Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In her always interesting blog, Dr. Judith Curry [and Anthony at WUWT] points to a very well-researched article by Bjorn Lomborg, peer-reviewed, entitled “Impact of Current Climate Proposals” (full text).
He has repeated the work that Tom Wigley did for the previous IPCC report. There is a simplified climate model called “MAGICC” which is used extensively by the IPCC. It can be set up to emulate the results of any of the climate models used by the IPCC, including their average results, by merely changing the MAGICC settings. This lets us figure out how much cooling we can expect from a variety of programs that promise to reduce CO2.
The abstract of the paper says (emphasis and formatting mine):
This article investigates the temperature reduction impact of major climate policy proposals implemented by 2030, using the standard MAGICC climate model. Even optimistically assuming that promised emission cuts are maintained throughout the century, the impacts are generally small.
- The impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100.
- The full US promise for the COP21 climate conference in Paris, its so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) will reduce temperature rise by 0.031°C.
- The EU 20-20 policy has an impact of 0.026°C, the EU INDC 0.053°C, and China INDC 0.048°C.
- All climate policies by the US, China, the EU and the rest of the world, implemented from the early 2000s to 2030 and sustained through the century will likely reduce global temperature rise about 0.17°C in 2100.
These impact estimates are robust to different calibrations of climate sensitivity, carbon cycling and different climate scenarios. Current climate policy promises will do little to stabilize the climate and their impact will be undetectable for many decades.
Note that in all cases, these are the optimistic numbers, in which the supposed reductions in CO2 emissions are assumed to continue after 2030 all the way until 2100.
Of particular interest to me was the impact of the Obama War On Coal, or as it is known, the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP). Even if we can implement it, and then assuming we can follow it until 2100, the total reduction in temperature rise is estimated to be 0.013°C.
Now, that’s a bit over a hundredth of a degree Celsius. The problem is, nobody has a good handle on just how small that reduction in temperature actually is, because we have nothing to compare it to. Even fever thermometers only measure to a tenth of a degree. Casting about to rephrase this number in units that might be more understandable than hundredths of a degree, I remembered the old rule of thumb about how much the air cools off as you climb a mountain. Everyone knows that as you go up a mountain, the air gets cooler. The rate at which non-condensing air cools with increasing altitude is called the “dry adiabatic lapse rate”. The rule of thumb states that for every hundred metres higher that you climb, the temperature drops by 1°C.
Now, a human being is typically around 1.7 metres tall, plus or minus. This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your feet. And recall from above that the “impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100” …
Which means that after spending billions of dollars and destroying valuable power plants and reducing our energy options and making us more dependent on Middle East oil, all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads … I am overcome with gratitude for such a stupendous accomplishment.
Seriously. The sum total of the entire restructuring of the US energy production will be to make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads.
Now, at this point the advocates of the policy often say something like “Yes, but this is just the first step. Wait until the other nations get so amazed at the damage we’re doing to our own economy that they all want to sign on and do the same”. Of course they don’t put it honestly like that, but their belief is that if the US gets stupid, everyone will follow our lead. I don’t believe it for one minute, no matter how much they SAY that they will come to the party, but let’s imagine that fairy tale to be true.
Well, Lomborg calculated that as well. He used MAGICC to compute the combined effect of the CO2 promises of the whole world, and the answer was 0.17°C of cooling by 2100 in the optimistic scenario, where everyone not only meets their promised reductions but holds to them from 2030 to 2100.
And the number for what Lomborg calls the “pessimistic” scenario, but which might more accurately be called the “realistic” scenario, is a reduction in warming of 0.05°C (see his Table 1).
And this in turn is equivalent to the difference in temperature that you’d get from walking five metres higher on the hillside. You know, like when you say “it’s so hot here, I think I’ll walk up the hill the equivalent of two flights of stairs so I’m five metres higher, and I’ll be cooler by five hundredths of a degree” …
In any case, the MAGICC results are what are used by the IPCC, so there you have it. If everything that the politicians in Paris are promising comes to pass, it will make a difference of between five hundredths and seventeen hundredths of a degree by 2100 … at an astronomical price, billions and billions of dollar globally.
