By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
James Hansen is often debited with having stirred up so much alarm with his notorious 1988 prediction of runaway global warming in front of the U.S. Senate that IPeCaC was hastily founded later that year, so as to Save The Planet.
His prediction ran to 2020. How, then, did fantasy-land compare with more than two decades of sober, observed reality? The graph, zeroed so that the 1988 HadCRUT4 observed anomaly lies between Hansen’s three scenarios, shows that observed warming was closest to Hansen’s Scenario C.
However, the assumption underlying Scenario C is that everyone would be so scared following Hansen’s Senate testimony that what is now called “net-zero” would be achieved by 2000. Well, it wasn’t. And it won’t be, even by 2050. The chief reason is discernible in the Texas electricity grid collapse.
The Lone Star State, which ought to have had more common sense, decided that once it had carpeted the state with windmills (14th-century technology to fail to solve a 21st-century non-problem) and solar panels (produced by slave labor in China) it could reduce its dispatchable thermal grid capacity.
However, as any grid manager will tell you, you can’t do that. Not the least of the reasons why unreliables are so cripplingly expensive is that it is necessary to maintain the entire pre-existing grid regardless of how many unreliables are bolted on to it. Unreliables, therefore, inflict not only a deadweight cost but also a deadweight surplus capacity to the grid, to say nothing of the costly instability caused by giving unreliables precedence over thermal in meeting demand.
Texas took just 4 Gigawatts of reliables offline. But then, when all the unreliables failed during peak demand in freezing weather, there was not enough dispatchable electricity to keep the grid alive.
Hansen’s business-as-usual scenario A is now universally recognized, even among the Thermageddonites, to have been a baseless and absurd exaggeration. It predicts two or three times as much warming as has happened. As the chart below shows, notwithstanding trillions spent, CO2 emissions have exceeded IPeCaC’s business-as-usual emissions scenario in 1990, so the failure of the world to warm at anything like the Scenario A rate cannot be attributed to emissions reduction.
Yet it is on exaggerations such as Scenario A that the global-warming scam was founded, and it is on such exaggerations that it is maintained – for now, but perhaps not for much longer.
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All the models are based on Hansen’s faulty model from the late 70’s
Please, listen to the science!
Hansen was right, and the measures to control “climate emergency”, etc., were also right!
Just see how well “Scenario C” fits with observed reality! We are in the right path, “Net-zero from 2000”, climate catastrophe was prevented, no need for extra measures, carbon taxes, etc.!
Case closed!
Sarcasm, right?
Of course!
“The biggest problem with computer models is getting them to match-up with reality.”
But, realclimate.com has evidence that there is great success in getting ‘reality’ to match-up with the models!
Ah yes, the Adjustocene…
He should have been handcuffed for reckless agenda forecasting along with his Congressional promoters.
All we need to do is look at the oceans to see where Hansen went wrong. They track almost exactly with the UAH data (at least for now). What this shows is our climate is driven by varying releases of energy from the world’s oceans.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1979/to/plot/uah6/from:1979/to/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to/offset:-0.35/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to/offset:-0.35/trend
So, why is it the world’s oceans have been warming? That is the real question. Alarmists try to claim they are sequestering energy from the atmosphere and that is why the atmosphere has not warmed as Hansen and others predicted.
The truth is the oceans have been warming for almost 4 centuries. Hence, it is not driven by CO2 emissions. The cause is very likely increases in salinity. More saline oceans have two side effects.
1) Increase in CO2 outgassing.
2) Decrease in cooling evaporation
Seems to match global observations pretty closely.
Now, humanity does not get off scot free. It turns out we have been helping to increase salinity levels the past 70 years as well as adding micro-plastic pollution which has much the same effect.
The covid pandemic was a part of the climate crisis as illustrated in a previous article here about the epa email. Undercover cnn report by veritas illustrated that they will be full on pushing it. This whole scam pandemic was first tried back in 2009 with swine flu- same year as the spa email. I think there are multiple reasons for the pandemic but it all leads to control of People and travel, more than they could have wished for just pushing the climate crisis. Moreover maybe a fear of populist parties on the rise across the world , a sign of people sick of the embedded politicians and led to the rise of trump. Pandemic, climate change weaves its threads thru it all controlled by those elites.
