Observations Now Inconsistent with Climate Model Predictions for 25 (going on 35) Years
Question: How long will the fantasy that climate models are reliable indicators of the earth’s climate evolution persist in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
Answer: Probably for as long as there is a crusade against fossil fuels.
Without the exaggerated alarm conjured from overly pessimistic climate model projections of climate change from carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuels—coal, oil, gas—would regain their image as the celebrated agents of prosperity that they are, rather than being labeled as pernicious agents of our destruction.
Just how credible are these climate models?
In two words, “they’re not.”
Everyone has read that over the past 10-15 years, most climate models’ forecasts of the rate of global warming have been wrong. Most predicted a hefty warming of the earth’s average surface temperature to have taken place, while there was no significant change in the real world.
But very few people know that the same situation has persisted for 25, going on 35 years, or that over the past 50-60 years (since the middle of the 20th century), the same models expected about 33 percent more warming to have taken place than was observed.
We can blame the lack of public awareness of this scientific farce squarely on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the Summary for Policymakers, the most-read section of its brand new Fifth Assessment Report (released back in late September), the IPCC had this to say about climate model performance:
Climate models have improved since the [Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007]. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence).
Followed immediately by this:
The long-term climate model simulations show a trend in global-mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2012 that agrees with the observed trend (very high confidence). There are, however, differences between simulated and observed trends over periods as short as 10 to 15 years (e.g., 1998 to 2012).
All in all, a rather glowing assessment.
Glowing, but not so hot.
We’ve calculated the trend in the global average surface temperature simulated to have occurred starting in every year since 1950 and ending in 2012 for every* run of every climate model used in the new IPCC report. In Figure 1, below, we compare the average (and spread) of these 106 model runs with the observed trend during each of the same periods.
In every single case, the observed trend lies below the model average trend. For the trends of length 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 27 years, the observed trend lies outside (below) the range which includes 95 percent of all model runs (indicated by red in Figure 1). In statistics, this means that the observed trend is inconsistent with the collection of model trends. For trends of length 10, 11, 12, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34 years, the observed trend lies outside (below) the range encompassing 90 percent of all model trends (indicated in yellow in Figure 1). We call this marginally inconsistent with the models. For trends of length 13, 14, 15, and all lengths greater than 34 years, the observed trend is consistent with the collection of model trends (indicated by green in Figure 1), although it lies pretty far out in the low end of model projections in every case.
For what it’s worth, this same IPCC report has verbal descriptors of their published probability figures. When they say something has a 90 percent probability, it is “virtually likely” (whatever the heck that means!), and a 95 percent probability is “extremely likely.” So, analogously, one could apply those same words to our 90 and 95 percent probabilities of model failure over certain lengths of time. But because English is our primary language, we’re stating that the models are “marginally inconsistent” and “clearly inconsistent” with reality in these periods.
This hardly seems to fit the IPCC description that “[m]odels reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades” or is grounds for having “very high confidence” that the “model simulations show a trend in global-mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2012 that agrees with the observed trend.”
And things aren’t going to get better anytime soon (if ever). In fact, they are about to get much worse.
That’s because the longer global temperatures just sort of plod along without rising much (new research suggests that such a period may extend for another 20 years or so), the more established (and entrenched) the observed/model mismatch becomes.
In Figure 1, above, our analysis ended with the last full year of available data, 2012. With three-quarters of 2013 already in the books, we can make a pretty good guess as to what the global average temperature anomaly is going to be at years’ end, and perform the same analysis we described above, but ending in the year 2013 instead of 2012. By the looks of things, 2013 is going to continue the string of years (going on 17 now) during which there has been virtually no change in the global average temperature and thus making the model performance even worse.
Figure 2, below, gives the updated result.
For data ending in the year 2013, the category of marginal inconsistency extends out to 37 years and is now flirting with lengths exceeding 50 years, and trends of lengths 11-28, 31, 33, and 34 (!) are clearly inconsistent with the climate model simulations.
In other words, over the past third of a century—the period with the greatest amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions—the behavior of the real world (i.e., reality) falls far below the average expectation of climate models and, in fact, is clearly inconsistent with the range of model results. Less than 2.5 percent of model runs show that global warming is really global luke warming to the degree that real-world observations indicate.
Basically, the models don’t work.
This reality ought to be enough to stop the anti-fossil fuel (via carbon dioxide emission restrictions) crusaders in their tracks.
But thus far, it hasn’t, aided in part by the obfuscations of the United Nations (through the IPCC reports) and our own federal government (via reports such as the National Assessment of Climate Change).
If the people currently in charge of these organizations can’t face reality, then it is high time to replace them with others who can.
………………………………….
