Opinion by Anthony Watts
A surprising comment published January 29th in the leading scientific journal Nature said; “Emissions – the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading – Stop using the worst-case scenario for climate warming as the most likely outcome — more-realistic baselines make for better policy.” This has thrown a monkey wrench in hundreds of studies and media stories that previously predicted dire climate consequences in the future due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere.
The consequences were predicted by a computer model called Representative Carbon Pathways (RCP) and the worst case scenario model, RCP8.5 had been cited over 2500 times in scientific journals and in hundreds of media stories as the primary need for “urgent action” on climate. Predictions from RCP8.5 model suggested maximum global temperature increases of nearly 6°C (10.8°F) by the year 2100, shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Image Credit: Neil Craik, University of Waterloo
But, in the original scientific paper, RCP8.5 had just a slim 3% chance of becoming reality. Since climate alarmists (and some climate scientists) prefer to preach future doom in order to spur action, the predictions of RCP8.5 have become known as the “business-as-usual” scenario, even though it was nowhere close to that.
In a stunning walk-back, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the Breakthrough Institute, bucked the climate consensus and said that the RCP8.5 worst case scenario is unlikely to happen. The reason? We can’t get there given how much fossil fuel is being used now. The model assumes a 500% increase in the use of coal, which is now considered highly unlikely since coal use has dropped significantly, as seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Image credit: United States Energy Information Administration (EIA)
So with is new information that excludes the worst case RCP8.5 scenario, rather than predicting a future world that warms by 6°C (10.8°F), they’ll go to the next lower scenario RCP6 with warming by 2100 around 3°C (5.4 °F) .
However, in typical climate alarmist fashion, the two authors of this Nature article are pointing out that the lower temperatures due to this drop-off of coal use and the exclusion of RCP8.5 aren’t guaranteed.
The reason? Scientists are still uncertain as to how sensitive global temperatures are to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. The value, known as the Charney Sensitivity still isn’t known for certain, over 40 years after it was first introduced in 1979 by the United States National Academy of Sciences and chaired by Jule Charney. He estimated climate sensitivity to be 3 °C (5.4 °F), give or take 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
Without knowing the true climate warming response to increased CO2, essentially all climate models become a crap-shoot. It is a glaring illustration of just how imprecise climate science actually is.
But, get this; new climate models are being used for the next set of major projections due from the IPCC next year known as AR6. Those models are said to show that temperatures are more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought.
So, with AR6 the higher numbers of the worst-case scenario are likely to be back on the table, along with continued calls for climate action in the form of reductions, alternate tech, and carbon taxation.
Inconveniently, there is another fly in the ointment. Even if the atmosphere turns out to be more sensitive to CO2 than they think, it is unlikely that the world will ever get to a doubling for CO2 in the atmosphere – the level on which climate sensitivity estimates are based. It turns out, based on a new calculation estimating if the world will get there, the answer is probably “no”.
Climate scientist Dr. Roy Spencer did a model calculation the same week as this new Nature article was released and discovered something totally surprising. Using data from the EIA projecting that energy-based emissions of CO2 will grow at 0.6% per year until 2050, he plugged that data into a climate model. With the reasonable EIA assumptions regarding CO2 emissions, the climate model does not even reach a doubling of atmospheric CO2, but instead reaches an equilibrium CO2 concentration of 541 ppm in the mid-2200s.
Spencer writes: “[T]he result is that, given the latest projections of CO2 emissions, future CO2 concentrations will not only be well below the RCP8.5 scenario, but might not even be as high as RCP4.5, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations possibly not even reach a doubling (560 ppm) of estimated pre-Industrial levels (280 ppm) before leveling off. This result is even without future reductions in CO2 emissions, which is a possibility as new energy technologies become available.”
The RCP4.5 scenario suggests a range of warming of about 1.7 to 3.2°C (3-5.8°F) which doesn’t constitute a “climate emergency” and may even be beneficial to humankind. After all, humanity didn’t do well during cold periods in history, and another global ice-age would certainly be ruinous.
With this broad uncertainty about what the future climate will be, the bottom line on climate science predictions is well-served by the great Yogi Berra who famously said:
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”
Anthony Watts is former television meteorologist and Senior Fellow for Environment and Climate for The Heartland Institute. He operates the most viewed website on climate in the world, WattsUpWithThat.com
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Luckily we have measurements of historical sea level rise and temperatures to help extrapolate a possible future scenario.