As soon as I saw this thread, I knew Nick and some other ilk would be here to defend Hansen’s predictions.
The “Hansen would have gotten it right if only he’d known the future” defense is as weak as it gets.
However, even Scenario C would not have been close had Hansen not arbitrarily assumed two hypothetical, significant volcanic eruptions, which of course, never took place! He had no basis in theory or history to justify two eruptions, let alone the dates that he chose. Strict modeling, without the hand of subjectivity, would have kept Scenario C on the same trajectory as A and B. It was all theatrical hand waving.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/30/analysis-of-james-hansens-1988-prediction-of-global-temperatures-for-the-last-30-years/
The real disgrace is a room full of US Senators sweating and not sending someone to turn on an operational air conditioner. It gives credit to the expression too stupid to come in out of the rain. And being influenced by such tactics.
Why not take a page out of the eco-loon playbook and sue to prevent massive waste of funds, installations of wind turbines etc. Sue based on science and force the scientologists from cover, force them to defend their “science” in court?
The graph posted by Roger Taguchi above comparing an adjusted Hansen Scenario B to observations indicates a rate of increase for the thirty year period of 1988 through 2018 of roughly + 0.18 C per decade.
HADCRUT4 indicates that the rate of increase for the thirty-five year period between 1910 and 1945 — when GHG forcing was theoretically less than it was in the period between 1988 and 2018 — to also have been roughly + 0.18 C per decade.
And so Hansen’s Scenario B was a very easy prediction to make knowing that a similar thirty year period of warming had already occurred in the 20th Century before 1988.
Tomorrow, April 22nd 2021, is Earth Day. The Biden Administration will reportedly announce its GHG reduction targets for the year 2030 and beyond. If Biden’s people go for a 50% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2030 over a 2005 baseline, as climate activists are now pushing hard for, then interesting times are ahead.
The only possible means of reaching 50% by 2030 is to drastically increase the price of all forms of energy and to impose strictly-enforced energy conservation measures on the American people, up to and including a carbon fuel rationing program not unlike the one which was imposed during World War II.
Shades of John Kenneth Galbraith! He ran the rationing system during WWII and loved it. If he was still alive, I’m sure he would honor us with running a similar system for carbon-based fuel.
Jim
John Kenneth Galbraith once remarked that with but one major exception, the public was generally cooperative with the government’s World War II rationing program. The major exception was gasoline. People would sell their first born child for ten gallons of gasoline.
“And so Hansen’s Scenario B was a very easy prediction to make knowing that a similar thirty year period of warming had already occurred in the 20th Century before 1988.”
Yes, sir. Hansen already had the template for the future by looking at the past temperature record.
Shortly after entering a number of comments in reply to Stokes, Simon, Taguchi, and weekly_rising, some troll(s?) immediately gave me a ‘thumbs down’ vote on all my comments; they even objected to me commenting on the weather here today.
All but the weather vote have since been nullified by other up-votes. However, I find it interesting that someone would give me a down-vote without even trying to counter the facts that I presented. They don’t have the wherewithal to present counter-facts, so resort to expressing their dislike of someone who presents ‘inconvenient facts.’ Way to go guys! It shows everyone what kind of stuff you are made of. It is pretty light-weight! We understand that you don’t like people who don’t agree with you. You don’t really have to go to the trouble to confirm that you are operating on an emotional level.
However, please do come back when you have some objective facts to offer.
That’s the main thing I dislike about up/down vote systems – it makes it far too easy to just downvote without engaging. You don’t have to think, just “I don’t like what was said” is sufficient.
That’s why I make it a policy to not up or down vote anything. If I can’t be bothered (for whatever reason) to write a response or rebuttal, then I don’t have enough invested to warrant a downvote either.
Clyde,
Getting down votes from the Sob Sisters of the Poor team is actually an asset on one’s resume!
Perhaps there are more trolls being hired as the evidence piles up against their catechism!
