UN IPCC WG report process fails to integrate critical information
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The world has experienced over the last 15+ years a remarkable absence of increasing global temperatures despite huge and growing increases in global CO2 emissions by the globes developing nations and despite claims by the UN IPCC that global temperature increases are dangerously out of control because of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. This embarrassing dichotomy is demonstrated in the diagram below.
The UN IPCC has completed its three part (WGI, WGII, WGIII) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) process where future climate findings are portrayed using “level of confidence” and “assessed likelihood” qualifiers that attempt to cast these outcomes in a cloak of scientific certainty.
Much of the analysis underlying these “level of confidence” and “assessed likelihood” climate findings are based upon the computer output obtained through the use of climate models identified as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP’s) cases 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5 scenarios. Climate model RCP2.6 represents a low future CO2 emissions scenario case and climate model RCP8.5 represents a high future CO2 emissions scenario.
Future climate model temperature projections show higher global temperatures and increased climate risk with larger levels of atmospheric CO2 scenarios (RCP8.5) and lower global temperatures and reduced climate risk with less atmospheric CO2 scenarios (RCP2.6).
As addressed in the WGI Technical Summary report all climate model scenarios have significant scientific analysis limitations which are defined as: “The scenarios should be considered plausible and illustrative, and do not have probabilities attached to them.” Thus there are no defined standards of accuracy associated with the climate model outputs and further these computer temperature outputs are to be considered to be simply “plausible and illustrative”.
In Chapter 11 of the WGI report an analysis of the climate model scenarios is carried out for the time period 2005 through 2035 by comparing the computer projected temperature outputs to actual observed global temperatures. This analysis shows that all climate model scenarios from RCP2.6 to RCP8.5 exaggerate and overstate higher global temperatures as a function of levels of atmospheric CO2 as shown in Figure 11.25a below.
As a consequence an estimate of future likely global temperature increase to the year 2035 is developed in WGI using “expert assessment” instead of relying on the exaggerated climate model computer generated temperature projections. This “expert assessment” likely future global temperature range is shown in Figure 11.25b as shown below.
This WGI “expert assessment” estimate lies at the very low end of the RCP CMIP5 climate model 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5 scenario projected temperature ranges as indicated in the diagram below which is derived from Figure 11.25c.
The WGI report climate model temperature projection analysis through the year 2035 demonstrates not only that the models exaggerate future higher global temperature increases but also that relying on these model scenario outputs beyond 2035 and all the way to the year 2100 is highly questionable, unjustified and an extremely speculative analytical approach.
The WGI report demonstrates and documents that the RCP climate model scenarios have significant analytical limitations with no defined standards of accuracy, outcomes that are considered to be simply “plausible and illustrative” and that these scenarios exaggerate and overstate higher global temperatures as a function of atmospheric CO2 levels even to periods as close as the year 2035 let alone the year 2100.
Yet the WGII and WGIII climate risk assessment reports conceal these significant analytical and performance shortcomings of the climate model scenarios and instead base the projected future CO2 driven global temperature levels upon the computer output from these flawed and failed climate models.
The diagram below from the WGII SPM report shows the scenarios RCP2.6 to RCP8.5 that are used to define and bound the low to high emissions global temperature range used to assess climate risks. The WGI analysis of the estimated future global temperature increase to year 2035 clearly suggests the RCP2.6 scenario range is more likely to characterize the behavior of future global temperatures than RCP8.5.
Amazingly the WGII and WGIII reports derive the majority of their future climate risk concerns not from RCP2.6 but rather from RCP8.5 despite the clear scientific evidence contained the WGI report that CO2 driven higher temperature model projections are overstated and exaggerated.
Thus the climate alarmist findings from the UN IPCC WGII and WGIII climate risk assessments are based upon computer temperature outputs which have no defined standards of accuracy, are merely considered to be “plausible and illustrative” and are known to exaggerate and overstate higher global temperatures as a function of atmospheric CO2 level. Furthermore these findings are cloaked in illusive “level of confidence” and “assessed likelihood” qualifiers that attempt to hide the conjecture underlying these results.
The UN IPCC AR5 report process is in fact a process founded upon conjecture but presented and disguised as certainty.
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Sine wave – last I heard the Gillard govt had quietly gifted 10% of our carbon tax revenue to the un/pic for “research” or summat. There is a start on “who funds the IPCC” question.
“The world has experienced over the last 15+ years a remarkable absence of increasing global temperatures despite huge and growing increases in global CO2 emissions by the globes developing nations and despite claims by the UN IPCC that global temperature increases are dangerously out of control because of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels …”
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Now that Kevin Trenberth has declared that the IPCC position to be the null hypothesis and in view of the above, what is the statistical likelihood that human CO2 emissions are the overwhelming climate forcing factor.