Sigh … an astronomically large price for an unmeasurably small cooling. Freakin’ brilliant. This is what passes for the peak of “responsible” scientific thought these days about the climate, but to me, it’s just the height of temperature folly.
Best of the autumn days to everyone,
w.
AS USUAL: If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. This lets everyone understand exactly what you are objecting to.
Note: Willis was apparently reading Curry’s article while the WUWT article from Lomborg posted, so I added a link in the first paragraph -Anthony
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An old engineer friend of mine shared a story that one of his professors told him years ago. With the introduction of the steam locomotive in England, transportation was transformed. However, the stacks belched hot cinders catching the following cars and countryside on fire, not to mention soiling the clothes of the well-to- do passengers. Parliament promptly stepped in and passed a law that locomotive boiler exhaust stacks had to be rerouted back into the boilers.
Political “wisdom” is timeless.
Oatley:
Actually, Parliament was showing “political wisdom” by attempting to promote downdraft combustion technology as a method to reduce the pollution and fires from early steam locomotives.
Downdraft stoves consume their own smoke and have higher efficiency. And , as the link says
Importantly, Parliament did NOT introduce subsidies to bias the market such that downdraft technology was adopted for use in steam locomotives before that technology was perfected for the purpose. But, in the present, Parliament has introduced subsidies which bias the market to adopt expensive and inefficient wind turbines for electricity generation.
This shows that – contrary to your assertion – political “wisdom” is not timeless.
Richard
Willis – advocates of the policy often say something like “Yes, but this is just the first step. Wait until the other nations get so amazed at the damage we’re doing to our own economy that they all want to sign on and do the same”. Of course they don’t put it honestly like that
EPA ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY came pretty close though.
U.S. House Science Committee – July 9, 2015
CHAIRMAN LAMAR SMITH: “On the Clean Power Plan, former Obama Administration Assistant Secretary Charles McConnell said at best it will reduce global temperature by only one one-hundredth of a degree Celsius. At the same time it’s going to increase the cost of electricity. That’s going to hurt the lowest income Americans the most. How do you justify such an expensive, burdensome, onerous rule that’s really not going to do much good and isn’t this all pain and no gain.
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “No sir, I don’t agree with you. If you look at the RIA we did, the Regulatory Impact Analysis you would see it’s enormously beneficial.
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you disagree with my one one-hundredth of a degree figure? Do you disagree with the one one-hundredth of a degree?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I’m not disagreeing that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action, but what I’m saying is that if we don’t take action domestically we will never get started and we’ll never…”
Read more: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/07/15/epa-chief-admits-obama-regs-have-no-measurable-climate-impact-one-one-hundredth-of-a-degree-epa-chief-mccarthy-defends-regs-as-enormously-beneficial-symbolic-impact/#ixzz3jxPsOENF
You realise that this means that we’re doomed, don’t you?
I wonder what is the reality on the percentage contribution of global warming [emissions — which is the Paris meet target] in the global [land & water] temperature raise to date? Then only the anology of reduction could be assessed.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Maybe someone can help me out here.
In assessing the heat retention/creating/shedding characteristics in the laboratory of CO2, is this testing done under STATIC air conditions (i.e., zero air flow) in some sort of “closed” container?
If this is so, will the lab measured values thus obtained be different if an air flow was introduced into the test conditions and/or if the test was performed , somehow, under “unconfined” conditions?
Or are the heat retention/creating/shedding characteristics of CO2 based on tests done in the real world, i.e., in the atmosphere (with wind, sun, clouds, rain, etc. )?
Any response will be greatly appreciated.
JT, the simple answer is that lab tests are done in long sealed glass tubes at RT. Presumably no convection/conduction. But under the falsifiable assumption (OCE-2) that CO2 is a reasonably well mixed gas, thse results should exptrapolate. And remember, the various radiation transfer codes are also used to design things like heat seeking A/A and G/A missiles. Those work quite well. CO2 is a GHG. This has been lnown since Tyndall in 1859. The unknowns are how much because of net feedbacks, and with what net consequences.
