No new science, no new data, no new scenario and consequently no new cause for panic.
Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor
It’s been a long heatwave in much of Europe which has prompted questions like ‘what is the influence of climate change on this year’s heatwave?’ Some claim that it’s twice as likely to occur, while others claim that climate change is making it worse. “This is the face of climate change,” says Professor Michael Mann. There is a feeling in the hot air that this summer is showing the way of the future. ‘Expect this kind of thing more often’, is the cry.
Whatever way the evidence points, wherever the argument goes or the temperature changes in the future, the media have loved the “Earth’s on Fire,” headlines. But if you thought that was bad wait for the apocalypse. A new paper claims were are heading to a “Hothouse Earth,” and perhaps soon. Cue the heatwave fever on steroids.
The first thing to bear with the paper that suggest this is that it is a “Perspective” paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA.
Fig1 from paper.(Click on image to enlarge). — The possible trajectories of the Earth. Towards a hothouse — or an region of stability, if we take drastic action.
Yet, it is not a research paper and contains nothing new in the way of climate science. It is a future scenario pieced together by quoting selected (cherry-picked) references with a lot of hand-waving in-between. The author’s say it’s not conclusive, and they hope it’s not going to be true. They have a responsibility to ask the question, they claim, admitting it’s extreme.
The report starts as it continues. It says the formalisation of the Anthropocene – the controversial ‘geological’ epoch in which mankind allegedly dominates natural processes – is being considered by the stratigraphic community. Just a few days after this paper was accepted for publication, the International Commission on Stratigraphy decided against endorsing the Anthropocene, saying that we live in the Meghalayan Epoch instead. However the authors then go on to say that it is actually irrelevant what the geological community decides, they are going to claim the Anthropocene exists anyway. Human activity, they conclude, now rivals geological forces.
So the authors ask, ‘Is there a tipping point’, a threshold, in climate change and where might it be? How much will the Earth warm and how fast? Earlier this year a paper in Nature revised the calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature. It reduced the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half and concluded that any worst-case scenarios were unlikely. It’s not mentioned in the “Perspective.”
Fork In The Road
The paper’s conclusion is that we have already broken out of the Ice Age-Interstitial see-saw of the Late Quaternary (last 1.2 million years), and that the one degree C temperature rise since pre-industrial times is nearing the upper envelope of interglacial conditions. “The Earth system may have already passed the ‘fork in the road’ of potential pathways,” they write, suggesting that the next glaciation might not happen. Next they speculate that, “biogeophysical feedback may be stronger than normally assumed.”
This whole scenario moves into what many would regard as extreme scientific speculation. There is no real evidence in the scientific literature that a rise of global temperatures by two degree C above pre-industrial temperatures will be a tipping point. The most recent report by the IPCC rejected such doomsday scenarios as highly unlikely. There is no new science that this is a threshold after which global warming will become unstoppable. No new science, no new scenario and consequently no new cause for panic. But that’s not the message in the media.
There is nothing wrong with presenting an extreme scenario in order to highlight possibilities and to stimulate research. But as far as presenting it to the public, and as far as reporting it by the news media, it is essential to put it into the context of scientific facts and research. The vast majority of climate scientists are not predicting a Hothouse Earth. This provocative paper contradicts the scientific state of climate research. If it is a warning then it should not be presented as a prediction. It does not warrant all the lurid headlines.
But it has been a very hot summer and a cool approach and rational perspective has gone out of the window like the hot exhaust from an air-conditioning unit. In the words of Dr Phil Williamson of the University of East Anglia quoted in the media, “In the context of the summer of 2018, this is definitely not a case of crying wolf.” Yeah, right.
Source: The GWPF
In the 50’s at night where I live in summer, and usually the mid-upper 70’s during the day, most days—and dry. Just like normal for here, which is why I moved here, to live in a town at an 8600 ft. elevation.
Isn’t a preposition a part of speech? Did you mean “proposition” for the title?
‘Double entendre…’
A “preposition” is what you never use to end a sentence with.
