A recent article by the Daily Mail, titled “Global warming is spiralling out of control: Earth could warm by a whopping 7°C by 2200, scientists predict – leading to flooding, famine, and catastrophic heatwaves,” presents this alarming claim based on a computer model. The scientists who developed the model as well as the Daily Mail are guilty of overstating the model’s predictions, its use, and burying the lede that this alarming outcome is very unlikely even in the modelled universe.
The study was conducted by scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) – which due to the track record of the organization having a propensity for predicting dire but improbable climate scenarios, already indicates that the outcome of the model study is hardly unbiased. The Daily Mail reports the study says the planet “could warm by a whopping 7°C (12.6°F) by 2200 even if CO2 emissions are moderate[.]”
The scientists “used their own newly developed computer model, called CLIMBER-X, to simulate future global warming scenarios,” which involves “key” earth processes, and incorporates “carbon cycle feedback loops’ – where one change to the climate amplifies another,” which Daily Mail says are “being overlooked.”
It is nonsense that so-called feedback loops are being overlooked. They aren’t even being overlooked in climate modelling; Climate Realism has responded to plenty of mainstream media articles commenting on the same types of claims from climate scientists, here, here, and here, for instance.
In the first link above, meteorologist Anthony Watts discusses the exact feedbacks the Daily Mail article highlights in 2023, and he notes that even then, these were not new claims. Watts explained:
The list of claimed climate feedback loops include many which have been shown to be non-problems, such ocean circulation, which science can’t even decide whether it is increasing or decreasing in any given decade. Another is sea level rise, which despite wild claims of acceleration, is actually unchanged and steady since 1850. Acceleration is disproved by actual data, and nothing more than an artifact of measurements from different satellite data being combined. The authors also ignore existing data on wildfires to claim that climate change is causing them to be more frequent or severe. The available data clearly refutes this claim.
Most of the article presents the model’s outputs as though they are likely, but buried further down is the admission that their less alarming scenarios show “there’s a 10 per cent chance that Earth will still warm by 3°C (5.4°F) by 2200 even if emissions begin to decline now.” Ten percent is not likely, yet it is framed by Daily Mail as though it is alarming and deserving of immediate civilization-level changes.
Climate modelling itself has continued to run into major problems as the models increase in complexity. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2022, covered by H. Sterling Burnett at Climate Realism, as models have become more complex, and as the PIK scientists hail as an achievement in their own model, they have actually become less accurate at predicting global temperature change. This may sound counterintuitive, but when one considers the fact that more elements in the model means more assumptions that could be incorrect or incomplete, it begins to make sense. Scientists simply do not have a good enough understanding of how different systems interact in the atmospheric environment to be able to accurately model how they will behave – especially at a global scale over long timelines– in the future.
One should always be suspicious when an extreme climate claim is presented using computer modelling, especially when it is presented as if it were empirical evidence of a problem, and importantly, when the supposed dire results are set to occur long after the period of time where the scientists making these irresponsible claims can be held to account for fearmongering. The Daily Mail is sensationalizing the PIK scientists’ study, but apparently so are the scientists, who should know better. Both are attempting to mislead and frighten the public into accepting their preferred government action on climate.
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I know, let’s push out the doom predictions to 2200, That gives us another 175 years to be wrong.
Yeah, nuts. The idiots could easily have predicted something ridiculous for 2100. Besides, x number of boosters could end all human life by then.
I predict that in four billion years it’s going to get really hot on earth.
Unbelievable. The science is setlled that 4B years from now we will be in extreme ice age!
Will it that long for Fossil Fuel’s CO2 to escape the Earth and reach the Sun?
PIK is a bunch of alarmist screamers.
Intoxicated by the exuberance of their own modelling, no less. Do they really believe it? I suppose they do.
But it is not obligatory.
“Do they really believe it?”
Some do, some don’t. The ones that don’t, have other reasons for promoting this Climate Alarmist scam.
Nobody believes this utter nonsense. But they are being paid good money for producing this nonsense. After all, they have families to feed.
Can we get them to tell us what the climate will be in two years or five years or ten?
Only if it’s ALWAYS in two years or five years or ten from now.
(I remember seeing a sign painted on the side of seafood restaurant that read, “Free crabs tomorrow!”) 😎
This is so boring. We don’t know what the global temperature was in 1850. (continents without measurements) and the correlation between temp and CO2 is nonexistent (1945-75 cooling, hiatus, pauses). Let’s run a model which doesn’t have the rise inCO2 in it.
We don’t know what the global temperature is now, because there is no such thing.
And as if we could do anything about it. Coincidentally, right now my feet and left thumb are cold. The rest of me is just fine.
Excuse me while I take care of my thumb.
Soak your left thumb in a carbonated beverage.
(Or just drink enough of certain carbonated beverages and you won’t care anymore!)
From the article: “Scientists simply do not have a good enough understanding of how different systems interact in the atmospheric environment to be able to accurately model how they will behave – especially at a global scale over long timelines– in the future.”
That’s exactly right!
So Climate Alarmists are operating on insufficient data, but pretend they have all the data they need.
All the Climate Alarmists have are speculation, assumptions, and unsubstantiated assertions. This is the totality of Alarmist Climate Science.
And the subject of this article is just one more example of it.
Mark Steyn famously said, “How are we supposed to have confidence in what
the temperature will be in 2100 when we don’t know what it will be in 1950!“
Change “insufficient data” to “insufficient knowledge” and you will be spot on.
Climate feedback loops. Maybe there are some but they don’t get far before they switch direction.
All feedbacks in the earth energy system are negative. A positive feedback requires an independent energy source. Kirchhoff’s Law applies.
