temperature projections to the end of the 21st century went through a flip-flop in the evolution of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM).
Here is how global temperature projections looked in the final release from September 27th, 2013:
Note the scale goes to 11°C on the RCP 8.5 map, with the Arctic seeing the greatest warming in that range.
Back to June, the widely leaked to the media draft SPM had a year 2100 RCP 8.5 projection figure with the same scale range, to 11°C:
But back in March 2013, the same section of the Second Order draft SPM had a RCP 8.5 figure projecting about half of the warming of the final SPM draft and the SPM release, and a scale that only goes to 6°C. See the lower right map for “late 21st century”.
When the First Order Draft was leaked back in December 2012, they had the 11°C on the RCP 8.5 map:
So, it seems that early opinions in the SPM in 2013 were more conservative, perhaps in response to all the press coverage “the pause” has received, and then as pressure mounts from all the players as the deadline looms, they went back to high end projections. I’m sure there’s quite a back-story that will be revealed once the reviewer comments are examined.
For more on the RCP model, you can visit the web page and run plots yourself. Registration is required to get the data.
http://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at:8787/RcpDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&page=about
UPDATE: Gavin Schmidt points out on my Twitter feed that the difference comes from the two different working groups, WG1 and WGII. But, what of the difference in opinion on year 2100 projections; certainly that represents a non-consensus? Was WGII giving a minority report with their lower numbers?
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Clearly the science was in flux all year long.
When the boss tells you to use scare tactics,then you comply or risk getting fired.
The September CET daily max numbers after good summer are back to negative territory
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
below 20 year (1993-2012) average. Another cold winter looming ahead.
Scary colors are scary.
Consensus, my arse.
My skepticism has gone all the way to cynicism.
I believe most scientists (97%+, including Michael Mann) know CAGW is puerile hogwash. Venal politicians only care that a critical mass of pathetic-but-willing parties (media outlets, laughably scientifically illiterate citizens) act as true believers, and can be manipulated to cede more political power.
That’s it; that’s all there is to CAGW.
Appeals for scientific integrity by well meaning colleagues (eg: Bob Tisdale, et al) are meaningless; politicians want power for power’s sake and willingly fund ethically challenged scientists who readily produce intellectually corrupt theories and papers. When the general population tires of this particular con-job, politicians will easily throw their pet scientists under the proverbial bus, and move on to the next attention grabber.
This is not a battle for hearts and minds; it’s a battle for money and power.
Oh my gosh! By 2100, the whole world is going to be various shades of red and orange! We have to raise taxes now!
The colour scheme is just not frightening enough. As things really get hot they turn blue then white, none of this beige, red and puce which frightens no one any more ;>)
Just like in Spinal Tap, it goes to 11.
I wonder if any of the UN conventions on human trafficking could be used against the IPCC.
After all, it is little more than the world’s best-funded bordello, and while I’m sure most of the highly-credentialed, uh, talent that services their customers regard themselves as voluntary participants, one has to question what sorts of threats and pressure would keep any but the overseers willing participants in this degrading sham.
What’s the climate sensitivity to CO2 in the RCP model, in order to achieve such a degree of warming? I don’t expect CO2 concentrations to double in 2100 from present, yet the average warmth in the RCP report seems quite bigger than the expected warming for a doubling of CO2 in the worst of the sensitivities contemplated by IPCC.
Vuk said;
“The September CET daily max numbers after good summer are back to negative territory
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
below 20 year (1993-2012) average. Another cold winter looming ahead.”
Several months ago I compiled a chart of glacier retreats and advances over the last 3000 years and graphed over it the Hockey stick and reconstructed CET to 1538. This demonstrated that climatic variability was far higher than claimed by DR Mann.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/clip_image010.jpg
In it I made the observation that it appeared that changes in glacier direction (retreat/advances) occurred around the plus 0.2 to zero Centigrade CET anomaly. Of course glaciers don’t change direction overnight, but IF the current trend continues and CET falls even further towards the zero anomaly line it will be interesting to see the effects on glacial movements (if any) Generally the glaciers in Switzerland and Austria seem the most responsive
tonyb
When considering the number and extent of unauthorised leaking of AR5, is that in itself a sign of the faith the scientific body have in the IPPC process?