Based on the 27-year linear trend of sea level rise, 3.1 ± 0.4 mm/yr, by 2100 sea level will be .31 meters higher than the 1986-2005 average, which is in the RCP2.6 range (0.25 to 0.55, mean of 0.40).
Based on the UAH 40-year linear trend of global temperature, 0.13° C/decade, by 2100 it will be 1.3° C warmer than the 1986-2005 average, which is also in the RCP2.6 range (0.3 to 1.7, mean of 1.0).
So RCP6.0 is also bogus.
Clearly, Charney sensitivity is too high and the models are too hot, but alarmist scientists have their egos so wrapped into their theory that warming is all about CO2, the whole CO2, and nothing but the CO2, that they are incapable of doing science anymore and revisiting their theory and adjusting Charney sensitivity and the models. Instead they keep inventing new ways to account for the “missing heat”.
“…their theory that warming is all about CO2, the whole CO2, and nothing but the CO2, that they are incapable of doing science anymore …
And that is all they have. A stupid supposition with no real world evidence — all belief and no substance.
As some once said “Where’s the beef!” (probably a nonPC phrase today!)
[“Where’s the chemically and industrially processed vegetable derived proteinous substance designed to appear as beef!” somehow doesn’t cut it.]
“they are incapable of doing science anymore and revisiting their theory and adjusting Charney sensitivity and the models.”
If they do that then they won’t have anything with which to scare everybody.
“So RCP6.0 is also bogus.”
Two down, two more RCP’s to go.
Settled Science. Such a joke.
Cracks are starting to appear publicly in this CAGW dike/meme. Crakcs big enough that a politician could use them as an argument against CAGW.
I am pretty sure we are near the peak of the interglacial period, so any warming we can cause on our way toward glaciation would be appreciated (speaking for my great, great….grandchildren). In any case, “Wackeem” seems to think we should all eat grass, so that might help there also. I am heading out to build a fire and do my part now.
Oh come off it, AGW is going to burn us up and cause the extinction of everything in about 12 years. There’s no hope, no way out, life on the planet is toast!
Greta know it, Mann knows it, so as I march through my twilight years having survived not being blown-up by A-bombs, and 1960-1970 ice age hysteria, its comforting to know that this generation will die from being mildly warm surrounded by greenery.
Alternatively maybe those solar observers are correct and a big freeze will get them… Who knows? Certainly not those who follow the ‘Climate Models’ and the fantastic virtual reality
they portray based on ‘best guesses’.
Anthony ==> Thanks for this, nice piece.
Over at realclimate.org- they’re discussing this issue: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/01/bau-wow-wow/
Of course that site is self declared as “real climate science from climate scientists”.
I had a look over on the realclimate site, and it had a link to Michael Mann’s blog. He is in Australia at the moment. I try to keep an open (skeptical) mind and was interested to see he had commented on his website in the last week about RCP 8.5 as reported on WUWT in the article: Climate science does an about-face: dials back the ‘worst case scenario’.
His comment was:
“Finally, let’s not forget that even a 3C warmer world would be catastrophic. Here in Australia, we’re already seeing the catastrophic impacts of less than half that much planetary warming.” I am an Australian citizen, and have spent 6+ decades here – Michael Mann – probably not six months.
Australia has bad bushfires because it is a very dry country.
It has always been dry.
Look at the history of bad bush fires here:
1851 Black Thursday 12 lives lost
1926 Black Sunday 60 dead 1,000 bldgs.
1939 Black Friday 71 dead 5,000 bldgs.
1967 Black Tuesday 62 dead 1,300 bldgs.
1983 Ash Wednesday 75 dead 3,000 bldgs.
2009 Black Saturday 180 dead 3,500 bldgs.
There were bad bushfires, long before global warming started. Also, in 1960 the population was about 10 million. In 2019, the population is about 24.6 million.
We have also in the last week had large downpours, with Sydney’s Warragamba Dam filling almost 30% in a week and extinguishing almost all the fires.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology reports that it is all down to the Southern Indian Dipole ( a multi-decadal weather phenomenon) They (BOM) state: The IOD affects the climate of Australia and other countries that surround the Indian Ocean Basin, and is a significant contributor to rainfall variability in this region.