* We should say, every run that was available through the Climate Explorer website. Climate Explorer had 106 individual model runs, while the IPCC states it has 113 (we have been unable to identify the other 7 runs). The difference should have minimal impacts on our analysis.
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“Virtually likely” could mean something to the effect of “almost likely” or something more like “computationally likely”. Semantic trick to hide the uncertainty?
virtually (adverb):
1. nearly; almost.
2. by means of virtual reality techniques.
by means of a computer; computationally.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/virtually
The only reason the model runs older than 33 years come close is because they model aerosols wrong. China and India have not cooled like that the aerosols assumption require. I guess if you get everything wrong at least some of the problems will cancel each other out.
They’re going to update the models to backcast what happened, claim a breakthrough, greater confidence than ever, and predict extra doom.
@ur momisugly Gail – lol. He certainly has the hot air for that big one in the middle, heh.
Glad you are back! Hope all has been well.
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@ur momisugly Roger Knights — “… is going to look…” ?! LOL.
Dopebama: duh…… I’ve been to, uh, all, uh, 57 states, plus two or three more to go, not counting Alaska and Hawaii (hyuck, hyuck)….. just give the little kid with asthma a breathalyzer…..
Well, at least, come 2016, he will be not only a dumb cluck but a lame duck. Actually, it is nice that he IS so stupid. His henchpersons are not much better, heh, heh — re: them, I agree with Rahm Emmanuel (except for his choice of expletives), and for that “thank You, Lord.” He has only the “dull cunning of the snake;” a mere opportunist… with a pretty good teleprompter.
I may be wrong but I do not think you caught the nastiest trick the IPCC played.
One of the reasons they are “projections” and not predictions is because the models represent different “Storylines and Scenarios” (I think) If this is true then the Models that are close to reality represent drastic cuts in CO2 emissions. In other words they are mixing apples and donuts.
This is the e-mail that makes me think this is what the different climate models are doing and why there are over a hundred. I have shortened it considerably but I recommend reading all of it. It is not just about CO2 but the planning out of our futures and our grand children’s future in minute detail. No wonder it has sucked in so many scientists! Who can resist play God?
Ged Davis (Shell Oil) Climategate e-mail.
Draft Paper for the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios…
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Scenarios – overview
3. Golden Economic Age (A1)
4. Sustainable Development (B1)
5. Divided World (A2)
6. Regional Stewardship (B2)
7. Scenario comparisons
8. Conclusions
Appendix 1: Scenario quantification
1. Introduction
The IS99 scenarios have been constructed to explore future developments in the global environment with special reference to the production of GHGs….
1.1 What are scenarios?
Scenarios are pertinent, plausible, alternative futures. Their pertinence, in this case, is derived from the need for climate change modelers to have a basis for assessing the implications of future possible paths for Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs). Their plausibility is tested by peer review, in an open process, which includes their publication on the World Wide Web.
There are clearly an infinite number of possible alternative futures to explore. We have consciously applied the principle of Occam’s Razor, seeking the minimum number of scenarios to provide an adequate basis for climate modelling and challenge to policy makers…
2.1 Scenarios: key questions and dimensions
Developing scenarios for a period of one hundred years is a relatively new field. Within that period we might expect two major technological discontinuities, a major shift in societal values and a change in the balance of geopolitical power. A particular difficulty is that people are not trained to think in these time-spans, are educated in narrow disciplines and our ability to model large-systems, at the global level, is still in its infancy….
The scenarios we have built explore two main questions for the 21st century, neither of which we know the answer to:
– Can adequate governance — institutions and agreements — be put in place to manage global problems?
– Will society’s values focus more on enhancing material wealth or be more broadly balanced, incorporating environmental health and social well-being.
The way we answer these questions leads to four families of scenarios:
– Golden Economic Age (A1): a century of expanded economic prosperity with the emergence of global governance
– Sustainable Development (B1): in which global agreements and institutions, underpinned by a value shift, encourages the integration of ecological and economic goals
– Divided World (A2): difficulty in resolving global issues leads to a world of autarkic regions
– Regional Stewardship (B2): in the face of weak global governance there is a focus on managing regional/local ecological and equity
Within these scenario families we examine plausible energy industry and other developments which will contribute to GHG emissions. Although the storylines cannot have explicit climate change policy measures in them there are examples of indirect mitigation measures in some of the scenarios. The scenario quantifications of the main indicators related to growth of population and economy, the characteristics of the energy system and the associated greenhouse gas emissions all fall within the range of prior studies.…
[This is an example of the energy part of one scenario the e-mail is ~20 pages long.]
3. Golden Economic Age (A1)
This scenario family entitled “Golden Economic Age”, describes rapid and successful economic development….
