By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Now that the UAH satellite data are available, we can update the monthly Global Warming Prediction Index, a devastatingly simple measure of how well (or badly) the IPCC’s official predictions of global warming are doing.
The 2013 Fifth Assessment Report backdated the IPCC’s predictions to January 2005. The interval of predictions, equivalent to 0.5[0.3, 0.7] Cº over 30 years or 1.67 [1.0, 2.33] Cº per century, is shown in orange.
By now, as a central estimate, there should have been 0.15 Cº global warming since January 2005, a rate equivalent to 0.5 Cº in 30 years, or 1.67 Cº per century, gathering pace rapidly after 2035 to reach 3.7 Cº over the full century.
However, the trend on the mean of the monthly RSS and UAH satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomalies is, if anything, falling, leading to an over-prediction by the IPCC of 0.17 Cº – a sixth of a Celsius degree – in the 111 months January 2005 to March 2014.
The models’ overshoot over 9 years 3 months is equivalent to more than 1.8 Cº per century.
Though the IPCC has finally realized that the models are unreliable as predictors of global temperature change, and has slashed its 30-year projection from 0.7 [ 0.4, 1.0] Cº in the pre-final draft of the Fifth Assessment Report to 0.5 [0.3, 0.7] Cº in the published final version, it has not cut its centennial-scale prediction, an implausibly hefty 3.7 Cº on business as usual (4.5 Cº if you are Sir David King, 11 Cº and a 10% probability of the Earth not surviving the 21st century if you are Lord Stern).
It is also interesting to compare the IPCC’s original global-warming predictions in the 1990 First Assessment Report with what has happened since. At that time, the IPCC said:
“Based on current model results, we predict [semantic bores, please note the IPCC uses the word “predict”, and, if you don’t like it, whine to ipcc.ch, not in comments here]:
Ø “under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 C° to 0.5 C° per decade). This is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years. This will result in a likely increase in global mean temperature of about 1 C° above the present value by 2025 and 3 Cº before the end of the next century. The rise will not be steady because of the influence of other factors.”
The IPCC’s best-guess near-term warming prediction in 1990 was equivalent to 2.78 Cº per century.
Real-world temperature change in the 291 months since January 1990 has been spectacularly below what was predicted. There has been just 0.34 Cº global warming, equivalent to a mere 1.39 Cº per century. The IPCC’s overshoot since 1990 amounts to another 0.34 Cº, or more than a third of a degree in 24 years 3 months, equivalent to 1.39 Cº per century. It predicted double the warming that has actually occurred.
Once again, the IPCC’s interval of predictions for global temperature change since 1990 are shown as an orange region. The lower and upper bounds for its 1990 near-term warming estimate were 30% below and 50% above its central estimate, equivalent to 1.94 and 4.17 Cº per century respectively. The real-world outturn, equivalent to just 1.39 Cº per century, is appreciably below the lower bound of the IPCC’s very wide prediction interval.
In 1990 the IPCC’s “Executive Summary” raised the question “how much confidence do we have in our predictions?” It pointed out that there were many uncertainties (clouds, oceans, etc.), but concluded:
“Nevertheless, … we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad-scale features of climate change. … There are similarities between results from the coupled models using simple representations of the ocean and those using more sophisticated descriptions, and our understanding of such differences as do occur gives us some confidence in the results.”
One look at the graph of projection against outturn since 1990 reveals that the IPCC has proven startlingly incapable of predicting the “broad-scale feature” central to the debate about greenhouse gases – the change in global temperature itself.
Here is a question that the legacy media should be addressing to IPCC director Pachauri, if they can distract him from authoring fourteenth-rate bodice-ripping pot-boilers for long enough.
Given global temperature rising for almost 25 years at half the central rate predicted by the IPCC in 1990, given no global warming at all for half the RSS satellite record, and given only 64 (or 0.5%) of 11,944 scientific abstracts published since 1991 stating that most of the global warming since 1950 was manmade, on what legitimate scientific or other rational basis did the IPCC recently increase from 90% to 95-99% its “confidence” that recent warming was mostly manmade? Answer me that.
