Ditch the 2 °C warming goal
Average global temperature is not a good indicator of planetary health. Track a range of vital signs instead, urge David G. Victor and Charles F. Kennel.
For nearly a decade, international diplomacy has focused on stopping global warming at 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. This goal — bold and easy to grasp — has been accepted uncritically and has proved influential.
The emissions-mitigation report of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is framed to address this aim, as is nearly every policy plan to reduce carbon emissions — from California’s to that of the European Union (EU). This month, diplomatic talks will resume to prepare an agreement ahead of a major climate summit in Paris in 2015; again, a 2 °C warming limit is the focus.
Bold simplicity must now face reality. Politically and scientifically, the 2 °C goal is wrong-headed. Politically, it has allowed some governments to pretend that they are taking serious action to mitigate global warming, when in reality they have achieved almost nothing. Scientifically, there are better ways to measure the stress that humans are placing on the climate system than the growth of average global surface temperature — which has stalled since 1998 and is poorly coupled to entities that governments and companies can control directly.
Failure to set scientifically meaningful goals makes it hard for scientists and politicians to explain how big investments in climate protection will deliver tangible results. Some of the backlash from ‘denialists’ is partly rooted in policy-makers’ obsession with global temperatures that do not actually move in lockstep with the real dangers of climate change. New goals are needed. It is time to track an array of planetary vital signs — such as changes in the ocean heat content — that are better rooted in the scientific understanding of climate drivers and risks. Targets must also be set in terms of the many individual gases emitted by human activities and policies to mitigate those emissions.
OWN GOAL
Actionable goals have proved difficult to articulate from the beginning of climate-policy efforts. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) expressed the aim as preventing “dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system”. Efforts to clarify the meaning of ‘dangerous’ here have proved fruitless because science offers many different answers depending on which part of the climate system is under scrutiny, and each country has a different perspective.
The 2009 and 2010 UNFCCC Conference of the Parties meetings, in Copenhagen and Cancun respectively, reframed the policy goal in more concrete terms: average global temperature. There was little scientific basis for the 2 °C figure that was adopted, but it offered a simple focal point and was familiar from earlier discussions, including those by the IPCC, EU and Group of 8 (G8) industrial countries. At the time, the 2 °C goal sounded bold and perhaps feasible.
…
Because it sounds firm and concerns future warming, the 2 °C target has allowed politicians to pretend that they are organizing for action when, in fact, most have done little. Pretending that they are chasing this
unattainable goal has also allowed governments to ignore the need for massive adaptation to climate change.
Second, the 2 °C goal is impractical. It is related only probabilistically to emissions and policies, so it does not tell particular governments and people what to do. In other areas of international politics, goals
have had a big effect when they have been translated into concrete, achievable actions.
Full article here (PDF) sent with press release: 2degreesC_Comment_Victor
UPDATE: Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. writes in comments:
Finally some sense is making it into these journals on the 2C threshold issue. I discussed this on my weblog several years ago also in my post
where I concluded with
“The use of the global annual-averaged surface temperature trends [should be] relegated to where it deserves to be – an historical relic.”
At mid latitudes I wake up to 8 C, by late afternoon it is 25 C. Now add 2 C. I wake up to 10 C, by late afternoon it is 27 C. And the problem is? If I don’t like it, move north (in northern hemisphere). If the opposite happens, move south.
The concept was that anthropogenic CO2 emissions would cause “global warming”. While a warming climate is a “changing” climate, the extra CO2 is supposedly causing warming. There actually is some scientific basis for this claim, although the exact amount of the warming is not known.
It has not been warming for about 18 years which makes the supposed additional warming of human CO2 emissions even harder to determine.
Any “climate change” not associated with the warming, which hasn’t been happening, can not be attributed to human CO2 emissions.
Just a reminder.
That it has taken them so long to recognize something so utterly obvious is not really encouraging.
They’ve realized the obvious – temperature is a poor indicator of global warming, climate change, climate disruption, etc. and further discussion of it is a distraction from the real problem which is carbon, itself. This offensive atom in all its various forms has jackbooted the world’s neck far too long. The problem of carbon is so pervasive and so widely recognized that further discussion puts off the solution unnecessarily. The sooner we are rid of carbon the better off will be the world and there is no time to waste. Tomorrow’s weather depends upon today’s action.