.2 Scenarios
The core bifurcation (with respect to GHG emissions) of the scenario family unfolds around alternative paths of technology development in the agriculture and energy sectors….
3.21 Energy Resources/Technology
…Per capita final energy use gradually converges as income gaps close. Final energy use per capita in non-Annex-I countries would reach approximately 85 GJ (2 tons of oil equivalent) by 2050 and approximately 125 GJ (3 toe) by 2100, i.e., about the current average of OECD countries outside North America. Despite improvements in productivity and efficiency, the high income levels lead to resource use close to the upper bounds of the scenarios available in the literature. For instance, global final energy use would increase to approximately 1000 EJ by 2100….
For the scenario quantification, a number of contrasting cases, characterised by the main energy form used in the second half of the 21st century, have been evaluated with the aid of formal energy models:
1. The dominance of Non-Fossil fuels — the “Bio-Nuclear” scenario (A1R).
2. The dominance of unconventional gas, including hydrates, and oil (A1G)
3. The dominance of “Clean Coal” (A1C)
A brief scenario taxonomy is given below.
Scenario
Dominant
Oil/Gas Resource
Technology Improvements
Fuel Availability Coal Oil/Gas Non-fossil
A1R Non-fossil Medium (75 ZJ) Low High Low
A1C Coal Low (<35 ZJ) High Low Low
*
Depending on the assumed availability of oil and gas, (low/medium/high) and corresponding improvements in production and conversion technologies for coal, oil/gas, and non-fossil technologies, different energy systems structures unfold….
In the event that such technology dynamics do not materialise, energy costs and prices would be significantly higher than suggested above — illustrative model runs suggest energy demand would be up to 20 percent lower for a fossil scenario without significant cost improvements.…
4. Sustainable Development (B1) [This is UN Agenda 21]….
…Two alternative energy systems, leading to two sub-scenarios, are considered to provide this energy:
1. Widespread expansion of natural gas, with a growing role for renewable energy (scenario B1N). Oil and coal are of lesser importance, especially post-2050. This transition is faster in the developed than in the developing countries.
2. A more rapid development of renewables, replacing coal and oil; the bulk of the remaining energy coming from natural gas (scenario B1R).
[/attachment]
NOTE: Natural gas replacing coal and oil is sprinkled through out the attachment…. I wonder why.
Janice Moore says:
Glad you are back! Hope all has been well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just my busy season.
I just want to be clear. The graphs are actually the slopes of the change?
It is a very revealing analysis, and hard to imagine that the IPCC has not performed this analysis as well. Yet they cling to a falsehood that has no bearing on reality (or as Jquip pointed out, our reality has no bearing on their model output).
LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKKDrviFDKw
Hi, Gail — glad to hear that. re: yours at 6:16pm — thanks for taking the time to prepare such a thorough and worthwhile post. The key phrase of course is: the storylines.
*********************
Well, Curious N. C. — great parody {too bad about the realistic expletives, but, that’s the filth that was Hi-t1-er, et. al.}. The BEST thing about it? It is prophetic!
The Lying Fa-sci-sts LOST — so, too, have the IPCC and its Envirostalinist comrades (just a matter of time until the rats disappear into the sewers — KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, WUWT Science Giants!).
Janice Moore on November 5, 2013 at 4:01 pm
‘Hi, Tom J re: 3:46pm today — A broom would do.’
I agree, a broom would do, but I don’t know if he would look as funny on a broom.
‘Say…. I POSTED A HAPPY HALLOWEEN to you at 11:54am on 10/31…
‘Did you see it? I hope you enjoyed your favorite holiday.’
Just now, thanks. Unfortunately I only had one trick or treater this year. The weather was miserable so I guess it scared them off. So sad to be brought up in a system that causes one to be scared of the climate on a day when we’re really supposed to be scared of demons, ghouls, vampires, zombies – you know, our representatives in Washington.
The Iconoclast says:
November 5, 2013 at 5:46 pm
They’re going to update the models to backcast what happened, claim a breakthrough, greater confidence than ever, and predict extra doom.
********************************************************************
I can’t see how that will fix it given that they’ll be using their downward adjusted temperatures.
In fact, it will make it even more ludicrous than it already is, surely.
but maybe we shouldn’t tell them that.
@ur momisugly Tom J. – “Unfortunately I only had one trick or treater … .” — that was, indeed, a bummer. {brighten} However…. that meant a lot of candy — for you! Yea! (when I lived where we got trick-or-treaters, I always bought extra……. just in case — had to sample it first, too, of course, heh).
Thanks for letting me know you watched the vids.
Good point, Sceptical Sam at 7:39pm.