Perhaps the graphic should be redrawn to show we are statistically more likely to be tipped into an ice age. See the last 450,000 year graphic in the link.
https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/
The world is warming. There is nothing we can do to stop it now.
Unless the whole proposition is just Fake News.
How can you prove them wrong?
You can’t.
Just remember to tell your grandchildren about how the global warming facade took hold of some of the population and was pushed so hard by those living off of the grants but was ultimately buried by the funding agencies when nothing happened. Tell them that they need proof before accepting the new propositions in the future.
Bill says
How can you prove them wrong?
You can’t.
Yes you can. You can point to temperatures plunging back to below the 30 year average for say 2 or 3 years in a row. That would be proof for you I pesume? It would be for me.
Ryan,
That is highly likely in the 2020s, if for no other reason than the fact that the baseline will be 1991-2020 rather than 1981-2010. But the world is liable to cool, in any case.
Even if temperatures stay the same, we’re not due for another super El Nino until 2032-33, since 17 years passed between the SENs of 1998-99 and 2015-16.
I’m expecting them to find some excuse not to adjust the baseline in two years.
Ryan, 2 or 3 years of temperature doing anything does not convince anyone, who understands “climate”, of anything about “climate”.
Thank you for confitming that you are one of those who understand nothing about climate.
But seem to be obsessed with spreading apocalyptic crap.
“The world is warming. There is nothing we can do to stop it now.”
or you could just say there never was anything that we could do to stop it.
Day 1. I did not punch Michael Mann in the face, today.
Baffin Bay has ice in it. Baffin Island has ice on it. Gteenland has ice on it. There were no forest fires on Greenland today. There were no forest fires on Baffin Island today.
I did not punch Michael Mann in the face, today.
One Day at a time.
I applaud the hot spell in the title. Europe is on [preposition] fire [noun].
Admit it, you just wanted to draw in the grammar nazis!
Bad grammar can make for a grumpy grampa!
What the Nature abstract says:
There is nothing wrong with presenting a 1% scenario if you clearly identify it as remote chance that is worth being aware of because the costs are so high. Without making that context clear its just catastroporn.
There is something really weird going on in US culture on this. Nowhere else is there this hysterical alarm and forecasts of doom about ordinary weather events. Nowhere else is there this completely dysfunctional association between political party affiliation and views on climate science. Weird.
Another weird thing is this mania the activists have for simultaneously urging actions which, in their own theory, will be ineffective, while refusing to advocate actions which, again in their own theory, should be both effective and essential.
Very, very weird.
Most of the “left” in the U.S.A. and Canada have gone to the “Socialist” end of the spectrum ! They think Venezuela is paradise !!
Also in the UK.
See current furore over a Tory defending the right of Muslim women to wear a burqa in public, if they chose.
He indicated, rightly, I think, that they shouldn’t be forced to wear a burqa, or a niqab, if they do not wish to do so.
But he noted that, a burqa- wearer does look a bit suspicious – a bit like a bank-robber, or a pillar-box (used for mail posting here in the UK; also ‘Post Box’].
And the fuss from the usual super-sensitive souls seems seriously surreal.
Auto
PS –
Late football result –
Real Madrid, 2: Surreal Madrid, Fish.
Apocalyptic death cults are not known for rational or reasoned thinking.
See posts by RyanS for example.
Since when has the climate of the Earth been stable?
The concept of a stable climate is ridiculously teleological, the climate does what it does, it has no purpose to serve or ideal qualities or attributes.
Relating the purported temperature trend over the past century or two with the proxy data resolutions for previous interglacials is also risible.
They have a responsibility to ask the question, they claim, admitting it’s extreme.
Total. Complete. Bollox.
They have a responsibility to remain level & clear headed.
They have a responsibility to talk about legitimate actual solid science.
They have a responsibility not to be wild-eyed panic stricken fear mongers.
If no-one else, they owe those responsibilities to each and every one of themselves.
Personally.
It’s been a ‘very hot summer’ in some places, cool in others.
