Regional climate models

The precipitous descent of the Times from the newspaper of record into a propaganda sheet for greens is something to behold.

Today's "news" features an article by environment editor, Jonathan Leake, in which he reports that Britain will experience 3-4oC temperature rises by 2080. This is so entirely daft, I hardly know where to begin. It's hardly even controversial that climate models are not particularly skillful. Even the IPCC only predicts 2 degrees per century, and this claim is on the verge of being falsified just a few years after it was made.

In fact, there is not a single climate model that is skillful at regional or seasonal levels. Not one. And yet here we have Leake quoting Nigel Arnell, professor of climate science at Reading University as saying these outcomes are "likely". This is deeply unscientific.

Interestingly, the Met Office report on which the Leake article is based turns out not to have been released yet. I wonder if it's actually rather more hedged about with caveats than the headlines would suggest?

Update on Jun 7, 2009 by Bishop Hill

As far as I can tell, Prof Arnell is an economist, which might help explain why he gets this so terribly wrong.

Comments

[TDK]

it's notable that whereas someone who predicts outcomes less severe than the IPCC is branded a denialist, someone who exceeds the IPCC (eg mark Lynas) is rarely if ever criticised. This discrepancy is the fact that is killing the global warming movement.

[James P]

Did you hear Katie Hopkins reviewing the Sunday papers on R4's Broadcasting House this morning? She managed to slip in the suggestion that there might be other points of view on global warming without apparently setting off the BBC alarm system! Perhaps it's a bit sleepy on a Sunday morning, and wasn't quick enough on the 'create technical fault' button, but for whatever reason, we had the BBC actually broadcasting a tiny bit of climate scepticism! Do you think heads will roll..?

[Bishop Hill]

No I missed that. Apparently Polly Toynbee was on Any Questions comparing sceptics to holocaust deniers and gypsy bashers, so the official message is unchanged.

[James P]

It was only a few seconds (49:20 minutes in on Listen Again) but it cheered me up. Glad I didn't hear la Toynbee - I'm surprised she appears in public since Private Eye featured her in Hackwatch!

[Jeff Wood]

To be fair, temporarily, to economists, I recall that the profession was very quick to expose the nonsenses in the Stern analysis, and their hostile reaction has since helped the cause of numerate sceptics.

[Bishop Hill]

Jeff, I didn't mean to disparage economists in general - they have tended to be the good guys on the subject, I agree. What I meant was that Prof Arnell could be forgiven for not understanding what can be taken from climate models, since this is not his area of expertise. If I could write better than I do, I might have made this clear.

[James P]

<i>they have tended to be the good guys on the subject</i>

It's a shame, though, as their star isn't exactly in ascendant at the moment, is it?

[James P]

Oops, sorry - meant to preview that to see if the code worked. It didn't...

[Perry]

As another example of just how intelligent men seemingly become deceived in their own miscalculations, see http://www.winelandsofbritain.co.uk/. Book section.

The second edition claims "The latest predictions of global warming show that the average summer temperature in southern England may rise by 4.5-5.0 degrees C. by 2008 (sic) and by 6.0 degrees by 2100. The new edition describes how these data can be used to predict the areas where different grape varieties may be planted across the UK. Some parts of southern England may be too hot for viticulture by 2080."

The author is an Emeritus Professor of Geology and Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London. I found him at http://www.imperial.ac.uk/P5257.htm and linked from there to his Winelands site.

Would that it were warmer! My brother is an English viticulturist and I partake of his great generosity.