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Sandi says:
April 10, 2014 at 4:40 pm
I believe the high levels of CO2 during ice ages is due to lack of vegetation. Normal vegetation like we have now, would have removed most of it.
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nope, oceans
This is a genuine question, and I’m hoping that Anthony or someone else can give a definitive answer with some kind of reference from a relevant IPCC report.
When I first started engaging in debates about global warming back in 1998, I remember the alarmist graphs that showed a truly horrifying trend due to the ongoing El Nino. Of course it was obvious to me then that it was a short-term spike but that didn’t stop the predictions of up to 9C by 2050. That was when I first heard the opinion that warming in excess of 2C would be catastrophic. My recollection isn’t clear, but I seem to remember that it was always “2C above present values”, which of course seemed like a lock at the time. Now that global temperatures have stabilized, it’s being expressed as “2C of total warming over pre-industrial levels”, which of course means that we’re almost halfway there.
Is this another “watch the pea under the thimble” example, or is my recollection simply mistaken?
Thanks!
Martin says:
April 10, 2014 at 4:19 pm
MoB ignores where the majority of warming is going – the oceans. The stored ocean heat is going to bite him in the arse during the coming El Nino!
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It don’t work that way….if you believe the oceans are “storing” the heat..then for our purposes the sink is infinite
Monckton of Brenchley says:
April 10, 2014 at 5:03 pm
John@EF asks why I don’t cherry-pick the datasets I use in my temperature analyses. Asked and answered in my earlier comment on this thread. He should stop blubbing and do his own graphs rather than moaning about mine.
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Stick with a consistent combination of data sets applicable over the timelines under consideration across head postings. Stop cherry-picking.
Yet the sad fact remains that the views we read here get no airing in the MSM at all, climate sceptics are presented as bordering on the criminally insane. Governments are deaf and determined to continue along the path of trying to mitigate climate change at the expense of developed economies. Here in Hong Kong all we read and hear are warnings from our weather bureau (HK Observatory) that we must decarbonise, dire warnings from our local greenpeace office about impending famine, the IPCC chief was recently given space in our top English newspaper to spout his nonsense without fear of editorial dissension, a recent minor hailstorm was caused by global warming, there will be more landslides due to global warming and our schools no longer show ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ now it is ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ – all within the last week or so. I fear we are hitting our heads against a brick wall.
Gib
I, for one, am unhappy about all this cooling. Yes, it proves these fools utterly wrong and if it continues it eventually will push them out (granted, they might bankrupt us in the process). But it sucks otherwise.
John@EF says:
Stop cherry-picking.
A textbook example of psychological projection. If anyone needs an excellent example of cognitive dissonance, John@EF provides it.
Lord Monckton has repeatedly explained in detail exactly why he used that particular time frame. But John@EF still cannot understand. The explanation has repeatedly whizzed right over his head.
Frankly, the whole global warming scam is an insult to anyone’s intelligence…
Plot the whole thing on this ice core
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/histo2.png
John@EF says:
Stop cherry-picking.
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THIS is cherry picking…..
http://bit.ly/1mIpjmY
dbstealey says:
April 10, 2014 at 5:23 pm
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You’re not catching on. I’m talking about cherry-picked data sets, not timelines …
Johns’ wording and logic process to divert the discussion seems very similar to “Gareth”?
I say we all ignore him and he may go away…
@John@ef
I think I see your dilemma. You want the same answer regardless of the question asked. So if someone asks you the color of the sky – you say john. If they ask you where you pee, you say john. If they ask you what time it is, you say john.
Fortunately most people actually address the question asked. Perhaps you should try it.
Nice one phil!
MikeB says:
April 10, 2014 at 4:08 pm
OK, it’s not the end of 2014 yet, so the prediction of it being 0.3 degree warmer than 2004 still has a chance.