Having observed and noted all that has happened in my lifetime, and then to see a tourist scientist come here and make such an ill-informed proclamation, I must agree, he has seriously discredited himself, in my view.
DENIERS !!
🙂
Zeke knows the models run warm, and 8.5 makes them really run too warm.
strategic retreat. to them, anything is better than admitting slayers win.
“strategic retreat”
Well, I dont know what Zeke’s motives were, but it is definitely a CAGW retreat. A public CAGW retreat, followed up by a retreat by the science publication, Nature. I don’t see how the alarmist community is going to revive RCP8.5. They are going to have to publicly admit errors in this “settled science” of theirs which will cast doubt on their other claims, as it should.
This will be good practice for the alarmists for the future, since they will eventually be admitting to many more errors as their CAGW predictions fall by the wayside.
“The model assumes a 500% increase in the use of coal, which is now considered highly unlikely since coal use has dropped significantly, as seen in Figure 2.”
But that figure is only for the U.S. Isn’t the drop in the U.S. being offset by the growth of coal consumption in the 2nd and 3rd worlds?
“The consequences were predicted by a computer model called Representative Carbon Pathways (RCP)”
It is NOT a computer model. I mean unless some manually flicked together assumptions and data are a “Computer Model” because it was done with the help of Excel.
At this point, I just have to quote the UK’s late, great, master of the one-liner, Bob Monkhouse…
‘I went to see my doctor – and he said: I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve only got ten…..’
‘I said ten – what..? Weeks..? Months..?
‘Nine…… Eight……’
(He also said: ‘I would never divorce my wife – I LOVE my house….’
and: ‘Sex at seventy-four is great – and as I live at seventy-eight its not far to go…’)
One effect of this should be to bring the global surface temperature observations into closer alignment with the model projections. Many (including Bob Tisdale here) typically compared observations against the very high RCP8.5 data. It now seems that RCP4.5 would be the more appropriate data to use for comparison.
Off topic, sorry- but not sure where to post this.
So, what’s with the following web site: https://skepticalscience.com/ ???
An aggressive bunch over there. They seem to think if you’re a climate skeptic- you’re automatically an ignorant “denier” who blindly believes crazy stuff from denier web sites and that you hate real science, blah, blah. Their mantra is that they are skeptical of climate skeptics. Some months ago I posted a comment- asking if it’s good to be skeptical of people who are skeptical of climate skeptics but that got me a warning that with that kind of talk I might be locked out! So, I just went there again and posted the following- my quote at the beginning was from an article about the evils of climate skeptics. Anyone know of a deconstruction of the entire site run by some guy named Cook?
***** “Climate ‘skeptics’ vigorously attack any evidence for man-made global warming yet uncritically embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that supposedly refutes global warming.”
***** That’s a bit severe. Other sciences don’t have vast political implications as climate science does. Hence, little need for the general public to be concerned about the work of chemists and physicists. Many climate skeptics DO NOT “vigorously attack any evidence….”. And many do NOT “uncritically embrace any argument….”. So, describing all climate skeptics this way isn’t helpful nor will it convince skeptics that non skeptics are playing fair. It’s also the fact that not all skeptics are deniers which seems to be the belief of this blog. I find it also severe that this site implies all skeptics are fools and ignorant.
Yet the Climate gang continue to claim their vast models that need to be tweaked to hindcast can te the thing they need to make their models run accurately!
If they need huge models to work out ECS, then they can never get an accurate ECS, because (i) all models are only simplified approximations of reality, (ii) we do not know initial conditions for any model and (iii) the physical processes being modeled are not sufficiently well understood.
Any one of (i) to (iii) makes it impossible to get ECS out of the models. All three make even any estimate utterly useless as the error range will be so vast. The models might be interesting ways of looking at what might happen but as a means of producing an accurate ECS they are simply not capable.
Wow, what a surprise! Assessments that CO2 sensitivity is *higher than previously thought* is complete BS, made up to protect IPCC and AGW hysteria from bad media reports that – for once, ‘its NOT as bad as previously thought’.
These climate clowns just never let you down, do they?