Re: “maybe we shouldn’t tell them …” — AS IF. (eye roll)
*************
Oh, and Tom J, you are right. Not funny — simply de rigeur. Don’t know what to suggest…. he looks as ridiculous as he can look already — sitting behind the desk in the oval office… . (given his stupid remarks and bowing routine, etc)
Berényi Péter
What an interesting link you have provided
Journal of Climate, Volume 26, Issue 2 (January 2013)
doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00132.1
The Observed Hemispheric Symmetry in Reflected Shortwave Irradiance
imbo says:
November 5, 2013 at 3:09 pm
Release your own co2 without a care in the world, then go on TV and tell people that they should learn to live with less. Prince Charles and James Cameron have said so, yet they do whatever they want.
============
they want you to do with less, so there will be even more for them. if the rest of us lived like them, they would be miserable, even though their lives would be exactly as they are today.
it is not enough for the rich and powerful to be rich and powerful. they need to feel important, which can only be achieved if the rest of us are poor and powerless.
“… {scumbags like Algore} need to feel important, which can only be achieved if the rest of us are poor and powerless {since there IS no “free electricity”}.”
(Ferd Berple {as annotated by J.M.})
That’s why…….. the Climate Cult Leaders got all the cult members to buy electric cars (those who did it for religious, not economic reasons, er — ahem! (i.e., not you, A-th-y))….. soooooo they can jerk them around from electric this to electric that aaaaand …… back to gas! Making money at every twist of the market niche road.
{NOTICE: Comedy Alert: sense of humor mandatory}
So, all of this is a fancy way of saying the models projected warming and the surface temp did warm, but so much this last decade. The “skeptics” cannot explain why the surface temps warmed. The “skeptics” cannot explain why the deep oceans have continued to warm. The “skeptics” don’t want to consider ocean Ph changes. The scientists acknowledge the pause is mysterious but have found several mechanisms that could account for it including ocean currents sequestering heat in the deep oceans for now, changes in SO2 emissions and stratospheric water vapor changes whose causes are admittedly not well understood. None would likely prematurely reverse the effect of heat trapping gasses. But “skeptic” corporate funded think tanks surely know what is best. Did I miss any thing?
To follow on from Jimbo’s comment:
Here are some of the embarrassing questions I like to ask your typical Warmist.
1) Do you currently use fossil fuels?
2) Do you own and drive a petrol or diesel driven car?
3) Do you have 24 hour electricity? If yes, do the people in Kenya? If not, why not?
You might also add the following partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items) (from http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm)
4) Do you use any of the items on this list?
Without most of the items on that list, you might as well live in a cave.
There was warming between 1910-1945 by 0.8 deg C. Models show none of it. Result: models have no clue about natural background.
@Janice Moore,
Your wrote: That’s why…….. the Climate Cult Leaders got all the cult members to buy electric cars.
What these folk also fail to understand even with Electric Cars, possibly only powered by Solar or Wind Turbines, you STILL need oil to make that car run: The tires, the plastic panels that make it light, the plastic laminate in the safety glass, the rubber in the battery casing, the plastic insulation on the electrical wires and cables, rubber in the hoses, plastics for the circuit board and IC chips in the computer(s) that regulate the car, the paint on the car, the window tinting, the gas in the A/C and lubricant for the gears. Oh, and lets not forget the asphalt for the road on which is runs.
No problem , rule one of climate ‘science’ takes care of this . When reality and models differ in value its reality which is in error .
remember when your ‘saving the planet ‘ ANYTHING is justified.
JBear
The “skeptics” cannot explain why the deep oceans have continued to warm.
reminds us of the ‘proof ‘ of this , I am sure with such a bold statement you have the data to back it up ?
The “skeptics” don’t want to consider ocean Ph changes.
Actual if you have the ability read you can see from this very site “skeptics ” do consider it , they just do not feel the need to use silly terms like ‘acidification’ and running around claiming the sky is falling , as the alarmist do.
The models are a very poor reflection of reality. But if you’ve bet your career and sense of purpose on them would you want to face up to that?
Fear of fossil fuels is not the main driver for a clinging faith in failed models.
It’s the credibility of the politicians (elected and NGOs), the environemtal journalists (some of whom claim to be science journalists) and career academics (climatologists and others)… that is at stake.
No-one can affford to back down now. The whole tower of folly is held up by inertia.
But it will fall. And it will fall fast when it tumbles.
PS: Good to see Gail Combs back. The absence was noticed.
Aussiebear says:
November 5, 2013 at 11:24 pm
Did you include all the products that have to be made using fossil fuels? 😉
JBear says:
November 5, 2013 at 10:19 pm
“”Did I miss any thing?””
Maybe, with all that frantic hand-waving you missed placing a /sarc tag at the end of what would otherwise appear as ranting and appeal to authority.