Guest essay by Marlo Lewis
Okay, they don’t do so in as many words. But in addition to being more confident than ever (despite a 16-year pause in warming and the growing mismatch between model projections and observations) that man-made climate change is real, they are also more confident nothing really bad is going to happen during the 21st Century.
The scariest parts of the “planetary emergency” narrative popularized by Al Gore and other pundits are Atlantic Ocean circulation shutdown (implausibly plunging Europe into a mini-ice age), ice sheet disintegration raising sea levels 20 feet, and runaway warming from melting frozen methane deposits.
As BishopHill and Judith Curry report on their separate blogs, IPCC now believes that in the 21st Century, Atlantic Ocean circulation collapse is “very unlikely,” ice sheet collapse is “exceptionally unlikely,” and catastrophic release of methane hydrates from melting permafrost is “very unlikely.” You can read it for yourself in Chapter 12 Table 12.4 of the IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report.
But these doomsday scenarios have always been way more fiction than science. For some time now, extreme weather has been the only card left in the climate alarm deck. Climate activists repeatedly assert that severe droughts, floods, and storms (Hurricane Sandy is their current poster child) are now the “new normal,” and they blame fossil fuels.
On their respective blogs Anthony Watts and Roger Pielke, Jr. provide excerpts about extreme weather from Chapter 2 of the IPCC report. Among the findings:
- “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”
- “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.”
- “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems.”
- “Based on updated studies, AR4 [the IPCC 2007 report] conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated.”
- “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extra-tropical cyclones since 1900 is low.”
Pielke Jr. concludes:
“There is really not much more to be said here — the data says what it says, and what it says is so unavoidably obvious that the IPCC has recognized it in its consensus. Of course, I have no doubts that claims will still be made associating floods, drought, hurricanes and tornadoes with human-caused climate change — Zombie science — but I am declaring victory in this debate. Climate campaigners would do their movement a favor by getting themselves on the right side of the evidence.”
For further discussion, see my post “Global Warming: Planet’s Most Hyped Problem” on this week’s National Journal Energy Insiders blog.
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See also: Global warming is ‘no longer a planetary emergency’
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Excuse the rant…
from the post…
“The scariest parts of the “planetary emergency” narrative popularized by Al Gore and other pundits are Atlantic Ocean circulation shutdown (implausibly plunging Europe into a mini-ice age”).
So Gore thinks that we may be implausably falling into a mini-global warming ice age in Europe that will last a few years. What an apparently stupid statement to make. Al and the IPCC should all know better.
A Glaciation period lasts 100,000 years, our current warming interglacial period lasts about 15-20,000 years. Its been repeated over and over about twenty times during the current ice age of about 2 million years. Is he smoking??? We are nearing the end of this interglacial period. Or is he just acknowledging the middle evil ice age?
If he is forecasting ice formations, he should do so with some knowledge of our history with ice sheets. This information is well documented through scores of peer-reviewed papers regarding Palio-Climatology published over the years in his current favorite “captive” climate entity, the AGE “Geophysical Union”, unless he he wants to purge those papers, or disparage them.
Maybe instead he should read them and struggle to understand them. Maybe all “Climate Scientists” should read them. They are all based upon historical observational science – not glib models based upon carefully chosen factors that conclude their desire results. All were written before the current climate religion based upon mocked-up models took hold and funded a whole new generation of “Climate Scientists”. Poor things…
What an apparently intentionally ignorant and misleading person. Just fold away Al, and let applied scientific observations lead our thinking instead of your apparent politically and personally financially motivated religious mandates.
“Chad Wozniak says:
October 4, 2013 at 4:01 pm”
Most countries in the EU (Some have not signed up to the EU ETS), are certainly not backing away from CO2 driven alarmism. It’s true some eyebrows have been raised and some questions asked, but that IMO is diversionary. Most EU countries now fully rely on any revenues raised through the EU ETS and various taxes.
Although we have a new Govn’t here in Australia and Tim “Our dams will be empty” Flannery (Apparently Australia’s climate change expert – I guess all you need is a degree in English literature for that these days) sacked from the taxpayer funded Climate Change Commission, the price on carbon, which increased this year, is still in place and the new Govn’t still has a “Direct Action” plan to reduce emissions. Tim Flannery’s new Climate Council was recently setup and privately funded to the tune of AU$1.6m (I guess that’s his income secured for now). So, sadly, there are still some seriously fooled people here in Australia. Personally, I don’t care what other people do with their time and money but I do care if it directly costs or affects me.
What is the problem? Is it planetary greening in recent decades? Was it a problem when co2 in the atmosphere was 10x, 5x, 3x, 2x today’s values?