I believe you said you were a fan of Kurosawa; are you familiar with the Samurai Trilogy?
Very much a fan of the Trilogy. I have it on VHS tape, all 6(?) hours.
Well the west side highway is still above water and the Battery tide gauge shows no increase in the pace of sea level rise. So much for Hanson’s cred.
Yes, but the adjusted Battery tide gauge is half-way up the Empire State Building.
Well the rebuilding of the West Side Highway was completed in 2001 so a prediction about the road that existed in the 80s is hardly relevant today.
Did they raise lower Manhattan too? Your attempted deception will only work on those that are willing to be deceived. The real bottom line is that the rate of SLR at the Battery has not increased as it would have had to for Hanson’s prediction to be realized within the lifetime of anyone posting here.
Hansen was asked what the situation would be in 2028 if the CO2 level had doubled (to ~560ppm). We have no data on what the rate of SLR at the battery would be if CO2 had reached such levels (it’s currently ~418ppm) so it is impossible to test Hansen’s answer.
Since he is wrong it has been tested.
I must be looking at the DATA from a different Battery tide gauge
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750
Acceleration from 1980 to present DATA – 0.025 mm*yr^-2
Current rise rate from 1980 to present DATA – 4.9 mm*yr^-1
Projected additional sea level rise from now to 2100 from post 1980 DATA – 0.467m (~18.4″)
Folks, let the “BBBUTTTT”s begin….
No “buts” needed! The trend line from the beginning to 2020, the last year for which data is shown on the graph, is dead straight! And surely your not arguing that a rate of .94 feet in 100 years is going to inundate lower Manhattan during our life times? But feel free to continue living in your fictional world of imminent disaster.
“The trend line from the beginning to 2020, the last year for which data is shown on the graph, is dead straight!”
Folks, we need much better “BBBUTTT’s than R&h’s. Maybe move the goal posts and whine about subsidence….
You sir are a liar!
Please retell my “lie”.
Everything you feel and believe is a lie.
Where is your proof that Manhattan has been flooded by sea level rise? Looking at a live image on my computer and it is high&dry. So, again, you show yourself to be fact free.
“Where is your proof that Manhattan is flooded by sea level rise?”.
Where is your proof that I ever said that. Do you smell burning toast?
I merely outed the lie that there was no Battery Park Station SLR…
So you claim that you environtards are not claiming that catastrophic sea level rise is flooding Manhattan. You claim it in newspapers, on TV, in school curricula and on and on. And since Battery Park is not under water you only prove you are pushing your idiotic agenda. Good job, buddy!
“So you claim that you environtards are not claiming that catastrophic sea level rise is flooding Manhattan. You claim it in newspapers, on TV, in school curricula and on and on.”
No, I didn’t, and don’t. Please reread my posts to see what I DID claim.
As for the incoherent written screams, you and Fred250 should take Frank Zappa’s good advice:
“Stop it. You’ll hurt your throat.”
Yea, you do. Leftards such as you should learn to just accept derision and ridicule as the reward you so richly deserve. Then toddle along.
Here’s the Westside Highway
121030073448-sandy-flooding-west-side-highway-c1-main.jpg
Yes, a storm surge combined with a high tide often floods coastal regions. Is that highway STILL under water? Hmmmm?
You asked “Where is your proof that Manhattan has been flooded by sea level rise?”
So yes I showed that it had been.
“So yes I showed that it had been.”
Means nothing. 2hotel9 has long been beyond rational exchange.
No, you showed it was flooded by a storm surge combined with high tide. You and factfree boob are beclowning yourselves .
Nick Stokes,
May you continue to enjoy the rather cool start to Melbourne’s 2021 year.
Inneutral, respectful terms, can I ask if it would be easily possible for you to repeat your comparison graph showing both UAH V6 and RSS V4 from above, but using actual temperatures and not anomaly temperatures? I have tried to get UAH temperatures without success, so maybe you have them.