“CO2 is a GHG”
/////
it is mere conjecture that CO2 is a GHG. It is a radiative gas. Of course, we can measure and detect and make use of its radiative properties, and lock onto the radiative signal, but that does not make it a GHG.
We have yet to determine whether it is a Greenhouse gas. May be it is, but I have seen nothing that convinces me that in the real world conditions of Earth’s atmosphere, at 20th century atmospheric concentration, that it is a GHG.
Rist is generally correct, but they only extrapolate in the sense that the initial condition is that way. However, they set off a host of different changes that react to both the change in temperature (such as evaporation) and the change in CO2 (such as plant growth), which each set off their own sets of changes.
Just because the basic property of something is knowable doesn’t mean it’s complex interactions are manageable or predictable. This is like comparing personal finances to the economy as a whole. It’s the butterfly effect on the grandest of scales.
Canada is the second largest country in the world , yet 90% of the population lives within 200 miles of the American border !!! Why ??? ( hint: it’s not because the Americans smell pretty )
IT’S FUKKING COLD !!!
Thanks, I feel better now !
But they do smell pretty, don’t they?
When McKibben says “do the math”, he doesn’t mean THAT math.
You mean the hard math like 1+1=2?
Intellectuals thrive on the non-intuitive. They love being able to point out that 1+1=3. This is actually valuable, and not to be disregarded. The problem is that in doing so, they dismiss the value of common sense and bottom line.
In our current recurring drama, they are essentially trying to tell us that 1.1C*1=3C because 1 is actually 3.
” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and seventeen hundredths of a degree” should be ” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and 1.7 hundredths of a degree” or ” it will make a difference of between eight hundredths and seventeen thousanths of a degree”
Thanks, Peter. Actually, both of us were wrong. The correct number for the “pessimistic” estimate of global compliance with COP21 pledges is not eight hundredths, but five hundredths of a degree ( 0.05°C). See Lomborg’s Table 1. I’ve updated the head post to read:
I appreciate you checking my work.
w.
Review is a good thing.
Over the years I’ve collected a massive number of favourites on the AGW scam. I can replace virtually all of them with this post.
“all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads”
Not even. The quoted number is relative to the projected increase. More precise phrasing on all these “temperature reductions” would be “amount of temperature increase averted.”
In the end, it’s still only models, or more accurately, computer games
These facts need to be put on mugs and on car bumper stickers – they are game changers
My company makes mugs if anyone wants to make and distribute, but I cannot compete with Chinese prices
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
So much pain for so little gain.
“after spending billions of dollars and destroying valuable power plants and reducing our energy options and making us more dependent on Middle East oil, all we will do is make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads … I am overcome with gratitude for such a stupendous accomplishment.”
And that’s just the fallout in the US, from the UN and EPA’s draconian emission control plans to forestall supposed ‘global warming’ that already stopped nearly two decades ago.
Anthony’s passionate Tweet accompanying this post sums up the insanity:
@Anthony Watts: Why emission reductions goals @COP21 in Paris are just f****** stupid. No, seriuosly, it’s that bad. https://t.co/xhUi5t6gEG
A few comments above make the mistake of thinking of “global temperature” in the same way as a measured temperature hence the talk of measurement accuracy. It is actually an index; an average of > 1 million measured temperatures (min/max per day times 365 days x 2000 (say) stations worldwide). The averaging process obviously squeezes out all those underlying seasonal and spatially distributed variations and ends up with an index which changes only a tiny amount from one period to another.
Central limit theorem tells us that the resulting year on year variations in the index will tend towards a Gaussian distribution and indeed analysis of yearly differences are quite difficult to distinguish from a Gaussian (random) distribution. Respectable statisticians have opined that there are trends separate from these Gaussian components and differentiate the series from a random walk. However, they must be even smaller.
I cannot think of any other system in the world where such a tiny change in the estimated mean as a proportion of the underlying measured population variance would be regarded as significant. Let alone taken as the basis for policies which have huge costs and risks.