PIK is CAC, climate alarm central. More do we not need to know .
Perhaps TheDaily Mail can explain why the conclusions of Happer’s and Wjingaarten’s recent work on the influence of CO2 on our climate are so terribly wrong. Include the mathematics please.
This is hilarious since long term climate models have ZERO demonstrated forecast skill to rely on thus worthless.
PIK has the same credibility as the Völkischer Beobachter opining on Jewish financiers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkischer_Beobachter
______________________________________________________________________________
The most important lesson in Climate Science:
Never make an unfounded assertion on a
timeline that expires before you do.
Bob Kutz 2018
This newish PIK study was reported in Newscientist.com. I was curious as to what had been done to their climate model to achieve ‘a small 1 in ten chance of 7C in 2200.’ Note the 1:10 was not reported and 2200 is ridiculous. So went and read the article about the ‘study’.
PIK tweaked their model to an ECS 5C. At the more generally accepted modeled ECS 3C, the 1:10 result in 2200 is 3C even if all CO2 emissions stop by 2100!!!
In fact, the EBM observational ECS is 1.5-1.7C.
Lalaland piled on Lalaland and called a ‘scientific study’.
A result of “science” combined with the oldest profession.
Problem for them is that in reality… ECS is indistinguishable from ZERO.
From the linked-to article in the Wall Street Journal, by Robert Lee Hotz:
“The NCAR scientists are installing a new $40 million supercomputer named Derecho, built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise designed to run climate-change calculations at three times the speed of their current machine.”
Previously the —Scientists are computing future climate change at 5.34 quadrillion calculations on the Cheyenne supercomputer
From Duck Assist: The Cheyenne supercomputer was sold at auction for $480,085 in May 2024. Initially, it likely cost around $25-35 million to build in 2016.
The numbers impress me, even if the results do not.
Say it was an accounting computer….it doesn’t matter if it can 5.34 quadrillion calcs if Shirley at the till rings up 3 pairs of jeans for her friend who has 4 pairs in her cart. So then you need a human at the exit door….preferably one who isn’t a friend of Shirley’s.
Wow! Its depreciation is along the same lines an an EV’s.
Leftist climate fear-mongering has long ago spiraled out of control! Yet they keep on using FF.
The Daily Mail is the best-selling “tabloid” newspaper in the UK; “Sensationalising / exaggerating” is what tabloids do.
They aren’t known as “The Daily Fail” for nothing..
NB : While PIK has a reputation for “doomerism”, e.g. Stefan Rahmstorf and “imminent AMOC collapse” stories since the late-1990s / early-2000s, evidence about scientists “overstating” their conclusions should still be documented on a case-by-case basis.
When assessing newspaper articles about scientific papers I tend to use something approximating the following “hierarchy of trust” :
1) What is written in the actual paper
2) What journalists claim “Scientists say …” in the paper being reported on
3) Journalistic (/ editorial) interpretations of what the paper contains, AKA “opinion pieces” without direct quotes from the authors
.
The biggest “failure” in the Mail article is the lack of a link to the actual “study”, which is easily remedied :
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adb6be
NB (1) : It is actually a “Letter” on the ERL website rather than a full-blown “paper”, but my understanding is that even “Letters” go through a (simplified ?) peer-review process.
According to the “Article information” pop-up on the above webpage this took 8 or 9 months for Kaufhold et al.
NB (2) : The link to the “Supplementary data” PDF file is located just before the “1. Introduction” section on the webpage (instead of the “standard” position between the “Conclusions” and “References” sections).
I must be getting old, it took me a lot longer than it should have to spot that …
.
In the “Introduction” section :
They’re still “scaremongering”, but at least they agree with the IPCC that emissions pathways like SSP5-8.5 and SSP3-7.0 (and therefore, by direct comparison, RCP 8.5) are indeed “counterfactual”.
Kaufhold et al limit their computer simulation inputs to the SSP1-2.6, SSP4-3.4 and SSP2-4.5 scenarios.
.
In the “Discussion and conclusions” section :
For some obscure reason the journalists missed these qualifications when interviewing the scientists about the study …
.
PS : PIK did not help their credibility by starting the “Acknowledgments” section with :
As this article in Nature put it almost exactly one year ago (March 2024) :
Also see – – Guest “Zombie killing” by David Middleton:
Anthropocene: Cockroach of the Geologic Time Scale! – Watts Up With That?
To them it is “Spiraling out of control!” because they can’t really control it. Climate activists are usually extreme authoritarians, they get upset if they can’t be in charge of everything, including something as uncontrollable as the weather.
It never has. We need to emphasise REAL SCIENCE>
Once again and it’s almost weekly we find one or another British media sources re-playing the climate alarmism tune. Maybe one of them could bother explaining why, if there’s supposedly a climate crisis, the planet’s population, life expectancies, and agricultural production have been steadily increasing over the past half-century and more. While they’re at it, they could also tell us why infant mortality rates, global poverty levels, and worldwide deaths from extreme weather events have been dropping during the same period. Is it any wonder that the British media, probably more than that of any other country, have lost so much credibility. They should stick to soccer reports because they’d at least have a greater likelihood of getting the scores right.
My model has been peer-reviewed by tens of thousands of people, and predicts a wildly different outcome.
“Climate Change” is spiraling out of control.
The more the subsidies dry up, the faster the meme goes down the drain.
These people need to be discredited for their lies.
Potsdam Institute for Klimate Kooks !!
7 degs C is an increase in outgoing Boltzmann radiation of 10%. No way CO2 or water vapour can downwell that much extra.
Oh, but you have to apply positive feedback loops and adjust the control knobs. Then you get the “correct” answer.
Obviously sarcasm.