Keep well Geoff
Geoff,
One of the ironies about the local love for UAH is that it is very hard to find out absolute temperatures. Many years ago they used to post graphs, and then TLT was about -26°C. I suspect they stopped because they aren’t meaningful. MSU temperatures are not taken at a point in space. Instead they get an intensity incident from a direction, and postulate a distribution function over depth, and use that to back-work a temperature they can assign to the TLT altitude. As always, it is extremely hard to do that with absolute temperatures, and easier with anomalies.
Of course absolute values might at least discourage the folks who think UAH is just another version of surface temperature.
Fine analysis, Lord Monckton
Please devastate the “net zero” fraud next. The only “feasible” way to get to net zero is by adding deadweight surplus generating capacity and costs to the grid. The alternative is to constrain electricity use (i.e., rolling black and brown outs).
From the article: “His [Hansen’s] prediction ran to 2020. How, then, did fantasy-land compare with more than two decades of sober, observed reality? The graph, zeroed so that the 1988 HadCRUT4 observed anomaly lies between Hansen’s three scenarios, shows that observed warming was closest to Hansen’s Scenario C.”
In addition to using HadCRUT4, why not also use the UAH satellite chart for comparisons? The UAH satellite chart covers the same period as covered here. It is more accurate than HadCRUT4. The UAH satellite chart does not cool 1998 by 0.4C the way the HadCRUT$ chart does (artificially, I might add).
The year 1998 should be just as high on the chart as the year 2016, otherwise, if a chart does not show 1998 equal to 2016, then you are looking at a bastardization of the temperature record. I don’t see much use in making comparisons using bastardized data.
From the article: “As the chart below shows, notwithstanding trillions spent, CO2 emissions have exceeded IPeCaC’s business-as-usual emissions scenario in 1990, so the failure of the world to warm at anything like the Scenario A rate cannot be attributed to emissions reduction.”
It should be mentioned that the warming since the 1980’s is just one half of the weather cycle. When you start counting from the late 1970’s, the coldest period since the 1910’s, then it would not be unusual to see the warming we have seen since then. Similar warming, of equal magnitude and equal high temperatures occurred from the 1910’s to the 1930’s, without the assist of massive amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, I might add.
After the 1930’s, the temperatures cooled 2.0C until we got to the 1970’s when climate scientists were warning that the Earth might be entering into another Ice Age.
I would not be surprised to see the temperatures do the very same cooling after out current warming period is over, which is looking more likely every day. We had a record cold freeze here yesterday, three weeks later than our normal last freeze date.
Here is a chart of the AMO whose temperature profile is representative of regional temperature charts from all around the world, in both hemispheres:
Notice the cyclical nature of the temperature profile. The Earth warms for a few decades, and then it cools for a few decades, and at least since the Little Ice Age ended, the highs and lows of the climate seem to operate within certain bounds. The four highpoints in the record,the 1880’s, the 1930’s, 1998, and 2016,are all equally warm, and the lowpoints of the 1910’s and the 1970’s are equally cold. The US regional surface temperature chart also shows this clearly.
“The four highpoints in the record,the 1880’s, the 1930’s, 1998, and 2016,are all equally warm, and the lowpoints of the 1910’s and the 1970’s are equally cold. “
The AMO has been detrended. The warming trend has been removed.
Has this chart (Hansen 1999) been detrended?
It shows the same ups and downs as the AMO chart. As do all the other regional surface temperature charts from around the world. At least all the ones I’ve seen do. Have you seen any regional surface temperature charts that resemble the fraudulent Hockey Stick profile?
Here’s a bogus, bastardized, fraudulent, “hotter and hotter and hotter”, Hockey Stick chart. Notice how it looks nothing like the actual temerature record of the United States, or any other regional surface temperature chart from around the world. None of them look like this computer-generated science fiction Hockey Stick chart.
When economic policy is dictated by ideology this is the kind of nonsense that comes out. It’s obvious by now to anyone that’s been paying attention that climate change hysteria has been based on junk science. Hanson predicted a lot of things, none of which were correct. This thing will self correct when people can’t heat their homes and business can’t pay for the energy it needs to be competitive. I think it will get better within my lifetime so I’m keeping lists of the idiots responsible, the blanket parties will be spectacular.