And so begins Operation Carbon Choke Point, the newest product of weaponized ignorance.
This is actually pretty funny. Like swapping words and music in the hymnals. By the next get-together on climate, the parishoners won’t know what to sing!
But shouldn’t they ask permission from Schellnhuber first – after all, he IS the Father of the “Two Degrees” – n’est-ce pas?
Kurt in Switzerland
Indeed he is. No doubt you have all read this long ago, but here’s a reminder:
“For this reason a group of German scientists, yielding to political pressure, invented an easily digestible message in the mid-1990s: the two-degree target. To avoid even greater damage to human beings and nature, the scientists warned, the temperature on Earth could not be more than two degrees Celsius higher than it was before the beginning of industrialization. It was a pretty audacious estimate. Nevertheless, the powers-that-be finally had a tangible number to work with. An amazing success story was about to begin.”
“But this is scientific nonsense. “Two degrees is not a magical limit — it’s clearly a political goal,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “The world will not come to an end right away in the event of stronger warming, nor are we definitely saved if warming is not as significant. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.”
Schellnhuber ought to know. He is the father of the two-degree target. “Yes, I plead guilty,” he says, smiling. The idea didn’t hurt his career. In fact, it made him Germany’s most influential climatologist. Schellnhuber, a theoretical physicist, became Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief scientific adviser — a position any researcher would envy.”
Yes, he said it: A political target. But ever since, we have been told that there is a sound scientific basis for this target, that if we don’t stop global warming right on the doorstep on the fearsome second degree, climate disaster will follow.
But now, rejoice. The two degrees have served their purpose, and can be omitted from the accepted texts of the “CAGW-minus-2-degrees” bible. In the old days, emperors decided what should be thrown out of the Bible. No doubt the climate prophets in Paris next year, in the glorious shadow of Louis 14th and Napoleon, can achive as much.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-catastrophe-a-superstorm-for-global-warming-research-a-686697-8.html
By the way, this is from a comprehensive 8-part article in Spiegel, already four years old. Well worth reading the whole collection; it is surprisingly open minded, although paying the obligatory lip-service to climate crises.
Hang on, if CO2 is not raising temperature, what is causing all these tornadoes, floods, droughts, ice storms, sea level rise, shrinking arctic sea ice, expanding antarctic sea ice, drowning polar bears, billions of climate refugees, and the partridge in the pear tree ?
Or is that all going in the bin too ?
It’s the Wrath of Gaia. Duh… 😉
That will be re-purposed as evidence of human-caused global environmental discomfiture and it will be worse than we thought.
This is so obviously important and true that it needs to shouted back at these alarmists. They can’t change the “goal” because all the effects are supposedly consequential to an increase in temperature. The simple physics relates exactly to more heat in the atmosphere. And all the horrifying consequences forecast come from that. Poking around the universe to find other anomalous results when the original impact never occurred is like saying your car stopped because it ran out of gas when there is still plenty of gas in the tank. If your car stopped it wasn’t because it ran out of gas if it didn’t run out of gas!
We often remind ourselves that correlation does not mean causation. But now is the time to be reminded that when there is no correlation there is never causation. Simply put, if there is no significant rise in temperature there can be no significant effect caused by the rise in temperature – because it never happened. It hurts my head to consider why it is even necessary to point this out. Why can’t the guy who wrote this stupid article see that he has busted the whole myth with his admission that temperature doesn’t matter.
That statement belies the whole “global warming” bullshit machine, in a nutshell.
It has never been about science.
It has always been about telling people what to do.
Well yes, the word “IMPRACTICAL” really gives the game away. What a blunder they all have made, not to tell us quite exactly what to do.
But I believe we can be highly specific about telling THEM what to do.
So what happens if/when global temps fall? Erasing the simple idea from the public memory that temps are supposed to rise in response to more magic gas wont be easy.
Further, “Moving the goalposts”, is a poor analogy IMO of what we may now see coming from the vested interests. A better analogy is they are attempting to completely re-write the rules of the game, sort of like turning a 3 hour baseball game into a multiday cricket test match in the 5th inning, simply because the rule re-writing team is getting its butt handed to it (slang for “we’re losing big tme”).