Anyway, enjoyed the article: thanks
Leaving aside the issue of Climate Sensitivity, all this hinges upon Governments achieving their targets/commitments. Of course, in the real world this is impossible since Green Energy is not despatchable and requires 100% backup from conventionally powered generation which means that there is no measurable reduction in CO2, and it simply takes too long to build the windfarms that would be necessary to replace existing fossil fuel generation.
The fact is that there is little energy in wind such that vast arrays of wind turbines are required, and this means that enormous numbers of wind turbines need to be erected and coupled to the grid. this takes inordinate lengths of time to construct and there is no way that this can be done by 2030.
James Delingpole has a good article on this. The UK Government has secretly/privately acknowledged that it cannot meet its current commitments, so what chance has it got to meeting any new commitments that it might make in Paris?
See: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/10/camerons-green-energy-policy-unravels-horribly-leaked-letter-ecologist/
These commitments are just pie in the sky, albeit pointless and terribly expensive.
The Minister for Energy and Climate change was reported in ‘The Times’ yesterday as considering spending UK taxpayer’s money on carbon reduction projects in other countries, as these reduction can be counted against our EU obligations.
Piling stupidity upon stupidity
Yes, but it does nothing to reduce global emissions so does nothing whatsoever to combat global warming.
Reblogged this on Mbafn's Blog and commented:
No wonder Lomborg is not wanted at any of the Australian universities….too much of a logical thinker!!!
How can anyone think that any meaningful data comes out of africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts
the WMO flag up the continent- one fifth of the the world’s land mass, needs 9000 new temp stations- some hope with a continent in constant turmoil . The few stations that actually give out any data – less than 50% of the time are all situated in cities or at airports.
it is not simply Africa, we have no idea as to global temperatures since most of the globe is unmeasured, and is disproportionally represented by stations in the US and North west Europe. See:
Yet despite such a woeful spatial coverage, Mosher recently joined issue with me when I pointing the above out. to his mark 1 eyeball, the above plot represents a global measurement data base!
GISS estimate up to 1200 kilometers from stations this might have some meaning if the landscape was exactly the same throughout the 1200 kilometers-
in between will be
• Upland regions
• Coastal regions
• Forest
• Urban regions
take the UK-
“Upland areas have a specific type of climate that is notably different from the surrounding lower levels.
Temperature usually falls with height at a rate of between 5 and 10 °C per 1,000 metres, depending on
the humidity of the air. This means that even quite modest upland regions, such as The Cotswolds, can
be significantly colder on average than somewhere like the nearby Severn Valley in Gloucestershire”
Have a look at the UK weather forecast for about a week and you will soon see that over the distance of the UK less than 1200 km, temperatures frequently vary by some 5 to 7 degC.
As a general and approcimate rule of thumb, Scotland is some 1 to 2 deg C cooler than the boarders that are some 1 to 2 deg cooler than the Midlands that is 1 to 2 deg Cooler than the South East which is 1 to 2 degC cooler than the South West which is 1 to 2 deg cooler than the Channel isles.
At the time of writing, according to the BBC, tonight’s forecast is: Lerwick 8 degC, Edinburgh 10 degC, Manchester 13 degC, St Hellier 14degC, so a spread of 6 degC. This is not as variable as frequently the case since presently the UK is experiencing a loy of rainy weather associated with the storm Abigail.
The idea that one can extrapolate weather/temperatures over a distance of 1200km is farcical.
I’ve said it often, the totality, the sum of global warming is measured in values so small as to be indistinguishable from zero. Nor will we every be able to say that it is outside the range of natural variability. It’s really time to stop funding this nonsense. And I mean stop funding it completely. No more GCM funding, no more supercomputers to run them, no more travel to COP meetings, no more budget for bureaucrat-scientits and advocacy scientits, no more UN contrbutions for IPCC or UNFCCC, no more funding from the NAS or NIH to do with global warming or climate change.
If they promise to behave, a small bit of funding can still go to weather modeling, of course, and maybe we can marginally increase our measuring capability in space and to fund real scientists who honestly ask questions they aren’t already sure of which they know the answers.