A new paper ‘Economic impact of energy consumption change caused by global warming’ finds global warming may be beneficial.
https://judithcurry.com/2020/02/08/economic-impact-of-energy-consumption-change-caused-by-global-warming/
Tony Heller’s latest video mentions Zeke Hausfather who critiqued Tony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSg3h_eIvBw&t=25s
One of Tony’s best videos on the subject of data tampering.
I am starting to feel – let the brainwashed have their way you cannot beat bullshit
because bull shit baffles brains. I’m nearly 72 and another 8 years will probably see me out
so let the dumb generation on facebook, twitter and their naive supporters reap what they sow….
Why do people believe in fictions? One reason I believe is – that their personal identity is built on the STORY.
People are taught to believe in the STORY from early childhood, just look at the demonstrations and the age of some of
the children being pushed forward by adults… Greta Thunberg..???
They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbours, media and the general culture long before
they develop their intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such
STORIES. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the STORY that they
are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalise the STORY than to doubt it.
Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only
what their parents, teachers, the media etc have hidden from them in advance.
The story here is Anthropological Global Warming but there are many other stories riding on a sea of
fiction, the world flows on an ever increasing stream of deliberate fiction and stories. Some look behind
the storey and make their own judgements – others just well, believe everything no matter how preposterous
as long as it supports the STORY.
Needless to say
So with is new information that excludes the worst case RCP8.5 scenario, –> So with this new information that excludes the worst case RCP8.5 scenario,
“But, get this; new climate models are being used for the next set of major projections due from the IPCC next year known as AR6. Those models are said to show that temperatures are more sensitive to CO2 than previously thought.”
____________________________________
Make that “But, get this; new climate models are being used for the next set of major projections due from the IPCC next year known as AR6. Those models are said to show that temperatures are more sensitive to CO2 than usual models.”
and there’s the evidence that “models” aren’t worth their money.
“I hope that President Trump can take advantage of the threat of stupid climate action and win another four years. My guess is that, in four years time, most folks will understand that the threat of CAGW was always overblown. The hope is that the Democrats don’t get to totally destroy the economy in the mean time.”
commieBob. What. Meantime.
The long version – https://www.americanscientist.org/article/how-climate-science-could-lead-to-action
HDH, your American Scientist begins with
How Climate Science Could Lead to Action
BY SAMANTHA JO FRIED:
Institutional context and history have led to top-down knowledge dissemination.
“CLEAR and Public Lab present us with fruitful imaginaries for grassroots engagement with climate change through Earth remote sensing technologies, I know these efforts will look different when applied to a variety of geographic, political, and sociocultural needs. I also know that they would morph and mutate when members of such communities began to express needs around them. But this variation would be a very good thing. As Levine writes in his book We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, “People often don’t know what they want until they have communicated with others.”
Despite the necessity of this variation, I’ve come to see that the uncertainty of these kinds of endeavors often keeps them from gaining traction or becoming funded in predictable ways. To have more initiatives like CLEAR and Public Lab, we will need to reconfigure our relationships to public funding structures, philanthropic engagement, institutions of higher education, and more.
When framed this way, climate change becomes a slow, long-term engagement for which data collection is only a tiny piece. What is required is a complete reorientation of the ways in which we create knowledge, conceive of our livelihoods, and consider each other.”
He calls for “public funding structures, philanthropic engagement, institutions of higher education, and more.”
:: dreams of funding.
____________________________________
But there’s hope for American Scientist SAMANTHA JO FRIED:
James T. Wilson papers 1940–1978/Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
Willow Run’s earliest project was related to the V-2 missile. “V-2” stands for the German word vergeltungswaffen: waffen meaning weapon, and vergeltung meaning retaliation. These retaliatory weapons were semiautonomous missiles, capable of vast amounts of destruction. Germany deployed these weapons toward the end of World War II, in an attempt to gain some momentum despite an impending loss. After the war, Allied powers including the United States feared the destructive capabilities of the V-2. So the U.S. Department of Defense supplied a great deal of funding to laboratories such as Willow Run to create more advanced missiles capable of shooting down the V-2.
____________________________________
OK. Let’s wish American Scientist SAMANTHA JO Fried will find HIS
Wernher von Braun, American-German aerospace engineer
to solve his tasks regardless off lavish funding.
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tDP1TewMDWoMGD0Ei4zUijKT85OLVEoTs5MzSvJLC4BAItmCfc&q=v2+rocket+scientist&oq=v2+rocket+&aqs=chrome.