It happens that way every year.
The difference is that this year, it’s hot where most of the reporters live.
Does “hothouse earth” describe the times when the planet was so conducive to life that lizards grew to be well over 100 feet long, dogs grew to the size of horses, and butterflies had 2′ wingspans?
Then there will be winter… which will be blamed on global warming making it worse.
Nowhere is the mindset more apparent than when a Nor’easter hit Boston. The flooding that occurred was naturally a result of anthropogentic warming. And the cars that were frozen in place, “if you want to see global warming, come to Boston ” said the Mayor.
Why I remember a time when global warming was keeping the cold air confined to the polar regions and the jet stream pushed further north. And now, somehow by magic, global warming is allowing the jet stream to become loopy bringing polar vortexes south.
Consistency, repeat-ability, nor memory is a virtue of AGW.
Nonsense. AGW is a perfectly excellent random number generator!!
Still 50 degrees below zero in Antarctica. Not going to change that with a little CO2.
I like to think eventually humans will deliberately push us toward a HotHouse Earth, perhaps by damming the Drake Passage, in order to help support the 100B people that will be alive a few hundred years from now. They will need a lot of water, and Elon Musk has only started boring us.
“This whole scenario moves into what many would regard as extreme scientific speculation.”
And some of us go as far as saying it’s fraud. It’s not even pseudoscience, it’s antiscience.
Heat wave?? Here in Montana we’re having a relatively cool summer, and nighttime temps are running about ten degrees below normal.
In other words, a summer about like we get every decade or so.
We’ve had another downpour here in Toronto, with the inevitable (very) local flooding.
This is mostly due to old infrastructure and bad planning (seriously: just walked by a drain on the street that was a good 4 feet from the puddle adjacent to the curb).
You can guess what the true culprit is though, right?
Yep, the same climate change that has goosed our forest fire levels (i.e., low precip) is also to blame for high precip.
Economists, betting touts psychics and climate alarmists…all have the same ability to remain employed and in the news while being wrong most of the time. Nice work…
I’m sure, a heatwave, is like every other weather event that has gone before and, no doubt, will happen again in the future. So how do they believe, heatwaves will play out in the future if we somehow manage to cease CO2 emissions? Records being broken by tenths of a degree. Big deal if a location in Portugal is 44.1C instead of 44.5C. Or it lasts for 15 weeks instead of 16. How much ”better” will things be?
Interesting though how well the propaganda works. When you see countries like the U.K. and here in Ireland, notorious for poor summers, yet everyone (well some any way) is convinced that Hell has broken loose, and this glorious weather is a baaad thing. Roll on winter. Yeah, right. They seem to have forgotten the last one. And that’s the problem. Most live in the now, and don’t have any recollection of previous weather events, even in the short time span of their own lives. The next dump of snow will be blamed on climate change and the ”Hothouse Earth” will be retired until the next one…
I seem to recall a claim that without collective climatic action ten years ago the Earth would grow its atmospheric mass by 9300%, increase the CO2 component from 0.04% to 96.5%, lose its rotational energy, boil away its oceans, and revert all its organic matter to disassociated molecules. Was this a lie?
Yes. Anyone promoting a runaway hothouse Earth as an actual risk is fibbing.
A human caused hothouse Earth is not physically possible.
The scammers who wrote the paper knew it but decided to promote it anyway.
They are anti-science and ignore reality and expert opinion.
That one of the authors helped to manipulate the Pope into making a fool of himself along with Church he leads only makes this current piece of fiction more unpleasant.
I think last summer, and the one before that, were signs of what to expect the coming years and decades, it was cold and wet here i northern Europe. We are now approching an exeptionally low solar minimum and the cosmic radiation is increasing, consequently the cloudiness on the planet will increase according to research by Professor Henrik Svensmark. A cold sun and more clouds gives more shade and a colder climate…
The real reason for the paper:
“…behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed
social values.”
Cart put first, then horse.
PROPOSED OR DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SAY PREPOSTEROUS?