Professor Lovejoy, are you there?
Because their science is settled, the IPCC should write their reports and rhyme and let them be sung by a rapper.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/04/15/rappers-climate-science-critical-video-surpasses-100000-views-blasts-filtered-message-massive-propoganda/
The worst things that happened to mankind:
Chernobyl ’86, IPCC ’88, Windows ’95
We us people, are forced to drop all fossil fuel energy capacities and replace them with green alternatives until the year 2050. But, countries like Australia want to maintain their coal burning capacities because they think that they have a new technology that is able to drastically decrease the carbon emissions during coal burning. I read something about this here http://www.alternative-energies.net/for-more-decades-since-now-australias-main-energy-source-remain-the-coal/
With this type of political decisions who will do something to accomplish what the UN want?
I think this is the third time Hamlin has brought this up and it cannot be emphasized enough.
Also bear in mind that the IPCC speculates across the board about impacts.
@Non Nomen.
+ Fukashima ’11. Its off Japan effects are decimating the only large scale power source industry that is sustainable, viable, and affordable.
Larry, Anthony,
I was asked for an article for an engineering magazine on sceptical case. Could I use your first figure – Warming Predictions vs real world? Can I get a higher res version? Is there are source reference?
Ulick Stafford
[Reply: This request should be in Tips&Notes. ~ mod.]
The late Stephen Schneider sought in Schneider and Moss (2002) to give some consistency to the” Levels of Confidence “, used by authors in IPCC papers . He has explained his rationale in defining “likelihood ” and attempting to give some consistency to what ” likely ” means. He can be seen in YouTube presentations, explaining this .
One author might regard a 25% possibility as ” likely”, while another might require a 99% rating. In the Australian “Insight” program on YouTube I viewed recently, Schneider appeared before an audience of 52 “deniers” .He stressed that while he hoped this would ensure a level of consistency among authors , he did not assert it would guarantee certainty of outcome.
So an assessment by the College of Cardinals at Rome that it is ” extremely likely ” that a personal God exists may still permit spirited denial of that proposition (My view not Schneider’s).
You can’t prove us wrong, Anthony. Many now realise the gravito-thermal effect is a reality and you can’t prove it doesn’t exist in a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube. There’s nothing quite like this empirical evidence which thus proves any greenhouse warming effect is pure fiction.
There is a lot of talk of fraudulence around climate science. For some I believe that’s true. But for many scientists (like Mann) I don’t believe it’s true. They believe their bogus theory so much they simply can’t see anything else. To them high CO2=high Temperature from basic fundamental principles. It’s like the law of gravitational attraction. We all know the constant is 9.8m/s^2. Someone drops a feather and says “see, gravity doesn’t work the same way here” but we also know air resistance is also a factor.
The rational person says “I need to accurately calculate how fast things fall. Not only do I include the force of gravity, but air resistance too, and probably other terms”
But many irrational scientists are so focused on the primary factor they can’t acknowledge the important practical deviations from real observation. Rather than taking a step back and saying “CO2 should increase temps but temps aren’t going up, I should look at the other things” they say “I know CO2 is driving temps. Look at the basic physics. Look at Arrhenius. It’s only a matter of time that it takes over”. Problem is, like the feather, it might not take over because of everything else they aren’t considering.
I work in a very scientific field with scientists and engineers. I see this behavior frequently from the scientists. You show them an actual measured plot of solubility decreasing with polymer viscosity increase and a self proclaimed PhD expert starts yelling (yes, yelling). “There’s no way that can happen. I can’t see how that can happen. Nothing I studied would argue for that” yet there it is…in real life with real data, it did happen. But he simply won’t accept the data and claims his “knowledge” is still sound and needs no rethinking. Is he fraudulent, is he lying.? No, but he’s severely misguided and that definitely doesn’t help the team, especially when many people hang on his words.
Sorry if this has been shown before ,but a must see for the boffins.
Dr Pierre-marie Robitaille
you would have to be crazy to read anything into the last 30 years. What amazes me is how the worlds temps stay so static within a few degrees over thousands for years.
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/953/155/original.jpg
“We didn’t create the UN to give us damn weather forecasts for 2100!”
We didnt create the UN at all !
The Global Banking community did.
Environmental policy is being dictated to us all by the banks
For myself, whenever I post anywhere on the topic of “climate change,” I always end with “Don’t believe me, go look for yourselves. The four official data sets [names them] are all available on line.”
I don’t know if it helps, but at least it keeps my posts from just being unsupported assertions, like so much of of this conversation becomes.