Sorry, as long as the RS and APS say the science is sound, no-one who matters is listening.
climatereason says:
October 2, 2013 at 9:31 am
……
Hi Tony
Many unknowns in the ‘not soon to be settled science’.
Btw. This morning’s (02-07 h GMT ) short but powerful (Kp = 6) geomagnetic storm
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&
is one of the strongest if not strongest I’ve seen in the recent years (earth’s magnetic field Bz >2% and By >15%)
Most likely caused by a short double CME blast from the sun http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov//data/REPROCESSING/Completed/2013/c2/20130929/20130929_2336_c2_512.jpg
Perhaps the color rendition on my
i-phone is a little off but one thing I noticed is that the temperature indicating color map for the ‘late-21st-century RCP8.5’ from the Second Order draft SPM from March 2013 shows the globe warming in a rather attractive red hue with the real continental hotspots indicated by a rather pretty purple color.
They must’ve had a rather heated (sorry about the pun) conversation with their graphic designer because that public relations fault appears to have been properly corrected in the final release of the ‘Approved’ Summary for Policymakers (Lawmakers and Regulators) released on September 27th. Now the colors have been changed to a more somber un appealing rusty red and deathly brown.
Bravo, IPCC!
That graph makes it look like the Arctic will spontaneously combust in 2100.
I think the only difference is the change in color scheme. The estimated change over the U.S. appears to be very close, if not the same.
Coming soon to a century near you, tropical beach trips to the Arctic!
We’ll be luck if 2100 is as warm as 2000 was. For sure, the population will have peaked and will be heading downward. Not only will that result in a decrease in CO2 output (to the extent it actually causes a rise) is will also result in decreased outbound energy flux from human activities, and decreased albedo modification. If the decline becomes a crash, there will probably be vast reforestation like what happened starting during the 5th Century.
OldWeirdHarold
October 2, 2013 at 8:55 am
John Woolley
October 2, 2013 at 9:10 am
son of mulder
October 2, 2013 at 9:10 am
You guys beat me to the punch. It’s too bad the general public’s not aware, the way you are, of the shenanigans this renowned leadership is engaged in. And the pathetic part is that they’re not pulling these stunts with their money (of course not), they’re pulling them with ours’. I wonder how much destruction there will be before they realize they’re in the process of killing the very own goose that laid the golden egg they’re scrambling for their own breakfast.
I think this is the beginning of the end for the IPCC. How on earth do they expect get away with this?
As regards the rewriting of climate model outputs, this is tantamount to scientific fraud, or at least it would be in any respectable field of science.
Suddenly, the dam will burst as the cost of energy really starts to bite and the IPCC and its workings will become increasingly exposed to public gaze.
The deepening red will eventually come to represent ever-increasing embarrassment, not warming.
That’s why a House hearing on AR5 is needed. Contrarians should volunteer to offer the committee members questions that IPCC participants should be asked, etc.
I hope someone up there at the IPCC has notice that while ice in the Arctic has been melting away each summer (a consequence of heating from below) the air temperature north of 80 degrees N has not risen in donkey’s years. So what is the basis of this 6-11 degree rise? It is certainly not a projection of an existing trend.
Is there a model showing ice loss with no temperature rise for a couple of decades?
I have been checking on the IPCC’s search for the missing tropical hotspot (having nothing better to do) and I worked out what they did this time round. Radiosonde data show no warming/hotspot in the critical zone. If it was there, a key prediction of the GHG theory would be validated. It is not there as thousands (?) of measurements have repeatedly shown. Solution? Look North, young man.
Well, not quite. The data has been ‘homogenized’ across a broader range of altitude and following this messing around, the data was declared defective and inconclusive. Pretty slick! I can’t think up stuff that nefarious. The data quality (which they just messed up) is no longer up to snuff apparently so they had to settle for an expression of opinion. Who’d-a-thought? The opinion: they have a high level of confidence that the hotspot is probably there.
Y’all are free to check is out. I think I have called it right.