Slightly o/t but a little light relief: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdS3u22FkXc
Well said!
OK.
So let me see if I’ve got this precautionary principle right here.
You have a guaranteed, 100% chance of killing 1,000,000 people per year (worldwide) by starvation, illness, bad water, genetic harm, and cold/heat deaths – and adding harm, disease, poor health, poor food, poor comfort, tension, stress, bad jobs, and forced labor and stress because of deliberately bad economic conditions to 4 billion other innocents BECAUSE of your demand for raising energy prices and restricting commerce and better food, clothing,a nd shelter and economies, right?
And this, guaranteed, 100% assured harm and deaths is going to be maintained for the next 87 years, right? You do, after all, fear what “might” happen in 2100, right?
So, we are after all, only “buying and insurance policy” against future harm, right?
So, if there is a 50% chance that today’s increased warmth and increased health are due to “natural causes” … what exactly are you afraid of? YOU (and YOUR deaths and injury) can’t do anything about that natural change, can you? Hmmmmn.
So, if today’s 17 year cooling trend continues, all of that 100% chance of death and injury are due to you, right?
What if it gets warmer? Regardless of reason: Man-caused (after all, isn’t that a 50% chance according to the IPCC?) or natural causes? Good health, better lives, and better economies and more food, clothing and shelter for all, more food, fodder, feedstock, fuel and feasting! Sounds good, doesn’t it? (Unless you want to kill people and harm others, that is.) CO2 WILL IMPROVE (and fertilize) ALL PLANTS, all life on this planet.
So, what are the probabilities for a 2 degree C rise? 2%? 5%? (It might happen, after all.) What happens if temperature rises 2 degrees? No harm, and only good.
OK. Not bad. I can live with that.
What are probabilities of a 3 degree C rise by 2100? 1/2 of 1 percent? 1/10 of 1 percent? Come on – They are YOUR models, YOU tell us! And, further, if temperatures do rise 3 degrees, will there actually be any harm at all?
If there is harm – yet to be established, will that minor harm outweigh the death and misery YOU have committed every year to 7 billion individuals and innocents between
2007 and 2100?
Note the disconnect between the planetary emergency being called off, and the IPCC still telling us how we still desperately need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Another example of ‘hilarious incoherence’?
Janice Moore says:
I tell you, Ro Ha, please forgive my venting here, but, I’m really tired of Europeans complaining about the U.S. after all we have done for them. In 1944 and 1945, the Dutch transferred their genuine anger at the Nazis to the Americans — “Where are the Americans?! What’s their problem? They should have gotten here a long time ago.”
The Dutch did no such thing. The vast majority of the Allied troops in Holland were British and Canadian. It is hardly surprising that the Dutch were impatient for the war to be over. Thousands of them died of starvation in the bitter winter of 1944. The Dutch were very grateful to be liberated and they were not angry with the liberators.
No, it is not incoherent. The IPCC knows that there is no emergency, and that CO2 has no effect on the climate in either direction. They also know that most people in reality understand this. Therefore, they say the opposite of the truth. It is a power demonstration, a way of intimidating the public. It has been done before.
Another way of looking at this is that the AGW movement sees itself in power. No media is seriously investigating it. Funding is secure. Political power is weakening in small areas, like Canada and Australia, but elsewhere is strong. If the reason they got into power- a planetary climate catastrophe is no longer needed, why bother with it? Lying about a non-existent planetary emergency is harder than simply rewriting the past and pretending it was never predicted. The Malthusian types always do this: Paul Ehrlich has gotten away with this, the ice age promoters got away with it, Malthus got away with it. Why not the AGW kooks?
Janice Moore says:
October 4, 2013 at 10:26 pm
“I tell you, Ro Ha, please forgive my venting here, but, I’m really tired of Europeans complaining about the U.S. after all we have done for them. ”
Wall street interests and Woodrow Wilson created the Soviet Union; Henry Ford, GE and the likes financed Hitler’s winning campaign.
WW II’s two most diabolical regimes, one of them an ally of the USA, were US creations.
Thanks a lot from Germany.
The signs of a coming ice age are getting clearer every day:
-Antarctica ice extent and thickness above anomaly constant above now for 2 years.
-Arctic returning to normal SD values and likely to go above anomaly this NH winter and stay there.
Early arrival of winter in NH (snow etc)
Late arrival of Summer in SH (due to massive increase in antarctica)
-Predict a dramatic drop in global mean land temps this and next few years >0.5C reaching -2C in years. Due only to solar activity the ONLY variable that has in fact changed in the whole AGW debate. Lets see…..