Ah ha! They take a page from the book on ENSO forcasting. There are statistical models, dynamical models, and consensus opinion. Granted they have tightened up the process used for “consensus” opinion. But nonetheless, it appears the ENSO group of forcasters don’t believe their suite of dynamical or statistical models any more than the IPCC summary group believes in their climate projection models. Esle why the need for a “consensus” opinion laid on top of the models (or in this case nearly underneath them)?
The cat is out of the bag. Stop funding the &^%$# model groups.
@jauntycyclist
Met someone in a pub who had travelled round the world looking for a good job in environmentalism, which she had found in that city.
I asked her what if CO2 wasn’t the main problem, what if other types of pollution were worse?
She replied that, “it doesn’t matter if CO2 isn’t a problem, because by reducing CO2 you force a reduction in production and consumption… it is about reducing greed.”
A lot of the pomo culture doesn’t believe in facts anymore, it just creates them to support a narrative to change culture and make people less racist, more giving, more egalitarian, etc., “global justice”. That’s the higher ideal. They are “smarter” than you, and think you won’t notice that it is propaganda. Unfortunately they also don’t seem to understand that undermining Western civilisation and values of Modernity (reason, democracy, innovation) can only end badly.
The results spewing from the computers are so much pretty paper signifying nothing when their virtual world is compared with the real one.
If pigs had wings, it is “plausible and illustrative” that they could fly. The flying pig models (FPMs) show that the incidence of flying pigs will be increasing, creating havoc in the skies. Pig waste falling into residential areas will cause increased illness and disease, and the consequent need for more doctors and medical facilities, which will be under constant strain. The various pig-flying scenarios (PFS) depend on the number of pigs growing wings, how quickly they learn to fly, how high, etc. PFWG1 is already hard at work determining how best to both prevent and contain this potentially catastrophic reality.
A Climate Alarmism Dictionary:
* Accelerated Sea Level Rise – places sinking into the ocean faster than the water’s rising.
* Accurate Temperature Measurement – what the thermometer showed after being placed beside the BBQ grill.
* Climate Alarmist – insists others don’t know what they’re talking about, but knows even less.
* Environmentalist – Leads a carbon intensive lifestyle, well beyond the means of the average public. Visits pristine areas often but doesn’t want anyone else to go there.
* Global Warming – not the run-of-the-mill average warming, but disastrous, nasty warming like wearing thermal underwear in Death Valley. Eskimos will be wearing Speedo’s if we don’t do something by the next election cycle.
* Movie Star – arrives at a movie premiere in a Prius, after flying there in their private jet from one of their huge mansions. Loves to preach sacrifice to others who live from paycheck to paycheck. Advocates all kinds of burdensome carbon taxes because the government can’t tax their fortune more than once.
* Ocean Acidification – Hell will freeze over before carbon dioxide turns the oceans acidic, but it’s the best scare tactic that we’ve got.
* Overpopulation – Anyone else daring to have children.
* Sacrifice for Your Children and Grandchilden – we don’t even care about the people alive today, but it’s a great sales technique to persuade the public to choke down policies that will hurt everybody.
* Statesman – worries about the effects of DDT and golden rice on a wealthy nation, but ignores the countless deaths and child blindness of others in poor countries who could be saved by their use.
* TV Climate Special – scary pictures at a 3rd grade level, suitable for chimpanzees.
* Unprecedented Warming – actually occurred many times before, but lying to the public might work.
According to some, if you were born after April 16, 1994 you and your children have experienced zero days of global warming. The High School graduating class of 2005 is the last to have experienced, ever briefly, global warming in their life time. There have been six generations of guppy fish come and gone that have never experienced global warming.
The graphs in the OP show global warming for all causes which is a form of distortion of facts. The only part that matters is the human-caused warming. I mention this because the Totems of the graduating classes of 2006 – 2013 of Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington have had no part at all in creating global warming. GO Totems!
Share this with your grads because they too have been and are being penalized through green taxes, unwarranted social engineering, and badly taught climate education for a problem they have not contributed to.
Ron McCarley says:
April 16, 2014 at 6:03 am
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Good job.
Along with meteorologists and geologists, one of the professions that has viewed CAGW with skepticism is engineering. Us engineers do probability and risk assessments for a living, we need to see every variable reasonably bounded to trust a prediction. Thanks to Larry for a succinct presentation of exactly the sort of problem that makes us skeptical!
Just think of the children. I’m talking about those born 1990 and beyond, so anyone up to age 24. All they have ever known, and had drumbed into them through the schools is Alarmism. Only those fortunate enough to have at least one skeptic parent might have been able to avoid being brainwashed.
I have a niece who is extremely bright. Her parents are Believers though, so it’s no surprise that she Believes too. It’s very sad. My guess is that the schools make no mention of “The Pause”. That truth would be terribly inconvenient for them.
Excellent post. Clear, concise, and to the point. Alarmists can only bluster in response.