And now like cricket, the rules they now want as metrics of climate change are many, the scoring is difficult to fathom, and only the true afficiado can even tell whats going on.
Show many ANY metric that points to climate getting “worse” (and make sure you define “worse” in measurable parameters).
I’ll be waiting right here.
Regional; drought, flooding, increase rain, decrease rain, habitat change, increase snow, decrease snow, increase ice, decrease ice, decrease fish, decrease birds, increase prostitution, increase sea level, decrease sea level, and locust are all indicators of stress on the planet.(If they say so)
Plus don’t forget, from the paper, “The best indicator has been there all along: the concentrations of CO2 and the other greenhouse gasses…”
They’re bound to find 20 or 30 vital signs governments and companies can control directly.
Of course. 🙂 But now show me that none of this would have happened if not for human activity.
Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter to them, does it?
Just delete everything after “Ditch the 2 °C warming goal”.
There, fixed it. 🙂
More nonsense from Nature.
[Excerpt]
“Some of the backlash from ‘denialists’ is partly rooted in policy-makers’ obsession with global temperatures that do not actually move in lockstep with the real dangers of climate change. New goals are needed.”
[Comments]
Is “denialists” a new word? What happened to “deniers”? 🙂
“New goals are needed.” Perhaps – but not goals to be set by fraudsters who have failed in every prediction they have made to date, and have caused society to squander over a trillion dollars of scarce global resources on a non-issue. These scam artists have no successful predictive track record and thus no scientific credibility. Every scary scenario they have predicted has failed to materialize. That is why they say “new goals are needed” – because they have been proven wrong to date – because they have failed.
“IST” is so much more sophisticated, see? “Denier” is just too gross, too much like the ditty “Nier, nier, pants on fire”. (“Warning, warning, globe is warming”) A denial-IST is clearly a far more sinister character. And then he will develop his denial-ISM. From the basic deni-ER, it is necessary to move on to the -IST in order to achieve the -ISM, then we can call it a conspiratorial ideology created by the Koch brothers.
This is simply a way for the warmists to ignore the fact that the earth is not warming and only point to those obtuse “signals” of warming instead. It also neatly avoids them dealing with the fact that in-spite of world governments doing almost absolutely nothing to tackle climate change, that we will meet that 2 degrees target anyway, …. because the earth is NOT warming as the models predicted it would.
So now we know, it is ALL about the extra taxes and controls being imposed upon the populations of the world, and not about global temperature at all, Hence why these statists are adamant on those controls being imposed in spite of the earth failing to keep on warming up.
“There was little scientific basis for the 2 °C figure that was adopted,”
Ive been called a denier for trying to make this case.
“than the growth of average global surface temperature — which has stalled since 1998 ”
Ive been called a denier for trying to make this case.
“Some of the backlash from ‘denialists’ ”
Sorry buddy on many of the places Ive debated this issue you have two major strikes on you. You are a climate denier.
Hear that? That’s the unmistakeable sound of goalposts being moved. Radically! Pretty soon, AGW will be transformed into a whole ‘nother gravy train!
Is “denialists” a new word?
It’s part of the process of babble, I think, where words and expressions transmogrify and degenerate as they pass from ear to mouth, eye to fingers. Already we’re seeing that the idiotic term climate change denier has devolved into the simpler, and even more idiotic climate denier.
For a supposedly professional journal to use the comically emo-word “denialists” shows that they are emitting propaganda, not supporting science.
It is astonishing that the editors allowed that word to appear in their journal. It seriously detracts from Nature’s credibility, and they surely have little of that to spare.
When Nature’s writers start labeling people who simply have a different point of view with the “denialist” pejorative, it exposes itself as nothing more than an alarmist propaganda organ.
The mighty have fallen a long way. It is tempting to subscribe to Nature just so I could cancel my subscription over their use of that ridiculous label.
Nature has no creditability, not since “Mike’s Nature trick”.
Nobody trusts science from Nature.
Nature and its sibling credibility? Surely you jest.
My soon forthcoming next book puts forth multiple examples in addition to this one. Some already guest posted over at Judiths.
