By Henry Bodkin
18 September 2017 • 7:15pm
Climate change poses less of an immediate threat to the planet than previously thought because scientists got their modelling wrong, a new study has found. New research by British scientists reveals the world is being polluted and warming up less quickly than 10-year-old forecasts predicted, giving countries more time to get a grip on their carbon output.
An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook.
Experts now say there is a two-in-three chance of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the ultimate goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
They also condemned the “overreaction” to the US’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, announced by Donald Trump in June, saying it is unlikely to make a significant difference.
According to the models used to draw up the agreement, the world ought now to be 1.3 degrees above the mid-19th-Century average, whereas the most recent observations suggest it is actually between 0.9 to 1 degree above.
The discrepancy means nations could continue emitting carbon dioxide at the current rate for another 20 years before the target was breached, instead of the three to five predicted by the previous model.
“When you are talking about a budget of 1.5 degrees, then a 0.3 degree difference is a big deal”, said Professor Myles Allen, of Oxford University and one of the authors of the new study.
Published in the journal Nature Geoscience, it suggests that if polluting peaks and then declines to below current levels before 2030 and then continue to drop more sharply, there is a 66 per cent chance of global average temperatures staying below 1.5 degrees.
The goal was yesterday described as “very ambitious” but “physically possible”.
Another reason the climate outlook is less bleak than previously thought is stabilising emissions, particularly in China.
And here is the original press release.
HT | Pablo an ex Pat
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Cargo cult science alert
Just like good old regressive sensitivity study results tracking observational data, lag of 5 years, this is another arctic will be ice free in 40 years
The only reason this study exists is because no one longer trusts noaa n giss temp n are letting their results be guided by obs data, to remain relevant n have something to point to, to ecplain the lack of warming in the sat data sets
And what if the warming is not due to increasing levels of atmospheric CO2? What if causation is being inverted on its head? What if it’s the warming that’s pushing CO2 molecules out of the oceans (Henry’s Law)?
What if Svensmark is correct?
Increased concentration of CO2 in the air is roughly compatible with rough estimates of a consumption of fossil fuels. Not much of evidence, but not to be dismissed outright.
The real question is : Is more CO2 beneficial or harmful? Observations support the first – so far.
At the Paris climate summit in 2015, Professor Grubb said: “All the evidence from the past 15 years leads me to conclude that actually delivering 1.5C is simply incompatible with democracy.”
He considers models “evidence” – actually, “all the evidence”. It is time to formulate rules of evidence for climatology. Science already had rules of evidence, but climatology is not a science.
And Prof Grubb proposes what, exactly, as a substitute for democracy?
I was told the science was settled years ago. Somebody was lying. It was politicians, so that’s OK.
“An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook.”
But aren’t we over 400 ppm faster than the models projected, and isn’t that supposed to be the only thing that is driving global temperature? Isn’t this simply an admission (finally) that the theory, and models derived from it, are wrong?
The article should read something like this: “Umm…sorry! It really is looking like we were wrong and the skeptics were right all along. Sorry about all that name calling, and the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on a non-issue, and for terrifying the entire population of the planet with a continuous stream of doom and gloom stories for the last few decades, and for further suppressing development in the poorest areas of the world, causing hundreds of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths. We feel really bad about about that last one. But…hey….no hard feelings! Right? Well…carry on.”
Now they need to come clean about temperature record adjustments, affects of significantly reducing the number of weather stations and properly assessing UHI contributions to temperature rise.
It’s global fraud on an unprecedented scale. Now can we please take a look at who profited the most by this trillion dollar crime and prosecute them? Nah, didn’t think so…
Shukman (bbc “science editor”) was on the radio at lunchtime. Barely mentioned the important scientific point (significant error/overestimate), but spent the entire report talking about the other (renewables advocacy) study “conclusions”. At the very end he said “and after all, well, it’s only an error of 0.3 degrees, which really is very small”.
Hang on – wasn’t the twentienth century warming of just over 0.6 degrees supposed to be very large – in fact unprecedented, dangerous and worthy of panic and immediate action?
Hmmm. . .
Now this is: “An Inconvenient Truth” for the chicken-littles.
“The discrepancy means nations could continue emitting carbon dioxide at the current rate for another 20 years before the target was breached, instead of the three to five predicted by the previous model.”
Left unclear is why the new model is any more likely to be correct than the old one.
Harold Camping had a new model every few years, too.
““When you are talking about a budget of 1.5 degrees, then a 0.3 degree difference is a big deal”, said Professor Myles Allen, ”
So when you are talking about an error in forecasting of 0.3 degrees in such a short time, that is a Big Deal too. When it is off by say, 1-1.5 degrees, that will be an even bigger deal. That will mean we will be able to emit at our present rate for another few score years and ten, I suppose.
At some point the disconnect between CO2 emissions and temperature will have to be admitted. When that Great Day comes, the Big Deal will be the wastes of trillions of dollars on preventing something that was never going to happen. The health and wealth of nations will have suffered, but hey, it was all in a good (possible) cause.
And where did this 1.5 degrees come from? Thin air. Once it was clear that 2 degrees was never going to be met by the end of the 21st century, it was changed at the Paris conflab to “1.5 degrees” without a breath of explanation. It would have to be without one, as there isn’t one. Someone just made it up and passed the message on, same as with the ‘2 degree limit’.
I don’t care much about that second degree anyway. I do know that deliberately impoverishing billions around the world is murder in the First Degree.
So what happens when we reach that arbitrary 1.5 Deg C above pre-industrial level temperature? Nothing will happen.
Major Meteor,
“So what happens when we reach that arbitrary 1.5 Deg C above pre-industrial level temperature?”
It will be nothing bad,since it was that level about 8,000 years ago. The Sahara was Green too.
Hear that beeping sound? That’s the sound of Warmists backing up the Truth Truck.
Yes, clean air is better than smog, etc. But CO2 may not be any more detrimental than hairspray. Read this new look at the Ozone Hole and realize that Global Warming may have another process than car exhaust.
https://www.harrytodd.org
I was just looking at the plot in WUWT Paleo section,1,205 Years – M.L. Khandekar et al. 2005, K.J. Kreutz et al. 1997, Keith Briffa and Timothy J, Osborn 2002, and wonder why a correlation analysis of this data is not available as it should show a poor relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide in the last 1,000 years.