@Eliza
You may be right.
Given clear evidence as to what has happened 10 times in the last million years, glaciation will come again. It is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when.” The only cycle holding back glaciation now is obliquity, as the other two cycles are gauged for another 85,000 years of glaciation to fall. The CO2 warming alarmists have been barking up not only the wrong tree, but rather, a tree that never existed in the first place.
This couldnt be funnier to me. I laughed to myself for hours after I first read this. Ive had a loooong going debate on this with a couple folks on a gardening forum, and these are among the points Ive long made and tried to prove to them. Didnt matter what data I would show them, they would respond with some supposed authority on the matter claiming the opposite is true, (rarely any data)
Am I to understand the medieval warm period exists again? can it be true? (a friend told me this part)
So after 5 years of the warming trend ending we were told to wait to 10 years if I believe. At 10 years we were told 15. At 15 we were told 17plus. Medieval warm period was adjusted away, but is back. now the IPCC admits several obvious things the skeptics have long pointed out. BUT they are more sure then ever humans are the cause! Admittedly we only understand small parts of the climate system as a whole, and we cant find the missing heat, because some natural factor drove down temps. which one? who knows none of them changed in any significant way, as weighted by the IPCC to cause said changes, but surely it was one of them because we are VERY sure human released co2 has caused drastic warming the last few years we just cannot find out where it is hiding.
This is just getting silly. I studied this topic literally to be better equipped to prove its validity to people. It been a long and strange road, and by the look we are far from the end, and only now getting into the strange….
I wish someone would explain to me why the recent ‘pause’ is actually significant, when previous periods of pause have been observed, but when the record is observed at longer time scales the pauses are seen to be…well, part of a grander picture that shows temperatures increasing in fits and starts but, yes, increasing?
I’m serious. Yes, I’m in the AGW camp. But in the interest of civility, and knowledge, I simply do not understand the argument on the other ‘side’ of this issue, and hope someone here can lay it out for me?
Centuries. What was our globe and civilization like in 1913? And what were they worried about? What to do with all those horses in NYC? I suppose if they were worried about global warming (as the IPCC would say they should have been), they’d have spent billions on livestock methane sequestration studies and a methane tax. Plug a hose into the horse’s rear and power an electric motor – the Tesla M.
None of the warmists ever mention that @ur momisugly 180 ppm, CO2 was the lowest during the recent glacial maximums than at any time during the earth’s 4.5 billion yr history.
Michael,
The ‘pause’ pulls temperatures out of the range of accuracy that the models projected. It shows that the models used to justify the claims of the IPCC are worthless. That is why it is important. That is why the climate obsessed are now changing the standards of the debate. Again.
Temperatures are not increasing dramatically, quickly or dangerously. They are only now more or less on par with the MWP.
Michael Spencer says:
October 5, 2013 at 5:45 am
I wish someone would explain to me why the recent ‘pause’ is actually significant, when previous periods of pause have been observed, but when the record is observed at longer time scales the pauses are seen to be…well, part of a grander picture that shows temperatures increasing in fits and starts but, yes, increasing?
First of all, it isn’t a pause. The warming has stopped for roughly 17 years, and counting despite CO2 continuing to increase. This shows the GCMs to be junk, which we already knew. Manmade warming is simply a myth.
Michael Spencer says:
October 5, 2013 at 5:45 am
…I’m serious….
>>>>>
Uh, Michael, if you’re STILL in the AGW camp, you can’t be taken seriously.
Well just in case no one has realized the true danger of CO2 here it is
Dinosaurs!
As the CO2 goes up plants get larger and birds return to their previous forms!
What I want to know is – since Tony abbott unceremoniously booted out Tim Flannery, Australian Climate Commissioner, has the climate of Australia deteriorated..?
The British Police have bought the IPCC’s old computer. They believe they can produce a model that will be able to predict crimes before they happen.
Michael Spencer says:
October 5, 2013 at 5:45 am
I wish someone would explain to me why the recent ‘pause’ is actually significant, when previous periods of pause have been observed, but when the record is observed at longer time scales the pauses are seen to be…well, part of a grander picture that shows temperatures increasing in fits and starts but, yes, increasing?
===============
Michael, you are exactly right….
Our recent pause of decreasing temperatures is a perfectly normal hic-cup…
…when the overall trend is still decreasing temperatures
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo4.png
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/
hunter says:
October 5, 2013 at 6:23 am
Michael,
The ‘pause’ pulls temperatures out of the range of accuracy that the models projected.
=====
at the exact moment when CO2 levels should have had the most effect….