Nah. Open Mind and other blogs used denialist years ago. Denier kinds took root and became common usage at some point afterward.
Neither denialist nor denialism appears in my 3rd edition (1993) of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Similarly, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary bundled with my Britannica 2001 does not recognize either word.
Hmm, are these authors ( public relations guy and oceanographer ) throwing the WMO under the bus?
Sounds like a run of the mill Industry Trade Rag beating drums for the next big Expo.
Surface temperatures are not co-operating so it’s time to shift the modus operandi to using “deep ocean heat content” instead which they can monitor on our behalf and let us know the terrible things that are happening which require more & more taxes. “Squaaawwkk! The seas are rising!! The seas are rising!!” Meet the new Chicken Little, same as the old Chicken Little.
They are beginning to realize that the earth is not warming fast enough to achieve Agenda 21 based on 2C.
A new crisis is needed.
+1
Yep
…. partly rooted in policy-makers’ obsession with global temperatures that do not actually move in lockstep with the real dangers of
[global warming]climate change.Remind me again…. Which of the 100-some global climate models have global temperatures that are not locked into CO2 forcings?
Which of the GCM’s [computer climate models] accurately predicted the current twenty year long stasis in global temperatures?
Answer: None of them got it right. They were all wrong.
I would like to hear anyone of the warmist persuasion try to explain to us why anyone should pay any attention to them now. They have been wrong about everything. Now they admit that their preposterous 2ºC scare was wrong, too. Their string of anti-science blunders remains unbroken.
Don’t you remember? If they had known what the satellite temerature record would look like for the next ten years ten years ago, they could have perfectly predicted the next ten years!
I swear you couldn’t make this stuff up if the CAGW crowd didn’t say it themselves…
So….
CO2 is bad because it makes things warmer.
Ooops, it isn’t getting warmer.
OK then….
CO2 is bad because it makes…. uhm…. something else…. uhm…. different.
We have to find out what the something else is.
But while we’re looking for it, just remember that we already know CO2 is bad.
That’s the way I read it too.
Hi Anthony – Finally some sense is making it into these journals on the 2C threshold issue. I discussed this on my weblog several years ago also in my post
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/a-summary-of-why-the-global-average-surface-temperature-is-a-poor-metric-to-diagnose-global-warming/
where I concluded with
“The use of the global annual-averaged surface temperature trends [should be] relegated to where it deserves to be – an historical relic.”
Roger Sr
So, if I’m reading you correctly, you state that ‘global warming’ would strictly manifest itself as a transient imbalance in radiative flux? If that’s the case, then what mechanism would exist that would translate this imbalance to a measurable surface effect?
IMO ditch global climate altogether. It’s an oxymoron. The world has many diverse climates. Too hot in Sahara desert, too cold in Antarctica. Climate is local. Study climate change in different parts of the world. Ditch the strange notion that earth has one climate. Even in ice ages the tropics was warm.
Climate is on earth’s surface. OHC and gas emissions are relevant because of their effect on climate. The focus should be on climate because these causes may have small and/or delayed effect.
“New goals are needed. It is time to track an array of planetary vital signs — such as changes in the ocean heat content — that are better rooted in the scientific understanding of climate drivers and risks”
Right, because me driving my car and turning on the heat in my house are really making a huge impact on heat in the Pacific Ocean. Man these Alarmists are just off the deep end.
LeeHarvey – I proposed this as a way to quantify global warming and cooling. Clearly, much more is needed to describe regionally surface variable weather effects. Roger Sr.
Roger A. Pielke Sr, so is there any evidence of additional ocean heat to account for the pause along with an explanation as to how it avoided the surface layers? (assuming that they’re sticking to their deep ocean layer heat theory)
If the mechanism is El Nino/La Nina based, what mechanism created such overpowering radiative transfer in these natural cycles?
Thanks
sabretruthtiger- There is the claim that the heat has been sequestered deeper into the ocean (below 700m). Even if this is true [which I doubt as we would have seen it being transferred through the upper ocean] the heat would be dispersed at the deeper depths and it is unlikely it could reemerge quickly back into the atmosphere. Roger Sr.
The typical ploy of charlatans: Move the goal posts when their predictions fail.