No way! Here are the facts so far. The anomaly in Hadcrut3 in 2004 was 0.447 where it ranked 7th. In the first two months of 2014, Hadcrut3 is averaging 0.367 where it would rank 13th if it stayed this way. In order to be 0.3 warmer than 0.447, or average 0.747 by the end of 2014, the average for the remaining 10 months would need to be x in the following:
(12)0.747 = (2)0.367 + 10x. Then x = 0.823. The all time record for Hadcrut3 is February 1998 where it reached 0.756. So in order for 2014 to be 0.3 warmer than 2004, the all time Hadcrut3 record needs to be broken for 10 straight months as an average. See the following. Do you think the all time Hadcrut3 record of 1998 can be shattered this year?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1996
I’d say two years of cooling will kill the warmists’ momentum.
I’ve been recommending a re-survey (ideally by George Mason U., which has done two earlier ones) every two months or so here for four years. It’s not only the MSM and mainstream politicians that are deaf, it’s Heartland and the freres Koch and free market think tanks generally and “Big Oil.”
@dbstealey
I believe the high levels of CO2 during ice ages is due to lack of vegetation.
So what? The debate is over the assertion that a rise in CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. As Eliza pointed out, that didn’t happen even when CO2 was many times higher than now.
Correct. I was pointing out why the CO2 level would be 3000ppm or more, not that it was pertinent to warming.
The IPCC was even more off-the-mark that Mockton says, because this was their business-as-usual scenario. I don’t have the numbers they expected for CO2 emissions, but it’s safe to say actual emissions have outstripped those due to exploding coal use.
John at EF: I see today’s “no warming” timeline is 9.25 years, vs. almost 18 years vs. about 13 years as claimed in prior posts. lol, place your bets on tomorrow’s timeline. Seems that MoB is responding to well deserved flack concerning earlier misleading postings.
Not so. Lord Monckton picked the dates that the IPCC made the predictions, or the dates that they backdated the predictions to. That’s the least arbitrary choice you can make for testing a prediction.
Terry Oldberg: In his latest article, the author continues in his past practice of drawing logically illicit conclusions from equivocations.
Not so. He simply and directly tests model-based predictions with the most relevant out of sample data.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley: “Based on current model results, we predict [semantic bores, please note the IPCC uses the word “predict”,
Good reminder. Thank you.
“what legitimate scientific or other rational basis did the IPCC recently increase from 90% to 95-99% its “confidence” that recent warming was mostly manmade?”.
It’s projection, they are 95-99% sure that’s what they want the data to say. They left reality a long time ago.
I am not a scientist, but can read, write and reason fairly well, and I am flabbergasted at John@EF’s willful ignorance. John, in yet another attempt at reasoning with you, note that the MoB reports on a variety of data sets using a variety of timescales and they all show a lack of warming not “predicted” by the “consensus”. The “variety” of failures over almost any timescale using any data set is what makes his argument compelling and worthy of attention (yours). That is not “cherry picking” my friend, it is proof.
the common people which I am one off have heard the predictions of doom for thirty years now one but the MSM still believes they may say they do to avoid argerment
philjourdan says:
April 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
@John@ef
Stick with a consistent combination of data sets applicable over the timelines under consideration across head postings. Stop cherry-picking.
I think I see your dilemma. You want the same answer regardless of the question asked. So if someone asks you the color of the sky – you say john. If they ask you where you pee, you say john. If they ask you what time it is, you say john.
Fortunately most people actually address the question asked. Perhaps you should try it.
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I see you’re having difficulty with logic, too. Again, what justifies constantly changing the data sets used by MoB from one posting topic to the next when in each case all 4 major temperature data sets cover the timelines involved? All 4 data sets are available to “actually address the question asked”. Perhaps you should ponder that a bit. The recognized technical term describing MoB’s shifting data set selections is “situational science”.
@John@ef
Sorry to say for you, I am having no problems with logic. Indeed, MoB has explained himself several times. I and others understand it.
But your comment completely misses my point. Ergo, one can only conclude you not only lack logic, but reading comprehension.
Brad says:
April 10, 2014 at 5:43 pm
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+1
Note that none of his comments add any value to the discussion of what this 9.25 years of cooling may be signaling. This post makes sense to me. It is also nice to be updated with current stats as to the continued direction of regional and global temperature shifts.