What is amazing is that such a farce can be maintained at such a large scale.
There is no claim of reducing the current temperature, (previously described as dire).
There is little evidence to support that only anthropogenic CO2 is warming the earth.
There is debate as to how much the earth has actually warmed in the last 125 years
There is debate about the net effect of a warming earth. Like increased growing seasons, the positive is likely to outweigh the negative.
It is highly unlikely countries will consistently damage their economies over the next 100 years when there are no immediate, tangible dire effects visible from global warming to their country.
It is certain this will cause friction and tension among countries as they bicker over who and how much of an economic hit each commits to and subsequent bickering over who followed through.
It is certain anthropogenic CO2 will increase as populations and economies grow. Eating diet cookies does not reduce caloric intake if twice the cookies are consumed.
Ironically, if it is true that human induced CO2 is warming the earth, there is risk that if the earth goes into a cooling cycle, reducing human warming could bring about dire results from a too cool earth.
Chicken little instead of being intercepted by the fox, made it to the king and persuaded him the sky is falling. That such a farce can be maintained at such a global scale for such a long period of time has to be a watershed in human stupid.
Regarding the Alarmists: “Stupid is as stupid does”.
So ALL current climate hysteria is predicated on their own figures to ‘save’ less than 1/10th of one degree by the end of the century? For that return Earthlings are set to spend literally £$trillions? Those Cadbury’s Smash Martians had us sussed right from the off.
“So when someone says we will fry, I know they lack experience. With water and shade a human can survive the hottest climates on earth, much better than almost any other species.”
This is quite true. Primitive man (ie Lucy and her tribe) evolved to ”sweat which allowed them to run down prey which would perish from heat stroke. thus they could hunt without too much technology but with some excess amount of exertion successfully.
Thanks Willis. A memorable and probably historical piece.
Disregarding for a moment that the sensitivity to CO2 might be significantly exaggerated.
Could this be the illustration which eventually turn the tide on the scientific illiterate leaders?
“The rate at which non-condensing air cools with increasing altitude is called the “dry adiabatic lapse rate”. The rule of thumb states that for every hundred metres higher that you climb, the temperature drops by 1°C. …. Now, a human being is typically around 1.7 metres tall, plus or minus. This means that other things being equal, the air at your head is about 0.017°C cooler than the air at your feet. And recall from above that the “impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100” … The sum total of the entire restructuring of the US energy production will be to make the air around our feet as cool as the air around our heads.”
This must be the best illustration so far of the idiocracy by United Nations – and the United States.
Thanks Willis,
your observations are true but you failed to quote a reference point.
What is the temperature of your reference point?
How can one describe the outputs from the climate model called MAGICC? According to the United Nations ( http://unfccc.int/adaptation/nairobi_work_programme/knowledge_resources_and_publications/items/5430.php ) “MAGICC gives projections of global-mean temperature and sea level change.” It seems to many that these projections are exactly what are needed for evaluation of policy proposals on greenhouse gas emissions. Actually predictions are what are needed. Isn’t “projection” merely a synonym for “prediction”? No, it is not.
A “prediction” is a type of proposition. A “projection” is not a type of proposition. Thus, though a declarative sentence such as “The impact of the US Clean Power Plan (USCPP) is a reduction in temperature rise by 0.013°C by 2100.” may look like a proposition it isn’t one. A tip off to this state of affairs is that a projection lacks a probability of being true while a proposition has one.
The Times has picked up on this story.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4609473.ece
“The UN has grossly exaggerated the benefits of a proposed deal on climate change, which will reduce global warming by as little 0.05C, according to a study.
The deal, due to be signed by almost 200 countries in Paris next month, will cost the EU hundreds of billions of pounds a year to implement but will have a negligible impact on rising temperatures, said Bjorn Lomborg, an economist and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist.”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/01008/ae1aaa58-871b-11e5_1008716c.jpg
Christiana Figueres was accused of making a ‘phenomenally misleading’ claim
Thibault Camus/ Associated Press